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Category Archives: Society
The $500m Shed: inside New York’s quilted handbag on wheels
This puffed-up cultural citadel was meant to be an endlessly evolving, telescopic arts complex. But the glistening billionaires’ playground rising up beside it had other plans
It seems fitting that the cultural centre of New York’s latest luxury private development should look like a quilted Chanel handbag. Rearing up at the northern end of the High Line on Manhattan’s reborn West Side, the Shed presents a 10-storey wrapping of puffed-up diamond cushions to passersby, standing as the gaudy gateway to Hudson Yards – the most expensive real estate project in US history.
While it might fit in with the gilt-edged world of Swiss watch boutiques and Michelin-starred chefs that awaits in this $25bn private enclave, it is an unlikely costume for what the project’s architect and originator, Liz Diller, insists is “simply a piece of infrastructure” to support whatever artists want to do. “It’s not precious,” she says of the $500m building. “It’s muscular and industrial, just meat and bones.”
Continue reading...Paul Kagame orders release of women and girls jailed over abortion in Rwanda
Women’s rights activists welcome presidential pardon of 367 female prisoners as evidence of progress
Rwanda’s president has pardoned hundreds of girls and women jailed for abortion.
The women are expected to be released immediately under the presidential prerogative.
Continue reading...UK urged to end unfair fees for child citizenship applicants
Home Office should also refund fees from failed requests, says immigration watchdog
The Home Office should consider scrapping controversial immigration fees charged to children from families who can’t afford it and refund profits made from failed citizenship applications, according to an official watchdog.
The call came as it emerged on Thursday that the Home Office is making a profit of £2m a month from charging children for citizenship, with about 40,000 estimated to be affected in the past year.
Continue reading...Designers behind Princess Awesome to launch gender-neutral clothing for boys
Crowdfunding campaign for Boy, Wonder reaches 50% of target funding in first hour
A children’s clothing company which revolutionised gender-neutral clothing for girls has turned their attention to boys, launching a crowdfunding campaign on Tuesday that reached 50% of its funding aim in the first hour.
Frustrated that they couldn’t find shirts for their five sons with unicorns on them or bright colours, animals, sparkles and rainbows, Eva St Clair and Rebecca Melsky decided to make them themselves.
Continue reading...Jobs for the boys: how the civil service is failing to close the gender pay gap
Some Whitehall departments are taking innovative steps to tackle disparity – but in others, the problem is just getting worse
A once-in-a-lifetime professional opportunity to work at the heart of government and contribute to our future with the EU”. This job ad for a senior policy adviser, with a salary of up to £70,302 and the ability to work flexibly, is for the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU). We know the civil service needs new staff – it is hiring at least 15,000 recruits to cope with whatever lies ahead in the UK’s relationship with Europe. More interesting is that the job was posted on Mumsnet. It’s a sign that some parts of the civil service are finally starting to think more innovatively about how to tackle its widening gender pay gap.
It’s no coincidence that DExEU, a new civil service department created in July 2016 after the Brexit referendum, has been more agile in addressing the gender pay gap, including leadership programmes for female staff. Clare Moriarty, its new permanent secretary, is one of just five women departmental bosses in Whitehall, out of a total of 16.
Continue reading...Call for UK to ban patients travelling to China for ‘organ tourism’
Forty MPs back effort before inquiry into allegations of forced organ harvesting
UK patients should be banned from travelling to China for transplant surgery, the government has been told, before an inquiry into allegations of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.
The call has so far been backed by 40 MPs from all parties before the next session of the independent China tribunal, which is investigating claims that detainees are being targeted by the regime. China dismisses the allegations as malicious rumours and insists that it adheres to international medical standards that require organ donations to be made by consent and without any financial charges.
Opening a Westminster Hall debate last week, the DUP MP Jim Shannon urged the UK government to consider imposing an organ tourism ban like those already enacted by Italy, Spain, Israel and Taiwan.
“It is wrong that people should travel from here to China for what is almost a live organ on demand to suit themselves,” Shannon, the MP for Strangford in Northern Ireland, said. “It is hard to take in what that means – it leaves one incredulous.
“It means someone can sit in London or in Newtownards and order an organ to be provided on demand. Within a month they can have the operation.
“We need to control that structurally, as other countries have, not simply because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is necessary to protect UK citizens from unwittingly playing a role in the horrifying suffering of religious or belief groups in China.”
The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC who was formerly a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, has been taking evidence about alleged mispractices from medical experts, human rights investigators and others.
It will hold a second round of hearings on 6 and 7 April in London. Its final judgment will be published on 13 June. China has been asked to participate but has declined to do so.
