Petition filed on behalf of woman known as as Fausia, who underwent a forced pregnancy after being raped Honduras is being taken to a global human rights body for the first time over its total abortion ban, which campaigners say violates women’s fundamental rights and the country’s international commitments. The Center for Reproductive Rights and the Honduras-based Centro de Derechos de la Mujer (Center for Women’s Rights, CDM) filed a petition with the UN human rights committee this month on behalf of a woman known as Fausia, who underwent a forced pregnancy after being raped and denied an ab ..read more

The families of thousands of people who have gone missing in Balochistan province spend their lives in sit-ins and rallies When people filled the streets and parks to celebrate Eid al-Fitr in Pakistan earlier this month, Sammi Deen Baloch was not among them. Instead, she picked up a placard and joined a protest at the Karachi Press Club with dozens of other families. Sammi, 25, says there was no celebrating for the families of Pakistan’s disappeared, just an ongoing and painful wait ..read more

Brewing can involve incense, butter, herbs or spices, and takes so long neighbours take it in turns. But they wouldn’t have it any other way Drinking coffee takes time in Ethiopia, a nation of caffeine lovers. In her village in Kafa, Ethiopia’s coffee heartland, Hagre Bekele starts by roasting the raw green beans over an open fire. Then she grinds them by hand and brews them in a jebena, a bulbous, long-necked clay pot. The drink is ready when the coffee boils and almost overflows. Her son, Abraham, serves the drink in small cups, filled to the brim, alongside thick chunks of bread and handful ..read more

Plan to expand Ruaha national park has been beset by allegations of abuse, leading bank to withhold final $50m of $150m budget The World Bank has suspended financing intended to develop tourism in southern Tanzania after allegations of killings, rape and forced evictions. The bank began investigating last year after being accused of enabling abuses around Ruaha national park, which was due to double in size as part of a World Bank-supported programme ..read more

Though touted as a model of environmental preservation, the country has recently signalled a shift from phasing out fossil fuels to boosting the economy. Franz Tattenbach on the tension between green credentials and growth “This country is what the world would like to be but is not,” says Franz Tattenbach, Costa Rica’s minister of environment and energy. The 69-year-old economist is keenly aware of his role as guardian of the country’s reputation for forward-looking biodiversity initiatives and forest restoration. Since the 1970s, successive governments have sought to do justice to its wildlif ..read more

Lebanon’s economy and electricity system are broken and much power is now generated locally, with devastating effects on air quality and health Smog hangs over Beirut most days, a brownish cloud that darkens the city’s skyline of minarets and concrete towers. An estimated 8,000 diesel generators have been powering Lebanese cities since the nation’s economic collapse in 2019. The generators can be heard, smelled and seen on the streets, but their worst impact is on the air the city’s inhabitants are forced to breathe. New research, to be published by scientists at American University of Beirut ..read more

Behind a veneer of progress, injustice and inequality propped up by corruption and the caste system haunt the subcontinent This year, more than 80 countries and half the world’s population face elections. While many islands in the Caribbean go to the polls, their people are usually more occupied with US and British elections than those in their ancestral homes in Africa and India. This may be excusable, there is an old saying: “When America sneezes, the Caribbean catches a cold.” It may also seem strange that some identify as Republican or Democrat, and Conservative or Labour, while living in ..read more

As militias targeted the Masalit community in a wave of ethnic violence, one man offered shelter and an escape route across the border Every night, for weeks at a time last year, Saad al-Mukhtar put a small group of people in the back of his sports utility vehicle and drove them under the cover of darkness from his home in the Sudanese city of Geneina across the border and into Chad. The operation was an extraordinary act of bravery and selflessness: Mukhtar is an Arab, and the people he was smuggling to safety were members of the darker skinned Masalit community who were being targeted in a v ..read more

The Honduran Indigenous and environmental leader was shot in 2016 for her opposition to an internationally financed dam, but despite violence and threats, the net is closing on the murder’s alleged ‘mastermind’ Photographs by Fritz Pinnow Almost exactly 11 years ago Berta Cáceres led a group of local activists to block a road, halting trucks carrying building materials for the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam in Río Blanco. It marked the start of a fierce fightback by the Indigenous Lenca people against the energy company Desarrollos Energéticos (Desa) in Honduras. More than a decade later, onl ..read more

The national blood deficit is most pressing in places like Turkana, where malaria, anaemia and violence make heavy demands on transfusion services – and doctors are pinning their hopes on innovation In his small cubicle in Lodwar County referral hospital in north-west Kenya, Edward Mutebi, the technician in charge of the hospital’s blood bank, greets a nurse from the maternity ward. “We want more blood,” the nurse says. “The previous allocation was not enough.” Mutebi dashes into an adjacent room and hands the nurse a pack of blood from a freezer, leaving the paperwork for later. Back at the m ..read more