Judges in Nairobi say they had not seen enough evidence of discrimination to change law
LGBT campaigners have reacted with anger and dismay after judges at Kenya’s high court rejected a bid to repeal colonial-era laws criminalising gay sex.
The ruling has dealt a major setback to campaigners, who hoped that scrapping the laws would inspire other countries in Africa – where discrimination is widespread – to do the same.
Continue reading...British specialist among those aiming to develop ‘next generation’ treatment that could help millions of victims each year
Scientists in five countries, including the UK, hope to find a universal cure for snakebite using the same technology that discovered HIV antibodies.
A new consortium of venom specialists in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Britain and the US will locate and develop antibodies to treat critical illness from snakebites, which harm nearly 3 million people worldwide each year.
Continue reading...Sam Little arrested after Guardian exposed massive distribution network of MMS in Uganda that was being supervised by US pastor
A British man has been arrested in Uganda on suspicions of “intoxicating the public” after he claimed to have carried out a trial of a “miracle cure” on local villagers using industrial bleach.
Sam Little, 25, from Arlesey in Bedfordshire was picked up by Ugandan police at 6am on Thursday in a village church in Kitembi, a few miles outside Fort Portal in western Uganda. Also arrested were two Ugandans who are suspected of being involved in the distribution of the bleach, which is known by advocates as MMS or Miracle Mineral Solution.
Continue reading...Improvements in detection, diagnosis and treatment hailed by World Health Organization as ‘a model for other countries’
Algeria and Argentina have been declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization, in what has been described as a “historic achievement” for both countries.
The declaration follows warnings that the global fight against malaria has slipped off track in recent years, with cases rising in many of the countries worst affected by the disease.
Continue reading...Ghassan Salamé, UN special envoy for Libya, says country is viewed as a prize
The international community lacks the moral motivation to end the Libyan civil war, and largely views the country as a prize to be captured, Ghassan Salamé, the UN special envoy for Libya, said on Wednesday.
Salamé’s complaint came as one of the belligerents in the civil war, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, ruled out an immediate ceasefire in talks with the French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris.
Continue reading...One of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activists died on Tuesday after an illness
One of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activists, Binyavanga Wainaina, has died at the age of 48.
The Kenyan author died on Tuesday night in Nairobi after a short illness, the BBC reported. His death was confirmed by Tom Maliti, the chairman of the Kwani Trust, which Wainaina founded.
Continue reading...Attacks on health clinics provoke concern that disclosing details of funding might ‘put a target on the head’ of medical workers
The UK has agreed not to publicly disclose how much funding has been allocated to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following warnings this might put those responding to the outbreak at risk.
Harriett Baldwin, minister of state for Africa, said the Congolese government had asked for these details not to be made public over fears this will put “a target on the head of some of the responders”.
Continue reading...What Bryan Cox and Mary Ruck (Letters, 20 May) do not tell your readers about the claims for compensation by the Kenyan litigants they represented was that they were all dismissed by the judge, Sir Peter Stewart, after one of the longest trials in British legal history – 230 hearing days spread over four years. He concluded that the passage of time since the alleged ill-treatment was so great that it was impossible for the crown to mount a meaningful defence, especially in the absence of virtually any corroborative evidence.
Nearly all those alleged to have committed the claimed offences were either dead or not traceable. Moreover, almost none of those accused in these 40,000 claims was a member of the British army: policemen and prison warders were the alleged culprits in nearly all cases. Abuses in screening camps were repeatedly investigated at the time, and more than 100 policemen, home guards and prison warders were prosecuted, convicted and jailed. The army had almost nothing to do with screening and detention.
Continue reading...Southern African countries to appeal to watchdog for permission to sell stockpiled ivory worth more than £230m
Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia are making a fresh appeal for a global watchdog to lift restrictive measures on the trade in raw ivory.
The watchdog, Cites, prohibits unregulated commercial trade in endangered species around the world.
Continue reading...Armed group claiming loyalty to Khalifa Haftar had cut off water to capital and other cities
Water supplies to the Libyan capital and surrounding cities have been restored two days after they were cut off when an armed group stormed a control room, averting shortages that could have caused a humanitarian crisis.
“The crisis of halting water supplies has ended and flows have started,” the Great Man-Made River company, a pipe network supplying ground water from the Sahara, said in a statement.
Continue reading...New bill needed to tackle hostile activity by Russia and others, says home secretary
Hostile state actors – spies, assassins or hackers directed by the government of another country – are to be targeted by refreshed espionage and treason laws, the home secretary has announced.
In a speech to security officials in central London, Sajid Javid revealed plans to publish a new espionage bill to tackle increased hostile state activity from countries including but not limited to Russia.
