Activists welcome move but say government is still dragging its feet over crackdown on waste in lakes and waterways
The Malawian government this week ordered the closure of factories belonging to two major plastic producers for flouting the country’s plastics ban.
The companies – OG plastics and City Plastics – were found to still be manufacturing thin plastics, often used to make plastic bags, despite a ruling last year that banned its production, import and use.
Continue reading...Girls were allegedly told they were to have Covid-19 vaccinations but were cut by doctor after being sedated
Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the immediate trial of a father on charges of forcing his three young daughters to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), after he told them they were going to be vaccinated against coronavirus. The doctor involved will also go on trial.
The procedure was banned in 2008 and criminalised in 2016.
Continue reading...Four found guilty of sexually abusing woman in southern city of Córdoba in May 2016
Four of the five men who gang-raped a young woman at Pamplona’s bull-running festival in July 2016 have been given additional prison sentences after being convicted of sexually abusing another woman in southern Spain two months earlier.
The Pamplona rape shocked the country and nationwide protests erupted after the five men were initially convicted of the lesser offence of sexual abuse.
Continue reading...Threatened job losses follow announcement of 1,500 redundancies internationally and closure of offices in 18 countries
More than 200 UK jobs could be lost at Oxfam, after the charity’s funding plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic.
The threatened UK job cuts are in addition to the loss of almost 1,500 staff roles internationally and the closure of offices in 18 countries, announced by the aid organisation in May.
Continue reading...In the northern region of La Rioja, one medieval town has suffered a particularly deadly outbreak. And in such a tight-knit community, suspicion and recrimination can spread as fast as the virus. By Giles Tremlett
When we first spoke, in mid-April, María José Dueñas began weeping within seconds. Her parents’ home town, Santo Domingo de La Calzada, had the worst death rate from coronavirus in Spain, she told me on the phone. “I’m so scared,” she said. Dueñas told stories of police clambering through windows to rescue the dying, who were too weak to open their doors. Regional politicians, meanwhile, refused to give town-by-town figures for the dead, stoking anxiety and encouraging conspiracy theories. Santo Domingo’s locked-down residents, she claimed, were being deliberately kept in the dark as the virus silently stalked the town.
Dueñas does not live in Santo Domingo, a town of 6,300 people set among patchwork fields of cereal crops in the northern Spanish region of La Rioja. She was born there, but now lives 28 miles away in Logroño, the capital of this wealthy region, best known for the rich red wines that bear its name. Her angry, sometimes wildly conspiratorial outbursts on local Facebook groups – some of which have been deleted against her will – mean not all her old neighbours will welcome her back.
Continue reading...Studies under microscope after Guardian investigation reveals flaws with data from US company Surgisphere
Some scientific papers stop the world in its tracks. In the middle of a raging pandemic, a study in the world’s leading global health journal that seemed to prove President Trump wrong to laud the drug hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 was always going to have a massive impact. It did. When the paper flagged a higher risk of death on the drug, trials were stopped all over the world, including one by the World Health Organization.
Now it’s in danger of unravelling.
Continue reading...Complaints by officials at odds with body’s public praise of Beijing’s response to outbreak
The World Health Organization struggled to get needed information from China during critical early days of the coronavirus pandemic, according to recordings of internal meetings that contradict the organisation’s public praise of Beijing’s response to the outbreak.
The recordings, obtained by the Associated Press (AP), show officials complaining in meetings during the week of 6 January that Beijing was not sharing data needed to evaluate the risk of the virus to the rest of the world. It was not until 20 January that China confirmed coronavirus was contagious and 30 January that the WHO declared a global emergency.
Continue reading...Officials voice concern as coronavirus halts annual programme in country already struggling against resurgence in cases
In April, almost 40 million children missed their polio drops in Pakistan after the cancellation of the nationwide vaccination campaign.
Alongside Afghanistan, Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic. It was very close to becoming polio free, with only 12 cases in 2018, but last year the number of cases rose to 147. In the same year, Pakistan was accused of covering up the resurgence of the P2 strain of the virus, which was thought to have been eradicated in 2014.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing also fears lifting of more restrictions on ‘happy Monday’ is too early
Senior public health officials have made a last-minute plea for ministers to scrap Monday’s easing of the coronavirus lockdown in England, warning the country is unprepared to deal with any surge in infection and that public resolve to take steps to limit transmisson has been eroded.
The Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said new rules, including allowing groups of up to six people to meet outdoors and in private gardens, were “not supported by the science” and that pictures of crowded beaches and beauty spots over the weekend showed “the public is not keeping to social distancing as it was”.
Continue reading...Tobias Weller raises £60,000 for charity by walking up and down Sheffield road for 70 days
There were cheers from physically distanced crowds as nine-year-old Tobias Weller, a boy with autism and cerebral palsy, completed his remarkable challenge to walk a marathon to raise money for charity.
