Category Archives: Society

‘Prejudiced’ Home Office refusing visas to African researchers

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Academics invited to the UK are refused entry on arbitrary and ‘insulting’ grounds

The Home Office is being accused of institutional racism and damaging British research projects through increasingly arbitrary and “insulting” visa refusals for academics.

In April, a team of six Ebola researchers from Sierra Leone were unable to attend vital training in the UK, funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of a £1.5m flagship pandemic preparedness programme. At the LSE Africa summit, also in April, 24 out of 25 researchers were missing from a single workshop. Shortly afterwards, the Save the Children centenary events were marred by multiple visa refusals of key guests.

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Justice system smeared our mother, say Sally Challen’s sons

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Family had to live with ‘false narrative’ of killing before courts finally quashed domestic abuse victim’s murder conviction

Sally Challen was subjected to a false narrative by a criminal justice system that painted her as “a controlling and jealous lover who planned to kill her husband”, her son has said.

In doing so it failed to recognise the decades of abuse and coercive control she had suffered at his hands, David Challen writes in an article for today’s Observer that is heavily critical of how abused women continue to be viewed by the courts, a concern that women’s rights campaigners said they shared.

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Aid groups need a major shake-up to meet the challenges of a fractured world | Simon O’Connell

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Humanitarian assistance is too siloed, inefficient and expensive to achieve lasting impact for billions of people in need

It is just over three years since the “Grand Bargain” was struck.

It was signed by the world’s major donors and aid providers, promising structural reform and committed to getting more money directly through to local and national organisations. But the deal has seen little change. The system remains dominated by a familiar group of UN agencies and international NGOs. Progress is at a glacial pace.

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Junk food may be fuelling rise in food allergies, say experts

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Children with food allergies are found to have higher levels of substance in processed foods

A ballooning diet of junk food might be one of the factors fuelling a rise in food allergies, researchers have suggested.

Experts say they have seen a rise in food allergies in western countries, including the UK. While true prevalence can be tricky to determine, data published by NHS Digital shows episodes of anaphylactic shock in England due to adverse food reactions rose steadily from 1,362 in 2011-12 to 1,922 in 2016-17.

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It’s not just girls – one in 30 young men were married as children

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Central African Republic has the highest rate of boy grooms, followed by Nicaragua, Madagascar, Nauru and Honduras

One in 30 young men were married as children, according to the first UN analysis of child marriage rates among boys.

Around 115 million boys and men around the world were married before they turned 18, according to Unicef, which warned the issue is often overlooked.

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Honduras abortion misery a ‘frightening preview’ of America’s future – study

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Reproductive rights pushback could leave American women facing same life-or-death choices as Hondurans, say researchers

One woman handcuffed by police after suffering a miscarriage, another forced to bear her rapist’s child. A doctor who risks imprisonment to end pregnancies that threaten the lives of patients. The reality of healthcare in Honduras provides a “frightening preview” of what could happen in America if the pushback on reproductive rights continues, Human Rights Watch has warned.

Researchers from the organisation spoke of the “enormous suffering” of women and girls in Honduras, where there is a total ban on abortion in all circumstances.

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Exclusive: US homeopaths claim ‘therapies’ prevent measles and ‘cure’ autism

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Thousands of children put on alternative therapies amid measles outbreak, potentially exposing them to life-threatening illness

Thousands of American children are being put on homeopathic alternatives to vaccination by practitioners who claim they can prevent measles and “cure” autism, the Guardian has learned.

At least 200 homeopaths in the US are practicing a controversial “therapy” known as Cease that falsely asserts that it has the power to treat and even cure autism. The acronym stands for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression.

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Amnesty International to make almost 100 staff redundant

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‘Overspending by organisation’s senior leadership team’ blamed for £17m budget deficit

Amnesty International is to cut almost 100 jobs as part of urgent restructuring to tackle a “serious budget deficit”, the human rights organisation has confirmed.

Amnesty, labelled a “toxic” workplace in a February review, said in a statement that it expected to make 93 “painful and difficult” redundancies. Last week, it emerged that five members of the charity’s senior leadership team, all of whom offered their resignations following the damning review, will be made redundant by October.

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As a gay man, my life will be over if I’m deported to Kenya. I urge the Home Office for mercy | Ken Macharia

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After making my home in England for 10 years, I have received a notice to leave everything I love behind

On Monday, I opened the letter I never wanted to receive. After 10 years living in the UK I was told that I am no longer welcome and should make arrangements to leave the country “without delay” or risk being deported in the middle of the night. As a gay man, whose country of birth, Kenya, persecutes homosexuals, I felt my whole world collapse around me as I read the matter-of-fact words on the Home Office headed paper.

Related: Gay rugby player faces deportation to Kenya as asylum claim rejected

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Fight the fakes: how to beat the $200bn medicine counterfeiters | Helen Lock

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Armed with blockchain and AI, health workers and campaigners are battling the bogus business that kills thousands

By the time the teenage boy was standing in front of Bernice Bornmai, feverish and delirious, it was already too late.

It wasn’t just the malaria that was killing the 17-year-old, it was the time he’d wasted taking fake medicine. The antimalarials did nothing to stop the disease marching through the young Ghanaian’s body: his organs were already shutting down.