In an interim judgment released last December, the tribunal said: “In China forced-organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims … It is beyond doubt on the evidence presently received that forced harvesting of organs has happened on a substantial scale by state-supported or approved organisations and individuals.”
Among those killed, it has been alleged, are members of religious minorities such as Falun Gong, Tibetans, Uighur Muslims and some Christian sects. In 2014, China announced that it would stop removing organs for transplantation from executed prisoners.
It is not clear how many UK citizens have travelled to China for transplants. Waiting times for operations are said to be far shorter than in the west. One inquiry suggested that a liver transplant could be arranged privately at a Chinese hospital for $100,000.
Fiona Bruce, the Conservative MP for Congleton, who is also leading the campaign for a ban said during the Westminster debate: “Our government could inquire about the numbers of organ removals and their sources … They could reduce demand by banning organ tourism … This is not a case of a few voluntary organ transplants; it is a case of alleged mass killings through forced organ removal, of religious persecution, of grave allegations of crimes against humanity.”
Mark Field, the Foreign Office minister, acknowledged that there was a growing body of research, much of which was “very worrying” but he believed relatively few people in the UK chose to travel to China for organ transplants.
Introducing a travel ban, he said, would be difficult to police since it would be hard to establish whether people had travelled there for that purpose. Field said: “But, it is important that we make them aware that other countries may have poorer medical and ethical safeguards than the UK, and that travelling abroad for treatments, including organ transplants, carries fundamental risks.”
The Chinese embassy told the Guardian: “The Chinese government always follows the World Health Organization’s guiding principles on human organ transplant, and has strengthened its management on organ transplant in recent years. On 21 March 2007, the Chinese state council enacted the regulation on human organ transplant, providing that human organ donation must be done voluntarily and gratis. We hope that the British people will not be misled by rumours.”
It cited article 7 of its regulation on human organ ransplant, which says: “The donation of human organs shall be made under the principle of free will and free of charge. A citizen shall be entitled to donate or not to donate his or her human organ; and any organisation or person shall not force, cheat or entice others into donating their human organs.”
Article 8 of the regulation states: “The citizen donating his or her human organ shall have full competency in civil act … Any organisation or person shall not donate or remove any human organ of a citizen who has disagreed with the donation of any of his or her human organs while alive.”
Revealed: Vietnamese children vanish from Dutch shelters to be trafficked into Britain
Investigation highlights failings of Dutch and UK authorities to care properly for unaccompanied minors
On a crisp winter day in a small village in the north of the Netherlands, a pile of leaves swirls around in the wind outside a brick house, an ordinary scene except for the CCTV cameras outside the front door and the occupants inside – child victims of trafficking. Many of the children are from Vietnam. They live in this protected shelter to keep them safe from gangs who want to smuggle them out of the Netherlands to the UK.
But an investigation by the Observer and Argos Radio of the Netherlands has revealed that, in the past five years, at least 60 Vietnamese children have disappeared from these shelters. Dutch police and immigration officials suspect the children end up in the UK working on cannabis farms and in nail salons.
Continue reading...Venezuela: Red Cross brokers Maduro-Guaidó deal to allow aid delivery
- First shipment for 650,000 could reach Venezuela in two weeks
- Red Cross says aid must be ‘neutral, impartial and unhindered’
The Red Cross has brokered a deal with representatives of Venezuela’s embattled leader Nicolás Maduro and his rival Juan Guaidó to allow humanitarian aid into the country, indicating a seldom-seen middle ground between the two men that contest the presidency.
The first shipment of aid for about 650,000 vulnerable people could reach Venezuela in two weeks, Francesco Rocca, the president of the International Federation of the Red Cross told a press conference on Friday.
Continue reading...Scandal-hit Yorkshire tourism group was paid £14.9m in public funds
Welcome to Yorkshire calls in investigators over its boss Gary Verity’s expenses
The Yorkshire tourism body that has appointed independent investigators to examine its chief executive’s lavish expenses accepted £14.89m in public money over the past five years, the Guardian has learned.
More than half of Welcome to Yorkshire’s (WTY) income derived from the taxpayer between 2013 and 2018 but the organisation will not answer detailed questions about how that money was spent by its boss, Sir Gary Verity, who resigned last Friday.
Continue reading...Dogs can smell when seizures are about to begin, scientists find
Scent linked to epileptic seizures could mean dogs can be trained to warn owners
Dogs can detect a telltale scent linked to epileptic seizures, scientists have discovered, raising the possibility that they could be trained to reliably warn owners when a seizure is imminent.
The findings may also help explain anecdotal reports that dogs are able to sense when their owner is about to have a seizure. Knowing when a seizure is going to occur could allow people with epilepsy to have greater control and independence, meaning they could take measures to avoid injury, seek help or take medication.