Nicknamed Captain Tobias, he has been walking up and down the Sheffield road where he lives for 70 days. He initially hoped to raise £500. A flood of support led to him raising the target to £30,000. On Sunday evening the total stood at more than £60,000.
Continue reading...Birth mother’s legal battle to bring back son from US highlights flaws in system that allows children to be taken abroad
When Mugalu* was adopted, his birth family says they were told they would still be able to speak to him regularly and he would come back for visits. “They said we would be one big happy family,” says his mother, Sylvia, wiping away tears.
But Sylvia, 40, has not seen her son since he was adopted from Uganda almost seven years ago by an American couple. She is now fighting to get her son back, taking her case to the high court in Uganda and exploring her legal options in the US.
Continue reading...The 1992 accusation that the film-maker sexually assaulted his young daughter has made him a pariah, yet he was never charged. In this exclusive interview, he explains why he is done with treading carefully
When Woody Allen was 20, the writer Danny Simon taught him a few rules about comedy, the most important of which was this: always trust your own judgment, because external opinion is meaningless.
Allen recounts this tale in his recently published memoir, Apropos of Nothing. That this book exists at all is proof that he still adheres to that rule. These days, Allen’s name is mud, a fact made clear by the critics, who wrote their reviews with one hand while holding their noses with the other.The New York Times’ critic wrote: “Volunteering to review [this book], in our moral climate, is akin to volunteering for the 2021 Olympic javelin-catching team.” Another publication’s headline was: “I Read Woody Allen’s Memoir So You Don’t Have To.”
Continue reading...Data shows 55% of offences where the means of communication was given involved firm’s apps
More than half of online grooming offences recorded under a law that made it illegal to send sexual messages to children were committed on Facebook-owned apps, figures reveal.
The data, obtained by the NSPCC under freedom of information laws, show 10,019 offences of sexual communication with a child were recorded since the legislation was introduced in April 2017.
Continue reading...Family pays tribute to ‘witty, kind, knowledgeable conversationalist’ Bob Weighton
The world’s oldest man, Bob Weighton, has died from cancer at the age of 112, his family have confirmed.
The former teacher and engineer, from Alton, Hampshire, took up the title of the oldest man in the world in February after the death of the previous holder, Chitetsu Watanabe of Japan.
Continue reading...Cross-party group proposes ending UK abortions after 24 weeks for minor disabilities
Abortion laws in Britain could be changed under cross-party proposals to ban late terminations on the grounds of minor physical abnormalities.
The abortion (cleft lip, cleft palate and club foot) bill, led by the Conservative MP Fiona Bruce and supported by 13 MPs, will be presented in parliament on 3 June.
Continue reading...Following reports worldwide, experts are warning that pandemic is pushing back progress on prenatal and maternity care
After Denisa’s son was born premature at 26 weeks she was unable to hold him, but spent as much time as possible near his incubator so he could get used to her voice. By the time he was well enough to be held by his mother, a state of emergency had been declared in Slovakia and Denisa was told to vacate her bed and leave the hospital to make way for Covid-19 patients.
The rush of patients never came, but strict rules meant she was unable to see her baby until he was discharged six weeks later. “Instead of a hug, I went home empty-handed only with my head full of questions,” she says. “Each day without my baby was taking away my strength and harming my mental health.”
Continue reading...With UK’s route out of lockdown dependent on success, Dido Harding faces a huge challenge
The ex-TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding is facing one of the biggest moments in her eventful career, as she leads the government’s new track-and-trace programme upon which the country’s path out of lockdown depends.
Baroness Harding, 52, the chair of NHS Improvement, was brought in to shoulder the responsibility of this significant new strategy, personally risking the fallout if it does not go to plan.
Continue reading...The groundbreaking American writer and tireless activist for gay rights and a national effort to tackle the HIV/Aids crisis, Larry Kramer, has died in New York.
Related: Coronavirus US live: cases still increasing in two dozen states amid push to reopen
Continue reading...Country’s swift response is distinct from the handling of the HIV crisis 20 years ago. Have lessons been learnt?
Twenty years ago Nelson Mandela made an impassioned plea for international cooperation on “one of the greatest threats humankind has faced”.
Aids was ravaging lives and overwhelming health systems, at its peak killing up to 1,000 people a day in South Africa.
Continue reading...We check in again with workers including a bus driver and a care home manager about their experiences of the pandemic
In early April, frontline workers including a bus driver, a care home manager and a cemetery worker spoke to the Guardian about their experiences during the coronavirus paramedic. Two weeks later we checked in to hear how they had been coping with the peak of the virus.
Now, another month on, with lockdown restrictions easing, we catch up with the workers to see how things have changed.
Continue reading...