From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases
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‘We don’t have a limit’: Yasuyoshi Chiba – agency photographer of 2021
Yasuyoshi Chiba has been chosen by the picture desk as its agency photographer of the year. We hear from the AFP photojournalist
In 2021 Yasuyoshi Chiba’s work consistently stood out to the Guardian picture editing team. From his coverage of the elections in Uganda at the start of the year, through to his images from the Kimana Sanctuary in Kenya and the harrowing work in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
Yasuyoshi Chiba
The year has been a reminder that my work is dealing with an unexpected future. Thanks to the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccines, the world has slowly resumed, and I also again feel the value of being in the field for photography.
Continue reading...Books that explain the world: Guardian writers share their best nonfiction reads of the year
From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America
• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below
You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021
By Alaa Abd El-Fattah
Arrival of 1bn vaccine doses won’t solve Africa’s Covid crisis, experts say
Concerns over equipment shortages, bottlenecks and hesitancy on continent with 7.5% vaccine coverage
With 1bn doses of Covid vaccines expected to arrive in Africa in the coming months, concern has shifted to a global shortage of equipment required to deliver them, such as syringes, as well as insufficient planning in some countries that could create bottlenecks in the rollout.
After a troubled start to vaccination programmes on the continent, health officials are examining ways to encourage take-up as some countries have had to throw away doses.
Continue reading...‘If you run, you will die’: fear stalks Nigerian state as jihadists gain foothold
Niger state has been wracked by banditry for years. Now jihadists have moved in to communities just a few hundred miles from the capital, Abuja
“They ordered everyone to come around, saying if you run, if you cry, you will die,” said Bala Pada, recalling the moment in April when jihadists rounded up people at a market in his home town of Kaure to witness the execution of two alleged vigilantes.
Hundreds of jihadists have settled over the past year in Kaure and other remote communities in Niger state in Nigeria, according to displaced residents and local government officials. They began to arrive in November 2020, hoisting flags and declaring the communities under their control.
Continue reading...UK travel firms call for state help after Omicron hits turnover
Industry body warns that some operators won’t last the winter after return of strict Covid travel rules
Travel firms have called on the government to provide urgent financial help as fresh Covid-19 restrictions come in to force on Tuesday, hitting holiday travel just before the peak booking period.
Turnover has been at just 22% of normal levels for tour operators, according to figures from the travel association Abta.
Continue reading...The world is watching: TV hits around the globe
A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries
Continue reading...Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds
Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups
Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.
The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.
Continue reading...Migrant caravan and Qatar’s tarnished World Cup: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland
Continue reading...Oxford University identifies 145 artefacts looted in Benin raid
Plundered items likely to be returned to Nigeria include plaques, bronze figures and musical instruments
The University of Oxford is holding 145 objects looted by British troops during an assault on the city of Benin in 1897 that are likely to be repatriated to Nigeria, a report has said.
More than two-thirds of the plundered items are owned by the university’s Pitt Rivers Museum, and 45 are on loan. They include brass plaques, bronze figures, carved ivory tusks, musical instruments, weaving equipment, jewellery, and ceramic and coral objects dating to the 13th century.
Continue reading...How risk of kidnap became the cost of an education in Nigeria
Abductions are rife in the north of the country, where armed gangs target schools and colleges with apparent impunity
When his two daughters were abducted from their university dormitories by armed men in April, Friday Sani volunteered to deliver the ransom. In two bags he carried banknotes to the value of more than 40m naira (£70,000), the price to free Victory and Rejoice, and 37 others taken from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Kaduna.
In April and May more than 70 students were abducted from the federal college and the nearby Greenfield University. With little faith that police could help, a group of parents went to the kidnappers, through an intermediary, and paid to get their children back.
Continue reading...A wealth of sorrow: why Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves are really a curse
It is known as the resource curse: assets that should bring wealth and stability but instead lead to corruption and poverty. And for Nigeria, oil is the culprit
In Nigeria, oil has been more of a curse than a blessing. Weak institutions of state and poor governance in managing the vast revenues have led the country to fail to realise its full potential in a textbook example of what academics know as the “resource curse”.
