Some of the UK’s best-loved illustrators, including Axel Scheffler, Debi Gliori and Jackie Morris, have created artworks telling the stories of children in rural Nepal who struggle to get an education. The pictures are being raffled by the charity United World Schools, which has opened schools in the country.
All photographs by Navesh Chitrakar for UWS
*All girls’ names have been changed
Continue reading...As scorching temperatures spread, the search for ways to protect against heat stress is becoming ever more urgent
William Martínez, who as a child worked on a sugarcane plantation in rural Nicaragua, learned the hard way what many in the US and Canada are now realising: that rising temperatures are costing lives and livelihoods.
Martínez, along with fellow villagers in La Isla, found himself getting sicker as he worked long, gruelling days in the fields under the beating Nicaraguan sun two decades ago. Workers at the nearby mill, which supplies molasses to alcohol companies, began to suffer kidney failure, and would be forced out of the workforce and into expensive and time-consuming dialysis. His father and uncles, addled with the same affliction, had died when Martínez was a boy, forcing him to join the workforce.
Continue reading...Analysis: the failings of the Covax programme, logistical issues and governments’ own inadequacies are making a bad situation worse
Only 1% of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa – and that comparative percentage has been declining in recent weeks. It is a stark figure that underlines just how serious a problem global vaccine inequity has become. But the answer for the developing world is not as simple as delivering more vaccines.
From Africa to Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, the same issues have been replicated. On top of finding enough doses, there have been logistical difficulties with delivery, problems over healthcare infrastructure and, in some countries, public hesitancy towards vaccines.
Continue reading...Study finds children in Ghana, Nepal and Uganda in dangerous, exploitative work, with long hours and little pay
Gopal Magar’s father has had a drinking problem for as long as he can remember, but when Kathmandu went into lockdown last spring, it got worse. With five members of his family confined to a small room in the south of the city, tempers frayed and the 14-year-old saw his father beat his mother again and again. One day Gopal could stand it no longer. He fought back, and then fled, leaving his parents, and his school, behind.
Gopal now lives with his older brother on the other side of the city, and has swapped his classroom for a construction site. “I have fewer problems now, but I need to work really hard,” he says. He starts work at six in the morning and for the next 12 hours hauls sand, loads bricks and mixes concrete. He earns about £7 a day and sends some of it to his mother to help her buy food and pay the rent.
Continue reading...Data reveals Nepal, Iran and South Africa among 19 countries most at risk of running out as surging Covid cases push supplies to limit
Dozens of countries are facing severe oxygen shortages because of surging Covid-19 cases, threatening the “total collapse” of health systems.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysed data provided by the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the NGO Path and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to find the countries most at risk of running out of oxygen. It also studied data on global vaccination rates.
Continue reading...Austrian expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach says the real number could be 200, despite official Nepali denials
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A coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, a mountaineering guide said, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.
Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week halted his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said on Saturday one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides had tested positive.
Continue reading...Efforts in Africa and elsewhere hit by decision not to export AstraZeneca jab until end of year
Vaccine programmes across Africa and much of the developing world will suffer big delays after the world’s biggest producer said it would not be exporting the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine until the end of the year.
“We continue to scale up manufacturing and prioritise India … We also hope to start delivering to Covax and other countries by the end of this year,” Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India (SII), said in a statement on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Amid political turmoil and an overwhelmed health system, young activists are stepping up in response to the pandemic
A ping and: “ICU bed needed. Please it’s urgent.” Another ping: “Where can I find Remdesivir. EMERGENCY.” Ping: “Very urgent oxygen cylinder needed, patient at last stage.” The messages never let up; a constant stream of posts pleading for hospital beds, oxygen, plasma and medicine.
It’s not Nepal’s government helpline, but an online group set up by a 24-year-old public health graduate.
Continue reading...I’ve watched from the UK as family and friends share increasingly desperate news. Nepal’s leaders have ensured the lack of preparation
Waiting for India’s Covid wave to break over Nepal has been as painful as it was inevitable. Now that it’s happening, this country of 30 million people is even more hapless and unprepared than India seems to have been.
My friend, Dr Rakshya Pandey, a pulmonary care doctor in Kathmandu, says that during her long shifts, the thought sometimes enters her mind: ‘‘Where would I go if I get sick? Where would I take my mother if she gets the virus?”
Continue reading...People to mix indoors from next week ... China to set up ‘separation line’ on Everest peak to stop Nepal Covid spread ... calls grow for India national lockdown. Follow latest updates
Australia’s international travel ban is based on politics and not science, according to health experts who say there are a number of countries Australia could safely resume travel with this year.
