Cutting aid budget to 0.3% of national income will hurt many African countries, says FCDO impact assessment
Labour’s deep aid cuts will hit children’s education and increase the risk of disease and death in some African countries, according to the government’s own impact assessment.
Keir Starmer announced earlier this year that he would reduce the aid budget to 0.3% of national income, from 0.5%, to fund increased spending on defence.
Continue reading...Family in yacht pulled young man from the sea off Costa del Sol
A man who was apparently trying to reach Spain from Morocco using a rubber ring and flippers has been rescued after he was spotted by a family sailing to the Balearic islands.
The family were on their yacht 13 nautical miles south of the Andalucían town of Benalmádena on the Costa del Sol, on 16 July when they manoeuvred around the stern of an oil tanker and saw something moving on the waves.
Continue reading...Mwangi accused of ‘facilitation of terrorist acts’ during last month’s protests against government of William Ruto
The Kenyan rights activist Boniface Mwangi is accused of “facilitation of terrorist acts” during protests that rocked the country last month, investigators said on Sunday, a day after he was arrested.
At least 19 people were killed during the 25 June demonstration against President William Ruto’s government, which was itself called to pay tribute to victims of police violence at another protest on the same date last year.
Continue reading...As part of president’s end to foreign aid, destruction of the long-acting contraceptives will cost US taxpayers $167,000
The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.
A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.
Continue reading...The country, beset by war, has the world’s lowest rates of vaccination, says the World Health Organization, as global immunisation drive also stalls
Children in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.
In 2022, more than 90% of young children in Sudan received their routine vaccinations. But that figure has nearly halved to 48%, the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization.
Continue reading...Exclusive: French government says it is open to dialogue but does not acknowledge responsibility in letter seen by the Guardian
More than a century after its troops burned villages and looted cultural artefacts in the quest to include Niger in its west African colonial portfolio, France has signalled willingness over possible restitution, but is yet to acknowledge responsibility.
“France remains open to bilateral dialogue with the Nigerien authorities, as well as to any collaboration concerning provenance research or patrimonial cooperation,” the office of France’s permanent representative to the UN wrote in a document seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Leader who ousted Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 three decades after brief stint as military ruler dies after ‘prolonged illness’
Nigeria’s former president Muhammadu Buhari, who led Africa’s most populous country from 2015 to 2023 and was the first Nigerian president to oust an incumbent through the ballot box, died in London on Sunday, a presidential spokesperson has said.
President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson said in a post on X: “President Buhari died today in London at about 4.30pm [1530 GMT], following a prolonged illness.”
Continue reading...Men from Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar were removed from the US and flown to the war-torn country
Tom Homan, the US border czar, has said he does not know what happened to the eight men deported to South Sudan after the Trump administration resumed sending migrants to countries that are not their place of origin, known as third countries.
“They’re free as far as we’re concerned. They’re free, they’re no longer in our custody, they’re in Sudan,” Homan told Politico on Friday. “Will they stay in Sudan? I don’t know.”
Continue reading...ECHR rules South African runner did not have fair trial on need to lower testosterone levels to compete in women’s sport
The South African runner Caster Semenya has called for athletes’ rights to be better protected after Europe’s top human rights court ruled that she had not been given a fair trial when she contested a policy that required her to lower her testosterone levels in order to compete in women’s sport.
The decision, handed down on Thursday by the European court of human rights, was the latest twist in the two-time Olympic gold medallist’s extraordinary legal battle.
Continue reading...Curbs on LGBTQ+ rights and a halt to US funding may reverse decades of progress in fight to end Aids epidemic, warns UNAids
People at higher risk of HIV, such as gay men and people who inject drugs, are facing record levels of criminalisation worldwide, according to UNAids.
For the first time since the joint UN programme on HIV/Aids began reporting on punitive laws a decade ago, the number of countries criminalising same-sex sexual activity and gender expression has increased.
