The Mighty Jambo Circus Academy in Nairobi has resumed daily training after months of closure due to coronavirus restrictions
Continue reading...Category Archives: Africa
Mining giant Glencore faces human rights complaint over toxic spill in Chad
Dozens of villagers, including children, claim they suffered severe burns and sickness after contact with contaminated water
The UK government has accepted a human rights complaint against mining and commodities giant Glencore regarding a toxic wastewater spill in Chad, where dozens of villagers – among them children – claim they suffered severe burns, skin lesions and sickness after contact with contaminated water.
The complaint, brought by three human rights groups on behalf of affected communities, alleges environmental abuses and social engagement failures by the FTSE-100 company in relation to two spillages, the wastewater spill and an alleged oil spill, both in 2018.
Continue reading...Italy ‘failed to protect life’ in 2013 drowning of 200 people, rules UN
Authorities had duty under international law to respond immediately to calls from boat that came under fire and capsized
Italy failed in its duty to protect human life by delaying a rescue mission for a sinking boat in the Mediterranean, the UN Human Rights Committee found on Wednesday.
More than 200 people who had been on board drowned on 11 October 2013 after repeated requests for help were ignored, according to a ruling by the committee on a case brought by Syrian and Palestinian survivors who lost their relatives.
Continue reading...Witness claims seeing Giulio Regeni in Cairo police station before death
Man also alleges hearing Egyptian security officials discuss tampering with Italian student’s mobile phone
A man who claims to have witnessed the arrest of Giulio Regeni has told the Guardian how he heard and saw the Cambridge PhD student inside a police station in Cairo before he was found dead by a roadside.
The witness, who is regarded as credible by investigators in Rome, said the security officials alleged to have detained the Italian behaved as if they were above the law. “Those people that took Giulio were different,” he said. “Everyone is afraid of [Egypt’s] National Security Agency.”
Continue reading...More than 700 pelicans found dead in Senegal world heritage site
Rangers are investigating mystery deaths at Djoudj bird sanctuary, a migratory pitstop for hundreds of bird species
Seven hundred and fifty pelicans have been found dead in a Unesco world heritage site in northern Senegal that provides refuge for millions of migratory birds, the country’s parks director has said.
Rangers found the pelicans on Saturday in the Djoudj bird sanctuary, a remote pocket of wetland near the border with Mauritania and a resting place for birds that cross the Sahara into west Africa each year.
Continue reading...‘Things are getting worse’: Tunisia protests rage on as latest victim named
Police brutality and unemployment worsened by the pandemic continues to drive young protesters onto streets to demand reform
The latest victim of Tunisia’s current unrest has been named as Haykel Rachdi, from Sbeitla in Kasserine, near the Algerian border. He died of his injuries on Monday night after reportedly being struck on the head by a police teargas canister.
Protests were continuing on Wednesday, with police pushing back hundreds of mainly young demonstrators outside the country’s parliament in the capital, Tunis. One group had marched there from the working-class district of Hay Ettadhamen, in the north of the city. The protesters chanted refrains from the revolution of the winter of 2010–11 and anti-police slogans, while inside, politicians continued to debate whether to accept or reject a proposed new government, the fifth since 2019’s inconclusive elections.
Continue reading...Egypt’s political prisoners ‘denied healthcare and subject to reprisals’
International community must put pressure on Egypt to prevent prison deaths, warns Amnesty International
A decade after the uprising that overturned politics in Egypt, political prisoners are being targeted inside the country’s overcrowded prison system.
Egypt’s prisons hold at least twice the number of people they were built for, with prisoners of conscience targeted by security forces and denied healthcare, according to Amnesty International. Prisoners of all kinds risk dying in custody because of the profound lack of basic care by the authorities, said the human rights organisation.
Continue reading...Ugandan security forces withdraw from Bobi Wine’s house
Judge ruled on Monday that house arrest of presidential challenger was illegal
Security forces in Uganda have withdrawn from around the home of presidential challenger Bobi Wine, complying with a ruling by a judge on Monday that rebuked authorities for holding the candidate under house arrest for 11 days.
Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has been unable to leave his home since 14 January, when Ugandans voted in an election in which the 38-year-old reggae star turned politician was the main challenger to 76-year-old Yoweri Museveni.
Continue reading...How the Arab spring engulfed the Middle East – and changed the world
An era of uprisings, nascent democracy and civil war in the Arab world started with protests in a small Tunisian city. The unrest grew to engulf the Middle East, shake authoritarian governments and unleash consequences that still shape the world a decade later
A decade ago this month, protests forced Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee his country. It was a quick and relatively peaceful revolution, coming after decades of stagnant but entrenched regimes across the Arab world.
Few at the time understood the power of the images of unrest being broadcast online and into homes across the Middle East. Within weeks, other significant protest movements would emerge, and by the middle of 2011, leaders in Cairo, Tripoli, Sana’a, Damascus and elsewhere were under serious pressure or had been swept away by a tidal wave of peaceful demonstrations and armed resistance.
Continue reading...‘The lockdown was political’: Chad under strain ahead of election
Opposition cries foul as Covid restrictions cut off incomes and health care in country where two-thirds live in severe poverty
For Abdulgadir Sanousi the decision to lock down the capital of Chad was “a nightmare”. His work driving from N’Djamena to Moundou in the south four times a week dried up overnight. This month any work has involved bribing police to let him through the checkpoints at N’Djamena’s four main entry points.
“The situation is just a nightmare for us. We are faced with difficulties by the police. In order to deal with them you need to bribe them, if not they would confiscate your vehicle,” says 27-year-old Sanousi.
Continue reading...‘I’ll never forget that sound’: Egypt’s lost revolution
25 January 2011 marked the start of Hosni Mubarak’s fall but also moves by the military to take over
In the centre of the place where it all began, Mansour Mohammed manned a tarpaulin-covered stall on the only green grass among miles of concrete and asphalt. For 10 days he ate and slept huddled with strangers bound together by burgeoning rage and revolt all around. Enormous crowds heaved and surged – roaring their demands for change in a call that resounded through Tahrir Square in Cairo. “I’ll never forget that sound,” he said. “It was the most powerful noise I’ve ever heard. It was louder than 10 jumbo jets. It was the release of six decades of fear.”
A decade on, the launchpad of Egypt’s revolution – a seminal part of the uprisings which became known as the Arab spring – is a very different place, as is the country. The strip of grass has been concreted over and on it stands a newly erected obelisk, pointing skywards in a trenchant reminder of times of staid certainty. Traffic moves sedately around a roundabout now free of protesters or attempts at defiance. Secret police are positioned, not so secretly, nearby. There is little talk of revolution, and attempts to stir the ghosts of Tahrir Square are met with the heavy hand of the invigorated military state that entrenched itself in the revolution’s wake.
Continue reading...Israeli minerals magnate Beny Steinmetz convicted of corruption
Tycoon sentenced to five years in prison for bribing officials and forging documents to gain mining rights in Guinea
The Israeli diamond and minerals magnate Beny Steinmetz has been convicted of corrupting foreign agents and forging documents by a Geneva court, in a trial over an attempt to reap lavish iron ore resources in Guinea.
Steinmetz, considered by some to be Israel’s richest man, was sentenced to five years in prison but had faced a maximum of 10 years in the case.
Continue reading...World’s poor need action, not Covid ‘vaccine nationalism’, say experts
Nations outbidding each other creates an ‘immoral race towards the abyss’
Pharmaceutical companies should do more to transfer vaccine technology to prevent the poorest countries falling behind in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, according to an expert.
The warning came from Dag-Inge Ulstein, the co-chair of the global council trying to speed up access to Covid vaccines for the world’s poor, known as the Act (Access to Covid-19 Tools) Accelerator. Ulstein, Norway’s international development minister, oversees the drive to ensure vaccines reach the poor – the Covax programme.
Continue reading...US missionary faces new legal action over child deaths at Uganda health centre
Four families seek damages and apology from Renee Bach, who settled two cases out of court last year
Four Ugandan families are taking legal action against an American missionary accused of taking part in treatments at a religious health centre she ran, despite having no medical qualifications.