Continue reading...Struck by failings in the implementation of health projects, a Mozambican entrepreneur has turned to tech for a solution
The limited success of foreign-backed projects to fight diseases in Africa is down to basic misunderstanding about how to communicate even the simplest messages, a Mozambican education entrepreneur has said.
Dayn Amade, founder of Maputo-based technology company Kamaleon, is calling for the World Health Organization and aid groups to reassess how people on the African continent are educated about disease prevention.
Continue reading...The star of ER and The Good Wife is back – as a doctor fighting to save humanity. She gives her bodyguard the slip to talk about our imperilled planet – and her love of Sussex A-roads
Before I meet Julianna Margulies, I spend three days staring at her bodyguard. He’s impossible to miss: one of those men whose every attempt to blend in flounders. Margulies and I are in Lille, judges at the Series Mania television festival, although our experiences differ a little. My cloak of anonymity allows me to roam the city unpestered. Margulies, however, has been a TV mainstay for 25 years, with roles in two juggernaut shows, ER and The Good Wife. Everybody knows who she is, hence Muscles.
He’s even there at the start of our interview, looming in the doorway of our room at the Chamber of Commerce. As I ease past and close the door, I ask if it isn’t a pain being constantly tailed. She smiles and says: “Three years ago, I was the guest of honour when they held this festival in Paris. When I get there, they say, ‘We have detail for you.’ I say, ‘Guys, I don’t need a bodyguard.’ But they won’t budge. We get to the hotel and I say to my bodyguard, ‘My husband and I are going out to lunch. You go home, please.’ So we left the hotel and I’ve never seen anything like it. People were everywhere. We backed into the hotel and my husband called the bodyguard and said, ‘We made a mistake!’ He said, ‘I know – I’m just around the corner.’”
Continue reading...Conflict in Syria, shocking pink fashion at Cannes, and a seal pup making a splash – the last seven days, as captured by the world’s best photojournalists
Continue reading...Risk to oil market of three simultaneous disruptions becomes lobbying point for Iran and Libya
In November 2018, Donald Trump tweeted: “Oil prices getting lower … a tax cut for America and the world! Enjoy! $54 … Thank you to Saudi Arabia.”
Five months on, with oil prices more than $70, Trump will be in a less celebratory mood as Opec’s oil ministers and their allies gather in Jeddah on Friday, without Iran. The main agenda item will be the implications for oil of three interconnected American foreign policy crises – in Venezuela, Iran, and Libya. Together these crises, being played out simultaneously, have the potential to scrub as much as 3.5m barrels of oil per day from the markets.
Continue reading...Sexual health organisations warn women will die if they are forced to seek DIY abortions
The Trump administration has taken its war on abortion worldwide, cutting off all funding to any overseas organisation or clinic that will not agree to a complete ban on even discussing it.
The Mexico City policy, dubbed the “global gag” by its critics, denies US federal funds to any organisation involved in providing abortion services overseas or counselling women about them. It was instituted by the then US president Ronald Reagan and has been revoked by every Democrat and reinstated by every Republican president since.
Continue reading...Australia’s government faces questions over secret deal with US in which the men were granted humanitarian visas
Just hours out from a federal election, the Australian government is facing questions over its decision to grant humanitarian visas to two Rwandan men accused of the brutal 1999 murder of tourists in Uganda.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has said that the men were subject to – and cleared – security checks, and on Friday distanced himself further by suggesting the approvals occurred when his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.
Continue reading...Exclusive: US advice was that the men, who have refugee status and were accused of murdering tourists in Uganda in 1999, presented no security threat
The national security committee of cabinet was briefed about all aspects of the American refugee swap deal in late 2016, including the resettlement of two Rwandan men accused of murdering tourists in Uganda.
Guardian Australian understands the NSC was briefed, and the then treasurer, Scott Morrison, the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, and the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, were aware of all the elements of the agreement signed by Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama in 2016.
Continue reading...Despite 30 years of repression that have hit writers unusually hard, Sudanese literature remains vigorous. Here is some of the best available in English
I was lucky to grow up in Khartoum in a house filled with books, at a time when Sudan’s public libraries flourished. One of the most startling discoveries I made as a child of about 13 was finding a couple of Tayeb Salih’s books on a shelf at home. Until that moment, I thought literature was something that took place elsewhere – in Dickens’s England or the Latin America of Borges, say. But here were stories that described the world right outside our front door. It was a moment of revelation and stirred the idea that it was possible to write.
Related: A Line in the River by Jamal Mahjoub review – Khartoum, city of memory
Continue reading...People in Butembo, where outbreak began, express anger over continued spread of virus and lack of community engagement
Christine Masika lives with her mother, sisters and a friend in Butembo, the town at the centre of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak.
She knew of many people who contracted the virus. Most, she says, are dead.
Continue reading...