Nick Brandt visited five animal sanctuaries in Africa to portray the people displaced by droughts and the creatures whose very existence is under threat
Continue reading...Category Archives: Africa
England’s Covid travel rules spark outrage around the world
Refusal to recognise vaccines given across Latin America, Africa and south Asia has been denounced as ‘discriminatory’
England’s Covid travel rules and refusal to recognise vaccines administered across huge swaths of the world have sparked outrage and bewilderment across Latin America, Africa and south Asia, with critics denouncing what they called an illogical and discriminatory policy.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, described England’s rules, unveiled last Friday, as “a new simplified system for international travel”. “The purpose is to make it easier for people to travel,” Shapps said.
Continue reading...Tunisia’s president to ignore parts of the constitution and rule by decree
Kais Saied says he is preparing to change the political system, prompting opposition from rivals
Tunisia’s president Kais Saied has declared that he will rule by decree and ignore parts of the constitution as he prepares to change the political system, prompting immediate opposition from rivals.
Saied has held nearly total power since 25 July when he sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and assumed executive authority, citing a national emergency in a move his foes called a coup.
Continue reading...‘Ecofeminism is about respect’: the activist working to revolutionise west African farming
Mariama Sonko is an unstoppable force who continued her work even when she was ostracised by her community in Senegal
Outside Mariama Sonko’s home in the Casamance region of southern Senegal pink shells hang on improvised nets that will be placed in mangroves to provide a breeding spot for oysters.
Normally, women collecting oysters chop at the branches – a method that can harm the mangroves. But these nets allow them to harvest sustainably, says Sonko, who is trying to revolutionise agriculture in west Africa.
Continue reading...Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi obituary
Head of the military regime that briefly ruled Egypt after the 2011 uprising and the fall of Hosni Mubarak
Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, who has died aged 85, took charge of Egypt from the ousting of its president, Hosni Mubarak, in February 2011 until a return to democracy with the election of Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in June 2012.
Despite being a pillar of the former regime – “Mubarak’s poodle” to some – Tantawi was given the job in response to the demands of a huge protest movement. He was respected for his decency and clean human rights record, though he became the focus of anger in his own right when demonstrators returned to the streets to protest against the army’s handling of the transition.
Continue reading...Religious rehab centres fill gap as Nigeria grapples with soaring drug use
With poverty deepening, state services are failing to cope with rising rates of addiction
Kola* was in secondary school in Nigeria when he started smoking cigarettes. He soon graduated to cannabis, heroin and eventually to crack cocaine. Access to drugs was easy and he felt the pressure of friends to participate.
In 2002, when he was 39, he was introduced to a private drug rehabilitation centre in Ibadan, in the south-west of the country, where he spent 90 days weaning himself off his addiction.
Continue reading...Hotel Rwanda hero sentenced to 25 years in jail on terrorism charges
Paul Rusesabagina, an ex-hotel manager, was subject of a Hollywood film about 1994 genocide
Paul Rusesabagina, a businessman whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives during the 1994 genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of terrorism offences by a court in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.
The 67-year-old was found guilty on Monday after a seven-month trial and faces a life sentence. Rwandan authorities accused Rusesabagina of being “the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits … operating out of various places in the region and abroad.” He denied all the charges against him.
Continue reading...Climate crisis leaving ‘millions at risk of trafficking and slavery’
Droughts and floods forcing workers from rural areas, leading to their exploitation in cities, report warns
Millions of people forced to leave their homes because of severe drought and powerful cyclones are at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking over the coming decades, a new report warns.
The climate crisis and the increasing frequency of extreme weather disasters including floods, droughts and megafires are having a devastating effect on the livelihoods of people already living in poverty and making them more vulnerable to slavery, according to the report, published today.
Continue reading...Mugabe, My Dad & Me review – a powerful personal tale of celebration and healing
York Theatre Royal
Tonderai Munyevu’s semi-autographical show addresses Zimbabwe’s traumatic history with honesty and humour
Clothes hang in broken rows above the bare stage (Nicolai Hart-Hansen’s design). Dresses, suits, uniforms – they are presences that suggest absences, the “ghosts” of the people in the stories that Tonderai Munyevu and Millie Chapanda are bringing to life through words and music.
The text of Mugabe, My Dad & Me, written by Munyevu, is an assemblage of the events that have shaped his complicated identity as a “gay, black Zimbabwean man”. The narrative is set in motion by a white man’s question: “Where are you from?” Never shrinking from confronting the (overwhelmingly white) audience with the lazy tropes of the colonial mindset, Munyevu sets before us intersecting histories, both personal and political, “bouncing, non-linear” between Zimbabwe and the UK, past and present.
Continue reading...Texas anti-abortion law shows ‘terrifying’ fragility of women’s rights, say activists
Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
Continue reading...Abdelaziz Bouteflika, ousted Algerian president, dies aged 84
Bouteflika, an independence war veteran, was ousted during pro-democracy protests in 2019
Algeria’s longest-serving president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was ousted in 2019 amid pro-democracy protests after two decades in power, has died aged 84.