Continue reading...Kenya steps up Aids battle as building starts on $100m drug factory
Nairobi facility will be largest of its kind in Africa, boosting Kenyan economy and supplying 23 countries
Construction has started on a multimillion dollar Aids drug factory that will become the largest in Africa when it opens later this year.
The $100m (£75m) facility will bring 1,000 jobs to Kenya and reduce the reliance of almost half of the continent’s countries on European imports.
Continue reading...Purdue’s opioid settlement set to herald barrage of lawsuits against big pharma
Oklahoma chooses to settle for $270m over Purdue’s criminal marketing of OxyContin – but more lawsuits are likely to come
Oklahoma’s attorney general, Mike Hunter, thought it best to take the money and run.
Just weeks from the start of a much-anticipated trial against the company at the heart of the US opioid epidemic, Hunter was unnerved when Purdue Pharma began making noises about declaring bankruptcy in the face of mounting lawsuits over its powerful narcotic prescription painkiller, OxyContin.
Continue reading...The French must drink less wine, say health officials
Health agency advises no more than two glasses a day to cut down alcohol-related disease risk
“Quoi, just two glasses?” asked the headline on the English page of the rolling news station France 24.
It was the incredulous reaction to a campaign launched this week by French health officials seeking to persuade the public to drink no more than two glasses of wine per day – and not every day either.
Continue reading...Trump expands global gag rule that blocks US aid for abortion groups
Policy bans aid going to foreign groups that support abortion rights as secretary of state Pompeo says: ‘This is decent and right’
The Trump administration has expanded its ban on funding for groups that conduct abortions or advocate abortion rights, known as the global gag rule, and has also cut funding to the Organisation of American States for that reason.
Related: How Trump signed a global death warrant for women | Sarah Boseley
Continue reading...Children’s chances of surviving cancer less than 30% in poor nations – study
Stark differences revealed in five-year survival rates between rich and low- and middle-income countries
Figures reveal a striking disparity in five-year cancer survival rates for children in developing nations compared with those from rich countries.
More than 80% of children diagnosed with the disease in high-income states will live for more than five years, yet fewer than 30% of young people with cancer in low- and middle-income nations have the same chance of survival, research has shown.
Continue reading...Gangs using dead rats to smuggle drugs into Dorset prison
Ministry of Justice says criminals are stuffing rodents with drugs and mobile phones
- Warning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing
Related: ‘It’s not just you who does the jail sentence, it’s the whole family’ | Clare Horton
Criminal gangs are using dead rats to smuggle contraband material such as drugs and mobile phones into jail, the Prison Service has said.
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai death toll passes 750 with more than 110,000 now in camps
Devastated areas of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi brace for the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and malaria
Cyclone Idai’s death toll has risen above 750 in the three southern African countries hit 10 days ago by the storm, as workers try to restore electricity and water and prevent an outbreak of cholera.
In Mozambique the number of dead has risen to 446, with 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi.
Continue reading...The drugs don’t work: what happens after antibiotics?
Antibiotic resistance is growing so fast that routine surgery could soon become impossible. But scientists are fighting back in the battle against infection
The first antibiotic that didn’t work for Debbi Forsyth was trimethoprim. In March 2016, Forsyth, a genial primary care counsellor from Morpeth, Northumberland, contracted a urinary tract infection. UTIs are common: more than 150 million people worldwide contract one every year. So when Forsyth saw her GP, they prescribed the usual treatment: a three-day course of antibiotics. When, a few weeks later, she fainted and started passing blood, she saw her GP again, who again prescribed trimethoprim.
Three days after that, Forsyth’s husband Pete came home to find his wife lying on the sofa, shaking, unable to call for help. He rushed her to A&E. She was put on a second antibiotic, gentamicin, and treated for sepsis, a complication of the infection that can be fatal if not treated quickly. The gentamicin didn’t work either. Doctors sent Forsyth’s blood for testing, but such tests can take days: bacteria must be grown in cultures, then tested against multiple antibiotics to find a suitable treatment. Five days after she was admitted to hospital, Forsyth was diagnosed with an infection of multi-drug-resistant E coli, and given ertapenem, one of the so-called “last resort” antibiotics.
Continue reading...‘This is blood money’: Tate shuns Sacklers – and others urged to follow
Pressure builds on other institutions to disavow Sackler family over OxyContin, powerful painkiller linked to opioid deaths
Earlier this year at the Guggenheim in New York, activists objecting to donations from the Sackler family draped protest banners from the museum’s famous spiraling balconies, dropped flyers down through the atrium and pretended to die all over the floor. A gobsmacked public looked on.
Tate Modern has just escaped a similar fate.
Continue reading...