Rosy picture Greece paints of low refugee numbers masks serious human rights violations in camps
A little over a year ago, the Moria refugee camp on Lesvos burnt to the ground – thrusting the dismal conditions in the overcrowded, under-resourced and squalid camps on the Greek islands into the international spotlight. The Greek government has since declared success in bringing the movement of asylum seekers...
Paradox of wealth and discontent in Africa rising at same time, limiting democracy to just elections
Like the rest of the world, the continent has seen public discontent growing even as wealth has improved. Public discontent, defined as the collective feeling of frustration and unmet expectations, has risen globally, despite improvements in overall wealth. The same is true for Africa. Between 1990 and 2019, gross domestic...
Kenya forms team to audit $700 million spent on wind power farm, how state robes electricity consumers
After years of financial fiddling in Kenya’s energy sector that scared off potential investors in manufacturing citing high cost of electricity and fuel, findings by taskforce appointed by the government to investigate the unusual happenings in the industry, point to serious accountability gaps. Shocked by the findings that are likely...
How journalists forced WHO to ‘account’ for sex-for-work scheme by staff in DR Congo amid Ebola pandemic
The independent commission tasked to look into claims of sexual abuse and exploitation against World Health Organization workers during the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which released its findings last week, was appointed one month after The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation revealed those claims....
Fight against malaria in tropical regions ramped up with WHO approval of first vaccine in Africa
In a momentous and long-awaited decision, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the wide rollout of a malaria vaccine to protect children in Africa. That opens the way for countries to decide how to use the vaccine, the first ever to be approved for a parasitic disease, as part...
Tigray humanitarian crisis raises serious doubts about Ethiopia government’s desire to end suffering
A humanitarian response plan for northern Ethiopia previously appealed for $854 million between May to December 2021. But that plan is now being updated with a new version expected in the first weeks of this month, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). World Food...
Ethiopia conflict fuels spread of hunger and atrocities from Tigray to Amhara
An upturned rebel tank lay by the road, overlooking fields of wheat and barley. Dead bodies were slumped in bushes and on muddy highland trails. Dark grey stones and the branches of a eucalyptus tree concealed a hastily dug mass grave. Rebels from Ethiopia’s Tigray have taken their fight into...
Merck’s new ‘hammer’ billed a game-changer after cutting Covid hospitalisations and deaths
An investigational antiviral pill reduced the chances that patients newly diagnosed with Covid-19 would be hospitalised by about 50 per cent, a finding that could give doctors a desperately needed new way to treat the sick, the drug maker Merck has announced. A five-day course of molnupiravir, developed by Merck...
How corrupt Bolsonaro government has ramped up illegal mining in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest
Indigenous territories, long a bulwark against deforestation in the Amazon, are under increasing threat in Brazil, according to an analysis of 36 years’ worth of satellite imagery. The data show that illicit mining operations on Indigenous lands and in other areas formally protected by law have hit a record high...
Racism: Latin American researchers’ tales of discrimination and humiliation in science
As female researchers from Latin American countries (one of us now works in the United States, the other in Argentina), we’re used to career obstacles. These range from limited funding to language barriers and the ‘tax’, in terms of time and emotional energy, incurred when under-represented groups in science participate...
