Amnesty is calling for action to help those with no papers who are denied access to education, employment and healthcare
At 45, Philimon Mashava has never had a bank account or a phone in his name.
He has never had a birth certificate and, without documents, Mashava’s stateless existence has meant him missing out on school and countless job opportunities, as employers want some form of identification.
Continue reading...The standup’s new memoir traces her London childhood and battle for recognition in the UK. She discusses coming out, moving to the US and making it big
It is 14 years since Gina Yashere walked out on Britain. The standup comic was sick of accepting second best. It’s not that she wasn’t successful – she was. She had a recurring slot on the BBC’s Lenny Henry Show between 2004 and 2005, sold out theatres when she toured and was a regular guest on the TV panel show Mock the Week. But it wasn’t enough. She felt that any number of less-talented standups had their own TV shows, while she was always on a promise that never materialised. And it was beginning to destroy her. So she packed her bags and headed to the US, where she was an unknown.
“I always knew I had something special, and I wanted to swim with the big boys. I’m not going to stay in England begging for crumbs,” she says. “To get off my arse and start again, knowing it may take me years to get recognition, if any – you’ve got to have a pretty astounding amount of self-belief to do that.” And, to be fair, she did have. “I wasn’t doing it in the way Ricky Gervais and Russell Brand were doing it, where they were coming off hit shows in England, and coming over to America already recognised, with their faces on billboards. Nobody knew who the fuck I was, and I literally started again, doing open mics, performing wherever I could.”
Continue reading...Italy’s sluggish legal process under the spotlight as devastated relatives fight for cases to go to trial
Clinging to his son’s coffin, Vincenzo Agostino solemnly swore that he would not cut his hair or beard until justice was served. It was 10 August 1989, five days after two mafia hitmen on a motorbike had killed Antonino Agostino, a police officer, and his wife, Ida, who was five months pregnant.
The couple were shot dead in broad daylight on the seafront promenade in Villagrazia di Carini, a town about 20 miles from Palermo. Vincenzo witnessed his son’s agony as the killers fired a full magazine of bullets at him. He saw his daughter-in-law, who was shot in the heart, move closer to her husband in a vain attempt to console him.
Continue reading...Duberney Capador, killed after assassination of Jovenel Moïse, was hired by security firm to protect ‘important people’, says sister
The sister of one of the alleged Colombian hitmen accused of assassinating Haiti’s president has insisted he is innocent and vowed to clear her dead brother’s name, as a potentially destabilising power struggle gripped the Caribbean country.
Duberney Capador, a retired member of Colombia’s special forces, was one of two Colombians reportedly killed by Haitian security forces last week after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince. More than a dozen citizens of the South American country have so far been arrested, as well as two Haitian Americans.
Continue reading...Call comes as outrage over Covid and corruption drags president’s ratings to lowest ever level
One of Brazil’s leading conservative newspapers has demanded the removal of the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, as public outrage over his coronavirus response and corruption dragged the rightwing populist’s ratings to their lowest ever level.
“Jair Bolsonaro is no longer in a position to remain in the presidency,” O Estado de São Paulo declared on Sunday as polls showed that for the first time a majority of citizens backed impeachment and considered their leader incapable of governing.
Continue reading...Government accused of ‘culpable passivity’ after dozens of journalists were attacked covering Pride protest
A Georgian TV cameraman has died after being badly beaten by far-right assailants during a protest against an LGBTQ Pride march, his station said on Sunday, as pressure mounts on authorities over attacks on journalists.
Alexander Lashkarava, a 37-year-old cameraman working for the independent station TV Pirveli, was found dead in his bed in the early hours on Sunday, the channel reported.
Continue reading...Chris Baryomunsi says Uganda unable to obtain more shots because ‘western world has focused on its population’
A Ugandan government minister has blamed the west for his country’s inability to secure more Covid-19 vaccines, as the World Health Organization warned Africa urgently needed hundreds millions more jabs to fend off a surging third wave of infections.
Chris Baryomunsi said Uganda had been able to vaccinate more than a million people but was unable to obtain further shots.
Continue reading...Agustín Ibarrola’s 1977 version was painted as part of campaign to get the original returned from New York
The grief-snapped mother is still there, cradling her dead child 84 years on, as is the fallen soldier with his stigmata and the horse with its silent screams.
However, the Guernica now on its way to a museum in the Basque country is not Pablo Picasso’s monochrome howl of anti-fascist fury but a retelling of the work intended to help bring the original to the market town whose agonies beneath waves of German and Italian bombers inspired its creation – and to denounce the subsequent horrors of the Franco dictatorship.
Continue reading...The five-year rule of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, who has died aged 53 after being assassinated at his home, was dominated by allegations of corruption and brutality. At the time of his death there was a dispute about the handover of power, and Moïse, who last year had dissolved the country’s parliament, was essentially running Haiti by decree, much as Napoleon had done more than 200 years before.
In 2016, Moïse inherited a country still trying to recover from the 2010 devastating earthquake as well as Hurricane Matthew, which had hit just a month before. However, under his presidency, Haitians endured worsening living standards, including rampant unemployment, in a nation where more than half the population live below the poverty line. Inflation spiralled upwards and food and fuel became scarcer.
Continue reading...The hospitalised wife of Haiti's assassinated president, Jovenel Moïse, has given her first public statement since being wounded in the attack that killed him, accusing enemies of wanting 'to kill his dream, his vision, his ideology'. But fresh questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination, as uncertainty gripped the Caribbean country and the streets of the capital remained eerily quiet amid fears Haiti is lurching into a new phase of political and social upheaval
Continue reading...Looting in former president’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal spreads to economic hub of Johannesburg
Shops were looted overnight and a section of the M2 highway was closed in Johannesburg on Sunday as violence following the jailing of the former South African president Jacob Zuma spread to the country’s main economic hub.
