How a teenager from north London ended up selling drugs in the Cornish flat of a heroin addict
At the start of last year, a 16-year-old north Londoner, Boy X, found himself in a terrifying situation. He owed a drug dealer £55 and did not have the funds to pay off the debt.
He was told the cannabis debt would double – and keep doubling – if he failed to pay. But the teenager was offered a way out: he could work for the dealer and his associates.
Continue reading...Drink more water, say experts as they argue study proves need for curbs on consumption
People who regularly consume soft drinks have a higher risk of an early death, researchers have found, with the trend seen for both sugared and artificially sweetened drinks.
While experts say the study cannot prove soft drinks are a driver of an increased risk of death, they say the work – which is the largest study of its kind – supports recent public health efforts to reduce consumption of soft drinks, such as the UK’s sugar tax.
Continue reading...The beautiful Polynesian island is home to a fiercely traditional society rife with domestic violence
Blood on the walls. Bruises like smashed plums. As long as Sefina* can remember, family violence has been part of her life. She watched her mother routinely attacked by her stepfather. “Sorry,” her mother would whisper afterwards to the children.
Then, Sefina’s elder sister was nearly killed by a group of male relatives for breaking the curfew. “Sorry,” her sister told her as she later left the island for good.
Continue reading...Mental health is a critical issue for those who have fled their homes to Europe. Many feel stuck, both physically and mentally: held in limbo by immigration systems and tormented by the horror of past experiences
Experts produce clusters of enamel-like calcium phosphate to crack age-old problem
Scientists say they have finally cracked the problem of repairing tooth enamel.
Though enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, it cannot self-repair. Now scientists have discovered a method by which its complex structure can be reproduced and the enamel essentially “grown” back.
Continue reading...Study prompts medicines regulator to advise all women using HRT to remain vigilant
The risk of breast cancer from using hormone replacement therapy is double what was previously thought, according to a major piece of research, which confirms that HRT is a direct cause of the cancer.
The findings of the definitive study will cause concern among the 1 million women in the UK and millions more around the world who are using HRT. It finds that the longer women take it, the greater their risk, with the possibility that just one year is risk-free. It also finds that the risk does not go away as soon as women stop taking it, as had been previously assumed.
Continue reading...Many genetic variants each play role in homosexual behaviour, study finds
A vast new study has quashed the idea that a single “gay gene” exists, scientists say, instead finding homosexual behaviour is influenced by a multitude of genetic variants which each have a tiny effect.
The researchers compare the situation to factors determining a person’s height, in which multiple genetic and environmental factors play roles.
Continue reading...Measles kills 37 in first half of 2019 as number of cases tops figure for whole of last year
The dramatic surge in measles across Europe is putting lives at risk, experts have said, as official figures showed the number of cases in the first half of 2019 outstripped that for the whole of last year.
Data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed nearly 90,000 cases and 37 deaths were reported across 48 of the 53 countries in the WHO European region in the first six months of 2019.
Continue reading...Decision will cut dramatically the time MPs will have to take action to prevent no-deal Brexit
Boris Johnson has confirmed he has asked the Queen for permission to suspend parliament for five weeks from early September.
The prime minister claimed MPs would have “ample time” to debate Brexit, as he wrote to MPs on Wednesday, saying he had spoken to the Queen and asked her to suspend parliament from “the second sitting week in September”.
Continue reading...Research claims people who ‘look on the bright side’ stand better chance of reaching 85
Seeing the glass as half full may mean a longer life, according to research suggesting that optimists not only live longer in general, but have a better chance of reaching 85 or older.
It is not the first time optimism has been linked to health benefits. People of an upbeat disposition have previously been found to have a lower risk of heart conditions and premature death. Researchers now say it could also play a role in living a long life.
Continue reading...A self-governing community in central Athens which has helped house refugees is threatened by a government crackdown
It’s just after 5am in the central Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia. A group of Afghans and Iranians are sitting down together for breakfast in the middle of the street, with a banner that reads “No Pasaran” (“They shall not pass”) strung between the buildings above their heads. They laugh and joke as they help themselves to bread and cheese pies from the communal table.
The public breakfast is outside Notara 26, a self-organised refugee accommodation squat. Since opening in September 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, it has provided shelter to over 9,000 people. These ‘‘Breakfasts of Resistance” – held in the early hours when police-led evictions are most likely – have become daily events since Greece’s New Democracy government assumed office in July.
Continue reading...Gender equality advisory council says states must begin enshrining equal rights in law
The G7 leaders have been told to get rid of discriminatory gender laws that still exist on their statute books and begin enshrining equal rights in the legal system.