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One in five young women have self-harmed, study reveals

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Experts warn of higher suicide rates as self-harm rises across both sexes and all age groups

So many young people are self-harming that it risks becoming normalised and increasing the number who commit suicide when they are older, a study reveals.

One in five girls and young women in England aged 16 to 24 have cut, burned or poisoned themselves, according to research that mental health experts said was “very worrying”.

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Trump wavers after saying NHS must be on table in US-UK trade talks

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US president says he refused to meet Corbyn, who vows to fight any grab at health services

Donald Trump has declared he wants the NHS to be on the table in any US-UK trade deal and refused to meet the “negative” Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who pledged to oppose US corporations taking over the health service with every breath in his body.

On the second day of his state visit, during which he has been hosted by the Queen and Theresa May, the US president set out his ambitions for a “phenomenal” post-Brexit trade deal with the UK.

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DRC Ebola cases pass 2,000, prompting call for ‘total reset’

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Violence by armed groups and community mistrust hamper attempts to halt epidemic

More than 2,000 people have been infected with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the health ministry has said, and aid agencies expressed concern over the accelerating spread of the disease.

So far there have been 1914 confirmed and 94 probable cases of infection with the virus, making the outbreak, which was declared in August last year, the second largest in history. New cases are being reported at a rate of around 10 every day. Some 1,346 people have died

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US abortion policy is ‘extremist hate’ and ‘torture’, says UN commissioner

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Trump administration’s ban on terminations is a crisis directed at women, warns Kate Gilmore

The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.

The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.

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Trans woman seeking asylum dies after pleading for medical help in US custody

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Death of Johana Medina Leon, hospitalized following chest pains, echoes case of Honduran woman a year ago

A transgender migrant has died after becoming sick while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody, sparking renewed claims of medical neglect and human rights violations.

Johana Medina Leon, a 25-year-old asylum seeker from El Salvador, died Saturday at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, after she was detained for over a month and complained of chest pains, officials said. Leon had repeatedly pleaded for medical help and was held in poor conditions, advocates who had contact with her and others at the privately run New Mexico detention center said.

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Climate crisis seriously damaging human health, report finds

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National academies say effects include spread of diseases and worse mental health

A report by experts from 27 national science academies has set out the widespread damage global heating is already causing to people’s health and the increasingly serious impacts expected in future.

Scorching heatwaves and floods will claim more victims as extreme weather increases but there are serious indirect effects too, from spreading mosquito-borne diseases to worsening mental health.

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‘It’s a miracle’: Helsinki’s radical solution to homelessness

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Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Its secret? Giving people homes as soon as they need them – unconditionally

Tatu Ainesmaa turns 32 this summer, and for the first time in more than a decade he has a home he can truly say is his: an airy two-room apartment in a small, recently renovated block in a leafy suburb of Helsinki, with a view over birch trees.

“It’s a big miracle,” he says. “I’ve been in communes, but everyone was doing drugs and I’ve had to get out. I’ve been in bad relationships; same thing. I’ve been on my brother’s sofa. I’ve slept rough. I’ve never had my own place. This is huge for me.”

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Italy’s first transgender mayor says ‘kindness revolution’ can defeat far right

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Gianmarco Negri was elected in small town of Tromello, beating far-right League candidate

Italy’s first transgender mayor has said the “arrogant and oppressive” politics of the far right would sooner or later be overcome by a “kindness revolution”.

Gianmarco Negri, a 40-year-old lawyer, was elected mayor of Tromello, a small town south of Milan, last week. Capturing 37.5% of the vote, his leftwing platform scored him a clear victory over the candidate for the far-right League, who came second with 26%.

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Peterborough prepares for byelection that could elect first Brexit party MP

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A decade ago it was the UK’s fastest growing city, but hit by cuts and buy-to-let, support for Nigel Farage’s party is high

On Thursday, voters in Peterborough will take part in one of the most intriguing parliamentary byelections in recent memory. The constituency saw a knife-edge duel between Labour and the Conservatives at the 2017 general election and at last month’s European poll, 38% of voters in the city backed the Brexit party. A first seat in the House of Commons for Nigel Farage’s party is a distinct possibility. If that happens, it will send tremors through middle England, of which Peterborough is typical in many ways, not just geographically.

Economically, Peterborough performs averagely amid struggles with productivity. Wages are stagnant and it has been reshaped by migration, with foreigners arriving to work in the surrounding farmlands and distribution depots, contributing to a decade as the UK’s fastest growing city between 2001 and 2011.

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Austerity to blame for 130,000 ‘preventable’ UK deaths – report

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Two decades of public health improvements have stalled, says IPPR thinktank

More than 130,000 deaths in the UK since 2012 could have been prevented if improvements in public health policy had not stalled as a direct result of austerity cuts, according to a hard-hitting analysis to be published this week.

The study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank finds that, after two decades in which preventable diseases were reduced as a result of spending on better education and prevention, there has been a seven-year “perfect storm” in which state provision has been pared back because of budget cuts, while harmful behaviours among people of all ages have increased.

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