A rickshaw rider, a domestic worker, a student and a photographer on how their lives have changed
Habibur Rahman, 48, rickshaw rider
Continue reading...Category Archives: World News
The making of a megacity: how Dhaka transformed in 50 years of Bangladesh
In the half century since independence, the capital has grown from peaceful town to economic hub. But does it live up to the dreams of those still flocking to work there?
On the banks of the Buriganga, Old Dhaka’s boatmen only ever rest a moment before making their return journey, endlessly ferrying passengers back and forth across the river.
They pick them up at the Sadarghat docks, the historical trading hub that helped build the city, and row them towards the sprawling suburbs that have crept across what used to be open farmland two decades ago.
Continue reading...‘They can see us in the dark’: migrants grapple with hi-tech fortress EU
A powerful battery of drones, thermal cameras and heartbeat detectors are being deployed to exclude asylum seekers
Khaled has been playing “the game” for a year now. A former law student, he left Afghanistan in 2018, driven by precarious economic circumstances and fear for his security, as the Taliban were increasingly targeting Kabul.
But when he reached Europe, he realised the chances at winning the game were stacked against him. Getting to Europe’s borders was easy compared with actually crossing into the EU, he says, and there were more than physical obstacles preventing him from getting to Germany, where his uncle and girlfriend live.
Continue reading...Efforts to dislodge Ever Given in Suez canal continue – video
Efforts to dislodge the stricken container ship blocking the Suez canal continue as fears mount that the operation could take weeks. The 400-metre-long Ever Given ran aground on Tuesday and has blocked traffic through one of the world's busiest shipping routes
- Suez canal: shipping companies start rerouting as crisis drags on
- Muddy the waters: Egyptian authorities struggle with Suez canal blockage
- Suez canal: fears grow that efforts to free ship could take weeks
‘Ugliest crime’: Outcry in Sudan over lack of justice for killing of teenage girl
Death of Samah el-Hadi, allegedly shot by her father, has led to outpouring of women sharing own stories of domestic violence
Thousands of people have signed a petition urging the Sudanese government to take action against a man released without charge by police after his 13-year-old daughter was shot dead.
Samah el-Hadi was shot three times and run over by a car, reports said. Neighbours have taken to social media to blame her father, who was briefly questioned by the authorities but released after telling them Samah had taken her own life. No postmortem was carried out on the girl’s body.
Continue reading...Diversify or risk unrest, oil producers warned in report
As world shifts to green energy, Iraq and Nigeria among those vulnerable to ‘wave of instability’
Oil-dependent countries that are not preparing to adapt to the global shift away from fossil fuels risk their own stability, warns a new report.
Algeria, Iraq and Nigeria are the most vulnerable to “a slow-motion wave of political instability”, according to the risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Germany adds France, Austria, Denmark and Czech Republic to high-risk travel list
People arriving in Germany from countries on the list must provide a negative test no more than 48 hours old and quarantine for 10 days
- How AstraZeneca vaccine became a political football – and a PR disaster
- France claims UK will struggle to source second Covid jabs
- Covid third wave may overrun Africa’s healthcare, warns WHO
- Biden pledges 200m vaccine shots in 100 days
- UK coronavirus updates – live
UK prime minister Boris Johnson and US president Joe Biden have discussed the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine in a call on Friday, PA reports.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “The leaders discussed the fight against coronavirus and updated each other on their countries’ vaccine rollouts. The Prime Minister stressed that global access to vaccines will be key to defeating the pandemic.
“The Prime Minister and president agreed that combatting climate change will be a crucial component of building back better from the pandemic.”
Lebanon’s private sector helps speed up the country’s vaccination program by importing at least 1m doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccines to aid the reopening of businesses.
The first shipment of 50,000 doses of Sputnik V arrived on Friday, making the country one of the few nations whose private sector is boosting its Covid-19 rollout.
Jacques Sarraf, a Lebanese businessman and head of the Lebanese Russian Business Council, said he hopes the Russian vaccines help safely reopen businesses around the country.
“Our first target will be private companies, factories, banks, and this is important to reactivate institutions,” he told The Associated Press in an interview.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s Catholic Church apologises to abuse victims at royal commission hearing
Cardinal John Dew said he would offer ‘no excuses’ for the actions of bishops and congregational leaders
New Zealand’s Catholic Church has formally apologised to the survivors of abuse within the church and said its systems and culture must change.
Cardinal John Dew, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan of New Zealand, made the apology on Friday at the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care on behalf of the bishops and congregational leaders in New Zealand.
Continue reading...China sanctions UK businesses, MPs and lawyers in Xinjiang row
Former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith says he will wear the retaliation like a ‘badge of honour’
China has sanctioned organisations and individuals in the United Kingdom over what it called “lies and disinformation” about Xinjiang, after Britain imposed sanctions for human rights abuses in the western Chinese region.
The Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement that it sanctioned four entities and nine individuals, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith and the Conservative party’s own Human Rights Commission.
Continue reading...Gibraltar looks to post-Covid era as vaccine drive nears completion
British overseas territory is positioning itself as real-time case study in relaxing restrictions
This month Gibraltar’s health minister snapped a photo from her first dinner out in months, showing two glasses of red wine sitting prominently on the table and a face mask cast off in the background. “Operation freedom begins,” tweeted Samantha Sacramento alongside the photo.