First coined by Prof Richard Auty in 1994, the term refers to the inability of nations to use their windfall wealth to improve their population’s lot and bolster their economies. The rich natural resources bring corruption and poverty to a nation, rather than positive economic development and, counterintuitively, these countries end up with lower growth and development than those without natural resources.
Continue reading...Lagos building collapse: those still missing now believed dead
More than 40 people have been found dead so far in disaster that has caused outrage in Nigeria
Several people still missing after the collapse of a partly constructed luxury apartment building in Lagos a week ago are now thought by officials clearing the debris to be dead – to the anguish of families at the site still searching for answers.
Only 15 people have survived, with 42 people found dead as of Sunday morning, in yet another deadly building collapse that has caused outrage in Nigeria and calls for recriminations against government and regulatory authorities.
Continue reading...Nigeria unlikely to reach ‘impossible’ 40% Covid vaccine target
Lack of doses and a reluctant public make government programme unfeasible, say health experts, with malaria and conflict posing greater risk to life
It will be “impossible” for Nigeria to meet its target of vaccinating 40% of its population by the end of the year because Covid is not being taken seriously, health experts have warned.
Fewer than 1.5% of the country’s 206 million population has been fully vaccinated. But with more people killed in conflict last year and substantially more recorded deaths from malaria than Covid in Nigeria, experts believe it is further down the list of concerns for many in the country.
Continue reading...Nigerian police brutality and shelling in Myanmar: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Hong Kong to Khartoum
Continue reading...Noma: the hidden childhood disease known as the ‘face of poverty’
This little known and preventable disease disfigures those it does not kill – and a new campaign hopes to raise awareness and eradicate it entirely
Warning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing
Fidel Strub was three when the inside of his cheek started to itch. After a few days, it felt like it was burning, then it began to smell as if it was rotting. A splitting headache came next before his whole body started to feel uncomfortably hot.
“I remember darkness came,” he says. “I had a hammering headache and a burning body. When I opened my eyes, any light stung them and it burned like hell. It was easier to close my eyes for less pain. I could do nothing but lie on the floor.”
Continue reading...‘Many people are inside’: Building collapses in Nigeria, trapping workers – video
A residential high-rise building under construction in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos collapsed, trapping up to 100 workers under a pile of concrete rubble. The building was in the affluent neighbourhood of Ikoyi, where many blocks of flats are under construction. Building collapses are frequent in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.
Continue reading...Dozens feared trapped after building collapse in Nigeria’s largest city
Witness in Lagos says more than 100 people could be trapped under rubble of building that was under construction
A 21-storey apartment building under construction in an upmarket area of Nigeria’s largest city has collapsed, with dozens of workers feared trapped under the rubble.
Construction worker Eric Tetteh, 41, said construction teams were waiting for an excavator to arrive at the site when the building suddenly crumbled into a heap of debris.
Continue reading...‘The lights went out and the shooting started’: #EndSars protesters find no justice one year on
In the face of government denial, four young people tell their stories. Shot, beaten and terrified, they speak of disillusionment, but also of hope
In October last year, thousands of mainly young Nigerians took to the streets to protest against police abuses, particularly among the now-disbanded brutal special anti-robbery squad (Sars) police unit. –
Yet the several protests across the country were brutally repressed. At least 12 people were killed in the #EndSars protests, according to Amnesty International, and dozens were injured, including at Lekki tollgate in Lagos on 20 October, where witnesses livestreamed soldiers shooting at protesters draped in or waving Nigerian flags.
Continue reading...My Nigeria: five writers and artists reflect on the place they call home
A curious picture of pride, optimism, despair and frustration emerges as the country’s creatives consider their homeland
- Failed state? Why Nigeria’s fragile democracy is facing an uncertain future
- Read more in our Crisis Nigeria series
Author and journalist
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