The state television announcement on Friday, citing a statement from the office of the current president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, did not provide the cause of death.
Continue reading...Covid live news: more than 50 million have received at least one jab in France; UK records 32,651 new cases
French president says close to 90% of people in country of 67 million have had at least one vaccine dose; UK reports 178 Covid-linked deaths
- New Zealand extends Australia travel bubble pause as cases drop to 11
- Experts divided over Covid booster shots days ahead of US rollout
- Long Covid in children and adolescents less common than feared
- Alberta reverses hands-off approach to tackle ‘crisis of unvaccinated’
- France suspends 3,000 unvaccinated health workers without pay
The US administered 383,994,877 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 464,315,725 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 383,038,403 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Sept. 16 out of 462,384,885 doses delivered, Reuters reports.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport criticised the Scottish government’s “decision to diverge yet again and further curtail Scotland’s aviation and travel industries in their recovery”.
He said: “We are now the most restrictive country in Europe yet there is no justification or health benefit to retaining testing measures, something clinical professionals and experts have themselves said.
Continue reading...‘It helped me get away from crime’: Cape Town’s College of Magic – a photo essay
Photographer Tommy Trenchard documents students whose stories of transformation at the Hogwarts of South Africa are more than just fairytales
To fans of JK Rowling’s books, the story may sound somewhat familiar: a young boy living in difficult circumstances is enrolled in a mysterious school far from home, where his life is changed for ever by the transformative power of magic.
Anele Dyasi’s story is no fairytale, though, and the school in question is not Hogwarts, but the College of Magic in Cape Town, a unique institution that has been training some of the continent’s most skilled illusionists since the 1980s.
Continue reading...The murder of Fikile: the woman who took on a coal mine
Fikile Ntshangase was involved in a legal dispute over the extension of an opencast mine when she was shot dead in her home. Her daughter Malungelo Kakaza tells her story to Rachel Humphreys
In October last year, Fikile Ntshangase, 65, was at her home in Ophondweni in South Africa when three men burst in and she was shot dead. The murder was witnessed by her 13-year-old grandson. No one has so far been charged with any part in the crime.
Ntshangase’s daughter Malungelo Kakaza tells Rachel Humphreys that her mother had been involved in a legal dispute over the extension of an opencast mine operated by Tendele Coal near Somkhele, close to Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park, the oldest nature reserve in Africa. She campaigned as part of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation.
Continue reading...France says it has killed Islamic State leader in Greater Sahara
Emmanuel Macron claims ‘another major success’ after death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi
Emmanuel Macron has said French military forces have killed the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, claiming “another major success” in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.
The French president, who recently moved to reduce French troop deployment in the troubled sub-Saharan region amid broad consensus that the intervention was not achieving its aim, gave no further details in his statement on Wednesday night, though he mentioned French casualties.
Continue reading...UK aid cuts make it vital to address anti-black bias in funding | Kennedy Odede
Covid-19 has shown the effectiveness of local partners. If the sector is to respond and rebuild, it must redistribute power
The UK’s cut to its aid budget comes to about £4bn a year. Such a dramatic reduction is a blow to many, but most of all to the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.
New research by the Vodafone Foundation reveals that, too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. Instead, most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations.
Continue reading...Drought puts 2.1 million Kenyans at risk of starvation
National disaster declared as crops fail after poor rains and locusts, while ethnic conflicts add to crisis
An estimated 2.1 million Kenyans face starvation due to a drought in half the country, which is affecting harvests.
The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in 23 counties across the arid north, northeastern and coastal parts of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months, after poor rains between March and May this year.
Continue reading...Sebastião Salgado receives Praemium Imperiale 2021 award – in pictures
The Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado has been named as one of four winners of a £400,000 award given by the Japan Art Association. Amazonia, an exhibition by Salgado, opens at the Science Museum in London from 13 October. An exhibition of collectors prints, organised by the Photographers’ Gallery, is on show at Cromwell Place Art Centre from 20 October
Continue reading...The battle for Mekelle: Ethiopia’s civil war over Tigray goes on – in pictures
An estimated 2.2 million people have been forced from their homes and thousands have been killed in the civil war that broke out in Ethiopia last November when government troops entered Mekelle, capital of the Tigray region. Witnessed by photographer Sergio Ramazzotti, the city was retaken by the Tigray Defence Forces in June, but peace in the region seems a long way off
- All photographs by Sergio Ramazzotti/Parallelozero
‘A very cruel exit’: UK’s aid cuts risk rapid return of treatable diseases
£200m project to eliminate avoidable blindness and disfigurement in Africa ends after funding is prematurely axed
A chandelier sparkling in the background, the grandeur of Downing Street gleaming behind him, Boris Johnson looks into the camera and speaks with solemnity. He is marking World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day, he says, to raise awareness of these “terrible afflictions … which impose an immense burden of suffering in developing countries”.
Huge progress has been made, he says, in the fight against the diseases, not least as a result of British aid to some of the poorest parts of the world. But there is more – much more – to be done: more than a billion people are still at risk, he warns, and that is why the UK “fully supports” the World Health Organization’s big elimination push over the next decade.
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