Young people found to be ‘overwhelmingly keen’ to tackle Africa’s challenges head on, challenging negative stereotypes
Young people across Africa are confident that the continent is heading for an era of success fuelled by technology and entrepreneurship, according to a new survey.
The Africa Youth survey, which claims to be the largest of its kind, said there is growing belief in the concept of “Afro-optimism”, fighting persistently negative stereotypes of the continent.
Continue reading...Femicide Census for 2018 shows 149 women killed, the highest number since census began
More than half the women killed by men in the UK in 2018 were killed by a current or former partner, many after they had taken steps to leave, according to a report on femicide.
The fourth Femicide Census, conducted by Women’s Aid and the campaigner Karen Ingala Smith, found 149 women were killed by 147 men in 2018. The number of deaths is an increase of 10 on the previous year and the highest number since the census began.
Continue reading...Luise Davies, who has died aged 91, described in her memoir Just Another War: How I Survived the Siege of Leningrad (2018) how, as a girl of 13 during the siege of Leningrad by Nazi troops, she watched her mother slowly starve to death. Her father was able to organise Luise’s escape in 1942, but was left behind and also died of starvation.
Luise was able to flee the city, travelled across the frozen Lake Ladoga, went from there to the Caucasus, and then across Europe to her mother’s relatives in Germany.
Continue reading...Beijing’s draconian measures to contain outbreak have delayed global transmission
The World Health Organization is having to perform a diplomatic balancing act over the new coronavirus outbreak, caught between China – whose draconian measures to contain the disease have delayed transmission to the rest of the world –and China’s critics, who say its behaviour is typical of its disregard for human rights.
At every press briefing, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has defended China’s handling of the epidemic in the face of critical questions, very often from US journalists. At the end of January, when Tedros declared a public health emergency of international concern – having put it off a week earlier under what was assumed to be pressure from Beijing – he praised China for protecting the rest of the world.
Continue reading...Acid attacks have been on the rise in Uganda. Organisations such as End Acid Violence Uganda are pushing for a law that would see harsher punishments for perpetrators such as a ‘no bail policy’, satisfactory compensation for victims, and implementation of a medical care policy paid for by the government. End Acid Violence Uganda officers make regular home visits to survivors to offer support and guidance.
Continue reading...Figures obtained by GMB show safety at its UK warehouses could be worsening
More than 600 Amazon workers have been seriously injured or narrowly escaped an accident in the past three years, prompting calls for a parliamentary inquiry into safety at the online retailer’s vast UK warehouses.
Amazon, whose largest shareholder is the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, recently launched an advertising campaign fronted by contented staff members, after a string of embarrassing revelations about working conditions.
Continue reading...MySafe scheme for addicts aims to help reduce overdose deaths in Canadian city
A vending machine for powerful opioids has opened in Canada as part of a project to help fight the Canadian city’s overdose crisis.
The MySafe project, which resembles a cash machine, gives addicts access to a prescribed amount of medical quality hydromorphone, a drug about twice as powerful as heroin.
Continue reading...Campaign groups unite in condemnation of ‘grossly inhumane and incompassionate’ verdict
Human rights groups in Malaysia are calling for the repeal of a law that criminalises attempted suicide after a man with a physical disability was sentenced to six months in prison for trying to take his own life.
Malaysia is one of the few countries where attempting suicide is illegal. Under existing legislation, people found guilty can be punished by up to a year in prison, a fine, or both. But the Malaysian government is now considering a change to the law, which advocates say cannot come soon enough.
Continue reading...ITV says Sunday’s Love Island will not be broadcast as calls mount for regulation of traditional and social media
Politicians have condemned press intrusion, calling for more regulation of both traditional and social media after the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack.
The former Love Island presenter is understood to have taken her own life on Saturday at her home in Islington, London. She had been charged with assaulting her partner and was due to stand trial in several weeks’ time.