Continue reading...Somalia, DR Congo and Yemen among states forced to sign deals and barter their minerals for aid or military support
Some of the world’s poorest countries have started paying millions to lobbyists linked to Donald Trump to try to offset US cuts to foreign aid, an investigation reveals.
Somalia, Haiti and Yemen are among 11 countries to sign significant lobbying deals with figures tied directly to the US president after he slashed US foreign humanitarian assistance.
Continue reading...At least 10 people killed and 100 young people arrested since protests began in west African country in June
On the night last month that he and 34 other young people were arrested in the Togolese capital, Lomé, for coordinating an anti-government demonstration, Bertin Bandiangou said gendarmes beat him with ropes and slapped him. The next morning he was tortured while a commanding officer filmed proceedings.
He was lucky to get out alive: at least 10 people have been killed by security officials since protests began in June calling for the resignation of the small west African country’s president, Faure Gnassingbé.
Continue reading...Trump inquired where Liberian president Joseph Boakai got his language skills during meeting with African leaders
Donald Trump was basking in the praise of a group of African leaders on Wednesday, when the Liberian president took the microphone.
“Liberia is a longtime friend of the United States and we believe in your policy of making America great again,” President Joseph Boakai said in English at a White House meeting before advocating for US investment in his country. “We just want to thank you so much for this opportunity.”
Continue reading...Judges praised the Sudanese author for centring Muslim women, describing her writing as “a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration”
Leila Aboulela has won this year’s PEN Pinter prize for her writing on migration, faith and the lives of women.
The prize is awarded to a writer who, in the words of the late British playwright Harold Pinter, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world, and shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.
Continue reading...William Ruto accuses protesters of terrorism and violence two days after 31 people killed in anti-government demonstrations
Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has ordered police to shoot protesters targeting businesses in the legs, in a sharp intensification of his rhetoric days after 31 people were killed in nationwide anti-government demonstrations.
“They shouldn’t kill them but they should shoot their legs so they break and they can go to hospital on their way to court,” Ruto said in the capital, Nairobi.
Continue reading...Deportees include two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico
War-torn South Sudan has said it is holding a group of eight men controversially deported from the United States.
Only one of them is from South Sudan. The rest comprise two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico.
Continue reading...Eight were held for weeks at a US military base in Djibouti while their legal challenge played out in court
Eight men deported from the US in May and held under guard for weeks at an American military base in the African nation of Djibouti while their legal challenges played out in court have reached the Trump administration’s intended destination, war-torn South Sudan, a country the state department advises against travel to due to “crime, kidnapping and armed conflict”.
The men from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan arrived in South Sudan on Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to relocate them in a case that had gone to the supreme court, which had permitted their removal from the US. Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the US.
Continue reading...Justice department says the men – including nationals from Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar – will be flown to South Sudan
Eight migrants lost their last-ditch effort to halt their deportation to South Sudan by the Trump administration on Friday, clearing the way for their imminent transfer after a judge in Massachusetts denied their request.
Lawyers for the justice department said the men were scheduled to be flown to South Sudan on Friday at 7pm Eastern Time after two courts considered the request on an emergency basis on 4 July, when courts were otherwise closed for the Independence Day holiday.
Continue reading...Court halts ruling that allowed migrants to challenge removal to countries where they could be in danger
The supreme court has allowed the Trump administration to deport the eight men who have been held for weeks at an American military base in Djibouti to war-torn South Sudan, a country where almost none of them have ties.
Most of the men are from countries including Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan.
Continue reading...Unusual burial of man, thought to have been a potter, in sealed vessel may have helped DNA survive past four millennia
A man whose bones were shaped by a lifetime of hard labour more than 4,500 years ago has become the first ancient Egyptian to have his entire genetic code read and analysed by scientists.
The skeleton of the man, who lived at the dawn of the Age of the Pyramids, was recovered in 1902 from a sealed pottery vessel in a rock-cut tomb in Nuwayrat, 165 miles south of Cairo, and has been held in a museum since.
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