All G7 countries, including the UK, still have discriminatory laws on their statute books or substantial loopholes that allow discrimination, the G7’s gender equality advisory council said at a key summit session attended by all leaders, including the US president, Donald Trump.
Continue reading...When the striker called out racism in football, it ended her international career. She explains why the fight was worth it
Eniola Aluko is one of only 11 female footballers to have played more than 100 times for England. She has scored some of the Lionesses’ most memorable goals, was the first female pundit on Match Of The Day, and is a qualified lawyer, having graduated from Brunel University London with a first in 2008. But it is as a whistleblower that she is destined to be best remembered. And, like many whistleblowers, she has spent the subsequent years being rubbished by those she exposed.
Now she has written a memoir. They Don’t Teach This is a fascinating examination of her multiple identities – British and Nigerian, a girl in a boy’s world, footballer and academic, a kid from an estate with upper-middle-class parents, a God-fearing rebel. But the book is at its best when she reveals exactly what happened after she accused the England management team of racism, and the Football Association of turning a blind eye to it. Aluko does not hold back – and few people from the football establishment emerge with their reputation intact.
Continue reading...Punjab joins regions where polythene bags are illegal and stiff fines take effect in Islamabad amid demands for alternatives
Punjab has become the latest region in Pakistan to ban plastic bags, as the country battles to reduce single-use plastics that are damaging the environment.
So far there is no date for implementation in Pakistan’s most populous state. The south-eastern province of Sindh has announced it will ban polythene bags from October, and last week a ban took effect in Islamabad.
Continue reading...‘The light was soft … They were so graceful. They are the last peasants, the last of their kind’
In 2012, I travelled to Transylvania to document what is effectively the last remaining bucolic landscape of Europe. England, for example, has lost most of its hay meadows because of large-scale agriculture, but in Romania this kind of small-scale sustainable way of farming persists. It survived the Ceaușescu regime. It survived the EU. Today, however, it is a vanishing way of life as young people increasingly choose to migrate to western Europe in search of work and faster money.
I spent three weeks in Maramureş in the northern Carpathian mountains, exploring life in six tiny hamlets, each with no more than 500 inhabitants. It was August, the height of the haymaking season. Families worked in the fields from dawn to dusk. These women were from a village called Breb. I saw their haystacks from the road as my translator and I drove past. I shouted “stop!” and ran out of the car towards them. They smiled at me, but we didn’t talk, they just carried on with what they were doing. It was late in the day, and they were getting ready to go home. The women wear trousers to make hay because the wind blows their skirts up. Here, they were putting their headscarves and their traditional skirts back on. Then they gathered their baskets, in which they’d brought their lunch, and walked back to the village. I followed. The light was very soft, and the shadows long.
Cutting hay and stacking it is physically demanding, I tried doing it myself and failed miserably
Continue reading...Norwegian review of 36,000 cases links more activity overall, light or intensive, with lower risk of death
Even a small increase in light activity, such as washing dishes, a little gentle gardening, or shuffling around the house, might help stave off an early death among older adults, researchers say.
Being sedentary, for instance, by sitting for long periods of time, has been linked to an increased risk of developing many conditions, including heart disease, as well as an early death.
Continue reading...Brazilian president claims green groups behind rise in blazes, but offers nothing to support his assertion
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has accused environmental groups of setting fires in the Amazon as he tries to deflect growing international criticism of his failure to protect the world’s biggest rainforest.
A surge of fires in several Amazonian states this month followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity.
Continue reading...Nigeria marks three years without a wild polio case, meaning Africa could be declared free of the disease in 2020
Africa is on the verge of being declared polio free, after three years without any recorded cases of the disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Nigeria marked three years without a wild polio case on Wednesday, a “major milestone”. If no more incidences emerge in the next few months, Africa could officially be declared polio free in 2020. The last case was recorded in Borno state in August 2016.
Continue reading...Children’s commissioner for England condemns ‘scandal’ of family homelessness
Thousands of homeless children are growing up in cheaply converted shipping containers and cramped rooms in former office blocks, putting their health and wellbeing at serious risk, according to the children’s commissioner for England.
Anne Longfield said it was scandal that at least 210,000 young people in homeless families in England were put up by councils in temporary housing and bed and breakfasts or forced to “sofa surf” with friends, often for long periods.
Continue reading...The heads of counter-terrorism policing and MI5 have warned far-right criminality is growing
In his paper on how the far right became part of the mainstream, the academic Joe Mulhall said far-right demonstrations had grown to sizes not seen since the 1930s.
The “Free Tommy [Robinson]” event in August, the “Day of freedom” march in May and the “Brexit betrayal” demonstration in December all attracted large numbers of people.
Continue reading...