On Sunday the treasurer Josh Frydenberg told SBS News that the budget expectation is that international travel will begin in 2022, with further detail expected when the budget is released on Tuesday. Meanwhile the prime minister Scott Morrison posted on Facebook that borders would only open “when it is safe to do so”, saying during media interviews over the weekend that Australians do not have an “appetite” for opening borders if it means further lockdowns and restrictions.
Related: ‘Politics rules’: Australia’s international travel ban not based on science, health experts say
The reopening of outdoor bars and restaurants in France will go ahead on 19 May 19, health minister Olivier Veran has said on Monday, as the number of Covid cases in intensive care eases.
“The prospects look rather good but we must not let down the guard,” Veran told LCI television.
Country appeals for international help, with vaccines in short supply and a reported 47% positivity rate
Nepal is struggling to contain an explosion in Covid-19 cases, as fears grow that the situation in the Himalayan country may be as bad, if not worse, than in neighbouring India, with which it shares a long and porous border.
Following warnings by health officials earlier this week that the country was on the brink of losing control of its outbreak, Nepal has appealed for urgent international help.
Continue reading...Decision to allow expeditions to go ahead dealt blow after outbreak on world’s seventh highest mountain
Nepal’s decision to allow people to continue to climb its Himalayan peaks as a vicious Covid-19 wave sweeps the country was dealt a further blow after 19 more climbers tested positive for the virus.
Last month it was reported that the pandemic had reached Everest base camp and though officials later denied it, climbers have reported a wave of infections that were being covered up.
Continue reading...Nepal authorities accused of underplaying seriousness of situation as daily cases soar
The coronavirus outbreak at Everest base camp in Nepal, controversially opened to climbers despite the pandemic, has infected “many people” amid continuing evacuations and complaints of lack of transparency over the severity of the situation.
With Nepal reporting a record number of more than 7,000 new cases in a day, its highest total since October, reports from Everest described a number of evacuations of climbers showing symptoms of Covid-19 even as doctors at base camp complained privately they were not being allowed by the country’s ministry of health to undertake PCR testing.
Continue reading...More than 12,000 deaths have already been attributed to glacial lake outburst floods worldwide
An increasing number of people are being threatened by flooding caused by glacial lakes bursting, scientists have warned.
As the planet warms and glaciers recede, meltwater accumulates and forms lakes, often as a result of ice or moraine acting as a dam. Since 1990, the volume, area and number of these glacial lakes has increased by 50% globally. When these lakes become too full there is a risk that they may breach or overflow, releasing huge volumes of water and causing catastrophic flooding.
Continue reading...‘Situation is out of control’ as cases spike and hospitals run short of beds and oxygen
Doctors in Nepal have warned that the country is facing a similar devastating wave of Covid-19 as neighbouring India, with border districts already reporting an alarming spike in cases and shortage of hospital beds and oxygen.
In the Banke district of Nepal, bordering India, doctors at Bheri hospital said it was turning into a “mini India”, with coronavirus spreading out of control.
Continue reading...From Quito to Kathmandu, millions will be endangered by cuts affecting planning for floods, earthquakes and fires, experts say
UK aid cuts to a programme working to reduce the disaster risk to poor communities around the world could endanger millions of lives and slam shut a brief window of opportunity to build safer cities for centuries to come, experts have warned.
Professor John McCloskey, from Edinburgh University, said the 70% cut to this year’s budget for the Tomorrow’s Cities project was an act of “vandalism” that had wrecked the past two years of collaboration with scientists, NGOs, authorities and communities in Ecuador’s capital Quito, Nairobi, Kathmandu and Istanbul.
Continue reading...Norwegian climber airlifted from mountain while Sherpa reported to have also tested positive
The first cases of Covid-19 have been identified at Everest base camp, renewing the controversy over the decision by Nepal to open the world’s highest mountain to climbers.
With access from the Chinese side of Everest closed to outside climbers, and some expedition operators on the Nepalese side increasing prices, the Nepalese decision in the midst of a global pandemic has come under scrutiny.
Continue reading...Unscientific ‘morality’ examination linked to low conviction rates and violates women’s rights, says Equality Now
Physical vaginal tests are still used to determine whether women and girls have been raped in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, according to a new report.
The practice remains widespread in all three countries and some courts refer to the test in judgments, despite it having no scientific basis and being banned in India.
Continue reading...Thousands of Nepalese gathered to celebrate the Bisket Jatra festival in the town of Thimi, despite a government request for gatherings not to exceed 25 people. As part of the celebrations, coloured powder is spread to welcome the arrival of spring. Bisket Jatra began on Saturday and lasts for nine days
Continue reading...Guardian analysis indicates shocking figure likely to be an underestimate, as preparations for 2022 tournament continue
More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, the Guardian can reveal.
The findings, compiled from government sources, mean an average of 12 migrant workers from these five south Asian nations have died each week since the night in December 2010 when the streets of Doha were filled with ecstatic crowds celebrating Qatar’s victory.
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