Continue reading...High court judge intervenes to prevent victim of county lines sex exploitation being made street homeless after refusal to find her safe housing
A young and highly vulnerable British sex trafficking victim was re-trafficked by county lines drug gangs on multiple occasions after the Home Office repeatedly refused to fulfil its legal obligation to provide her with safe accommodation.
A high court judge was forced to intervene to compel the Home Office to house the woman, who was about to become street homeless.
Continue reading...How list is compiled also to be reviewed amid claims it blights life chances and is discriminatory
Hundreds of young people have been removed from a controversial police list of alleged gang members after claims that it is discriminatory and blighted their life chances, the Guardian has learned.
The Metropolitan police’s gangs matrix, which the force says is a vital tool in tackling violence in London, has been found to be breaking data laws.
Continue reading...Parents were on way to hospital when mother went into labour on busy motorway
A new mother has thanked emergency staff for helping her as she gave birth to a baby boy in the front seat of a car parked on a motorway lane while traffic whizzed past.
Jayne Rowland, 36, a teaching assistant, was on her way to hospital when she went into the final stages of labour on the M5 in Somerset.
Continue reading...Mayor cites survey of tourists in Singel area as she looks to clean up overcrowded red-light district
The mayor of Amsterdam has sought to win political backing for her cleanup of the overcrowded red-light district by revealing that a third of foreign tourists and nearly half of Britons would be less likely to visit the city again if they were barred from buying cannabis in the coffee shops.
Femke Halsema, who is understood to want to reduce the number of outlets selling cannabis, attached the survey results to a letter to councillors announcing her intention to examine how they may reduce the attraction of drug use to tourists.
Continue reading...Jeremy Corbyn confronts Boris Johnson on drug use after deportation of ex-offenders
Jeremy Corbyn launched a scathing personal attack on Boris Johnson over the way black and white children connected to class A drugs are treated by the government in the wake of the deportation of ex-offenders to Jamaica.
Speaking in the Commons, the Labour leader called out the prime minister over allegations of Johnson’s own drug use, saying: “If there was a case of a young white boy with blond hair who later dabbled in class A drugs, and conspired with a friend to beat up a journalist, would he deport that boy?
Continue reading...As Venezuela enters its seventh year of a crushing depression, doctors are seeing a rise in infant mortality rates due to deprivation
Her coffin was little larger than a shoe box. Her life had lasted three short months.
“She was a calm little thing,” the girl’s grandmother, Yamilet Zerpa, remembered as mourners filed into her sitting room to say their last goodbyes.
Continue reading...Experts welcome example of nation once drinking more per head than any other
The world’s toughest controls over the promotion of sugary drinks, brought in by a nation beset by obesity, have cut purchases by nearly a quarter in two years, research has shown.
Instead of a sugar tax, which the UK and other countries have chosen to impose, Chile has banned sales in schools and adopted stark black and white labels aimed at warning and educating families about the health dangers of junk food and drinks for their children.
Continue reading...Patrick McLarry sentenced to five years for defrauding scheme of more than £250,000
The former head of a charity has been jailed for five years after he admitted defrauding a pension scheme for workers with disabilities and using the money to buy houses in England and France.
Patrick McLarry took more than £250,000 from the pension scheme of Yateley Industries for the Disabled and used it to buy homes for himself and his wife and pay off a debt for a pub lease.
Continue reading...Three years of water shortages in Eswatini have disproportionately affected the HIV-positive community. The founder of a local support group in Lubombo is empowering others to look after themselves
As the first weddings take place, the partner of murdered journalist Lyra McKee and others describe the fight for their rights
Sara Canning, nurse and partner of journalist Lyra McKee, Derry
Continue reading...News of Kaletra being tested as a possible treatment for the disease sparks panic buying
A drug used to treat people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is being trialled in patients in China as a possible therapy against the coronavirus.
News that HIV drugs are being deployed in hospitals, however, has led to panic buying on the black market by people who fear they are ill or are going to get sick. They have been obtaining the drug, Kaletra, from generics companies in India and even from people with HIV in China willing to sell or donate their own stocks.
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