Violence had mainly been concentrated in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where on Wednesday night he began a 15-month sentence for contempt of court.
Continue reading...UK minister says mask guidance indoors is set to stay in England; Indonesian death toll rises to total of 66,464 after deadly day
The Press Association have written up warnings expressed by Sir David Spiegelhalter on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show today that life is likely to be “massively disrupted” by people being told to self-isolate as the number of coronavirus cases rises over the summer.
The statistician said it would make sense to get the rules “in proportion” today as vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi confirmed the Government was looking at ways to tweak the NHS Covid app.
Few people told to self-isolate actually have an infection, and especially if they’re vaxxed, and so I do think it makes sense to get this in proportion to actually ‘what are the benefits of this massive disruption
The team are looking at how we use that app in terms of alerting people to those around them who test positive.
It’s important to look at that in a new context of this massive vaccination programme and make sure that it is fit for purpose for this new world including, for example, being able to take maybe five days, as we have piloted, of lateral flow tests and upload them to the system rather than having to self-isolate.
In Libya, Al-Wasat news is reporting that the country has recorded a record number of coronavirus cases.
The National Center for Disease Control announced the registration of 2,854 new cases of the “emerging corona virus”, in addition to 376 cases of recovery, and 8 deaths, in the highest number of infections since March 2020.
Third Pfizer jabs made available to those with weak immune systems as Delta variant fuels rise in infections
Israel said on Sunday that it would begin to offer a booster shot of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to adults with weak immune systems, but that it was still weighing up whether they should be given to the general public.
The rapid spread of the Delta variant has fuelled a rise in the number of new infections from single digits a month ago to around 450 a day, and the country has moved to fast-track its next Pfizer shipment.
Continue reading...I’ve had an almost pandemic-free existence reporting from the island, but it hasn’t all been a smooth ride
For much of this year, I’ve lived a mostly Covid-free life. Taiwan wasn’t just lucky. It had been traumatised by Sars, which it didn’t handle well, and established comprehensive epidemic plans for the next time. There was no talk of herd immunity or accepting mass deaths as inevitable. As far as Taiwan was concerned, Covid-19 wasn’t getting in, and if it tried they were ready.
Taiwan took full advantage of being an island to quarantine itself from the world. It funnelled entrants through a tightly controlled system defined by extreme caution.
Continue reading...A voice recording on Martine Moïse’s Twitter page accuses enemies of trying to stop democratic change
The widow of the murdered Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has accused shadowy enemies of organising his assassination to stop democratic change, as a struggle for power intensified in the Caribbean nation.
Haiti has been reeling since Moïse was gunned down early on Wednesday at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Martine Moïse, who was wounded in the attack, said her husband was targeted for political reasons.
Continue reading...Eight-hour series about Nursultan Nazarbayev criticised for stoking cult of personality of 30-year ruler
Oliver Stone has interviewed Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev for a new eight-hour film series which has been attacked as a hagiography that contributes to the leader’s cult of personality.
In the film, Qazaq: History of the Golden Man, Stone employs the same non-confrontational approach to interviewing autocrats that has made him a favourite of Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych and others seeking to polish their reputations by sitting down with the Oscar-winning director of Platoon and JFK.
Continue reading...Iraqi special forces hunt Isis in lowlands south of Kirkuk, where the militants keep on the move, seeking to regain territorial control
A long convoy of humvees, trucks and troop carriers moved slowly through the countryside to the south of the city of Kirkuk, ferrying dozens of Iraqi special forces. Their target was a string of hideouts used by Islamic State militants in the rough terrain of hills and lowlands crisscrossed by canals and long-dried seasonal river gullies, or wadis as they are called in Arabic.
In the lead vehicle sat the commanding officer, a young lieutenant-colonel, Ihab Jalil, with a clipped moustache and hazelnut-coloured eyes. He charted the routes of the convoy on his tablet. At the same time, switching between three radio sets, he talked to the pilots of two helicopters that circled over the convoy, scouting the road ahead.
Continue reading...The industry has a growing number of women earning plaudits at its renowned bodegas. But are they really better than men?
“I think of my wines as barefoot children that need love and care,” says winemaker Marta Casas, holding her glass up to the light. Below her, the vineyards of Penedès roll away almost to the sea, but she could be virtually anywhere in Spain.
Just as they fought their way into the male domain of haute cuisine, a growing number of Spanish women are seeking a career in winemaking, with three times as many taking courses in oenology compared with 10 years ago. This was given an added boost in 2018 when Almudena Alberca was made Spain’s first female master of wine, one of only 149 in the world.
Continue reading...A poll finds American adults are happy with their partnerships, perhaps because lockdown has pushed couples to grow
From the earliest days of the pandemic, experts anticipated that the stress of Covid-19 would wreak havoc on romantic relationships (and in some cases, they were right). But one recent survey suggests what few people could have predicted: for many of the couples that persevered, the pandemic may have actually improved the relationship.
According to a national poll released in February by Monmouth University, a whopping 70% of romantically committed American adults are “extremely satisfied” in their relationships. This figure marks a more than 11-point increase over previous installations of the survey, which the university has conducted for more than six years.
Continue reading...The vice-president was handed what some saw as a poisoned chalice of leading the southern border response and faces ‘unique hurdles’ in the administration
Kamala Harris looked glad to be back at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington. “The first office I ever ran for was probably the most difficult campaign I’ve ever been in,” she recalled with laughter, “and that was freshman class representative of what was then called the liberal arts student council.”
Related: How Trump’s big lie has been weaponized since the Capitol attack
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