Renee Bach founded the now defunct Serving His Children (SHC) centre in Jinja, a city in east Uganda, where the families took their children, three of whom later died.
Continue reading...The teenage taekwondo trainer fighting child marriage in Zimbabwe – photo essay
Natsiraishe Maritsa saw so many friends being forced into marriage that she started a campaign to drive out the practice.
It is 11am on a Sunday and Natsiraishe Maritsa, 17, is running through some workout drills with a group of sweating teenage girls from her neighbourhood in Epworth, a poor township nine miles (15km) south-east of the capital, Harare.
On a normal Sunday, Maritsa and her friends would be attending church, but the strict 30-day lockdown imposed by the government earlier this month has banned religious gatherings – so it’s time to catch up on a taekwondo training session.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Portugal bans all UK flights; France recommends surgical masks
Move aimed at tackling spread of new variant; Cloth masks ‘fail to provide enough protection’; Rio carnival cannot be held even in middle of year, warns city mayor
- Hungary breaks ranks with EU to license Russian vaccine
- EU could ban travellers from Britain to contain Covid variants
- Wealthy UK flyers opt for private jets to evade Covid and lockdowns
- Blow for French ski resorts as Covid rules hit holiday season
Japan’s government has privately concluded the Tokyo Olympics will have to be cancelled because of the coronavirus, The Times has reported, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition.
The government’s focus is now on securing the games for Tokyo in the next available year, 2032, the newspaper said.
French president Emmanuel Macron said France will make PCR tests compulsory for all travellers into France from Sunday, including from fellow EU countries, Reuters reports.
Cross-border workers and land transportation will be exempt from that obligation, the French presidency added. The test will have to be carried out no later than 72 hours before departure.
Continue reading...Northern Mozambique in crisis as thousands flee escalating conflict
UN calls for help as cholera breaks out with the arrival of rainy season, compounding ‘dire’ situation in Cabo Delgado
Northern Mozambique has lurched into a humanitarian crisis as growing numbers of people have lost their homes amid escalating conflict.
Fighting in the northern province of Cabo Delgado displaced more than 500,000 people last year and on Wednesday UN agencies said they were deeply worried about the current situation and called for the international community to do more to help.
Continue reading...Shipwreck claims the lives of at least 43 migrants off the coast of Libya
The UN calls for the resumption of state-led operations in the Mediterranean, as rescue groups’ vessels are detained in port
At least 43 people have been killed after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, the UN said on Wednesday.
Ten people survived the shipwreck, which happened after the boat’s engine failed a few hours after departing the coastal city Zawiya, west of the capital Tripoli, on Tuesday morning.
Continue reading...‘People are hungry’: why Tunisia’s youth are taking to the streets
Unemployment – especially among the young – falling living standards and lockdowns have sparked riots across the country
Ettadhamen, a marginalised district on the outskirts of Tunis, wears unrest well. Over the weekend and into this week, violent protests have dominated life in this overlooked and restive place.
The district is not unique. Over the past few days, protests have erupted in working-class neighbourhoods in at least 15 locations across Tunisia, in response to declining living conditions, poverty and endemic unemployment, especially among the country’s young people.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Germany extends partial lockdown as UK suffers record daily Covid deaths
Germany extends lockdown to 14 February and tightens restrictions; US deaths pass 400,000; US suffers record daily deaths
- Biden holds memorial for 400,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19
- Israel warns single Covid jab ‘less effective than we thought’
- Germany extends lockdown amid concern over variants
- Japan’s hospitals close to collapse as serious Covid cases soar
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Covid-19 is unlikely to ever die out, even with vaccination efforts, but it could become more transmissible and less deadly, New Zealand’s director general of health has warned.
“If you think about influenza, which was first recorded in 1172 I think, in Europe … these viruses don’t tend to die out … They change over time and in fact what we are seeing with these new variants with the Covid-19 virus is that they tend become more transmissible and less deadly over time,” Dr Ashley Bloomfield told the AM Show on Wednesday.
Related: Covid unlikely to die out, says New Zealand health chief Ashley Bloomfield
If you fancy a break from the bad news, why not spend a few minutes thinking about sphinx moths (also known as hawk moths):
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