Operation Freedom, the name given to Gibraltar’s vaccination programme, is now closing in on its target: in the coming days the British overseas territory will become one of the first places in the world where every willing resident over the age of 16 has been fully vaccinated.
Continue reading...Fighting rages in Mozambique close to Total’s gas project
Islamist insurgents have attacked strategic port town of Palma, near gas operations on Afungi peninsula
Helicopter gunships have exchanged fire with Islamist insurgents as fighting raged for a second day around a strategic town in northern Mozambique.
The town of Palma was attacked earlier this week in a three-pronged assault by rebel fighters which was launched just hours after Total, the France-based oil and gas company, announced that it would resume work on its multibillion-dollar liquified natural gas project nearby.
Continue reading...France limits outdoor gatherings to six as Covid infections rise
More areas of the country get mobility restrictions while Hungary and Poland face crises
Concern is mounting among health experts that France is not doing enough to curb a rise in coronavirus infections, particularly among younger people, as a third wave fuelled by the B117 variant first detected in the UK accelerates across Europe.
Announcing 45,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the French health minister, Olivier Véran, on Thursday banned outdoor gatherings of more than six people and added three more départements, including the area around Lyon, to 16 already placed under tougher mobility restrictions.
Continue reading...Cruise ships to be kept away from St Mark’s Square in Venice
Italian government announces ‘temporary’ move to force ships to dock at industrial port instead
Cruise ships will no longer sail past St Mark’s Square in Venice and will be made to dock at the lagoon city’s industrial port, the Italian government has said.
The ministers for infrastructure, culture, tourism and the environment jointly took the decision “to protect a cultural and historical heritage that belongs not only to Italy but to the entire world”, a statement said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Toronto: fare-beating beaver wandering in station disrupts morning commute
‘Rascal’ or ‘Nickel’ who ended up in station after straying from a nearby marsh was captured and released safely
Lost and confused passengers are a common sight on the Toronto metro system, but a puzzled, fare-evading beaver wandering a subway station is probably a first for the city.
An underground station in Canada’s largest city was shut down on Thursday after a beaver unwittingly ended up on its terrazzo tile floors after straying from a nearby marsh.
Continue reading...‘Dimming the sun’: $100m geoengineering research programme proposed
All options to fight climate crisis must be explored, says national academy, but critics fear side-effects
The US should establish a multimillion-dollar research programme on solar geoengineering, according to the country’s national science academy.
In a report it recommends funding of $100m (£73m) to $200m over five years to better understand the feasibility of interventions to dim the sun, the risk of harmful unintended consequences and how such technology could be governed in an ethical way.
Continue reading...Saudi accused of threat to Khashoggi UN investigator is human rights chief
Awwad al-Awwad, former aide of crown prince, denies threatening to ‘take care of’ Agnès Callamard
The Saudi official who is alleged to have twice issued threats against the independent UN investigator Agnès Callamard is the head of the kingdom’s human rights commission, and formerly served as an aide to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Awwad al-Awwad is alleged by a person familiar with the matter to have twice threatened to “take care of” Callamard at a January 2020 meeting with senior human rights officials in Geneva.
Continue reading...EU leaders push back against bloc’s plans to halt Covid vaccine export
More sceptical member states hope ‘stick will never be used’ amid concerns over supply chain
EU leaders are likely to shy away from supporting the use of new powers to block Covid vaccine shipments to countries such as the UK with better jab coverage than the bloc, according to a draft statement ahead of a meeting of EU leaders today.
The European commission has increased its scope for blocking vaccine exports but disquiet among capitals is set to be reflected in a muted statement at the end of the virtual summit on Thursday evening.
Continue reading...Suez canal: Dutch and Japanese teams brought in to help free ship
Salvage teams from Netherlands and Japan called in to help refloat Ever Given, which is blocking canal
Salvage teams from the Netherlands and Japan have been enlisted to redraw plans to free a giant container ship blocking the Suez canal, as fears grew that the operation could take weeks.
Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp, which leased the vessel, said the Dutch firm Smit Salvage and Japan’s Nippon Salvage had been appointed by the ship’s owner and would work alongside its captain and the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) on a plan to refloat the ship and let traffic resume on one of the world’s key trade routes.
Continue reading...‘The Yanomami could disappear’ – photographer Claudia Andujar on a people under threat in Brazil
Andujar lived with the tribe and fights for them. A timely show of her images comes to London soon
It is more than 50 years since Claudia Andujar began photographing the Yanomami, the people of the Amazon rainforest near Brazil’s border with Venezuela. Now 89, she is using her archive to increase their visibility, at a time when their survival is under renewed threat.
“The question of indigenous people should be more respected, more widely known. This is very important as it’s the only way the present [Brazilian] government will come to recognise their rights as human beings to occupy their land,” says Andujar, speaking from São Paulo. “This government isn’t interested in their rights.”
Continue reading...New Zealand brings in bereavement leave for miscarriages and stillbirths
Legislation allowing three days’ leave applies to parents, their partners, and parents planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy
New Zealand’s parliament has voted unanimously to give mothers and their partners three days of bereavement leave after a miscarriage or stillbirth.
Labour MP Ginny Andersen, who presented the bill, said it would allow parents to come to terms with their loss without being forced to use up their sick leave entitlements. “The grief that comes with miscarriage is not a sickness; it is a loss,” she said. “That loss takes time – time to recover physically and time to recover mentally; time to recover with a partner”.
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