Namibia: baby abandonment
In 2019, Namibia passed legislation saying that women who, out of desperation, took the drastic step of abandoning their child, would no longer be prosecuted. Abandoned babies were dying. Safe places where an infant could be left were established, but there is still not enough awareness of the legal changes. Linda left her baby in a baby-saver box - a drawer built into a wall of a compound in Swakopmund that has a mattress and a blanket inside. There is also a letter. ‘Dearest mommy, please know that we do not judge you,’ reads the reassuring note. ‘We cannot begin to understand the circumstances that have brought you here.’ Linda knows her baby is safe. But despite the change in the law, babies continue to be abandoned in unsafe places. Between 2018 and 2022, 140 babies were abandoned - far more than those left in safe places.
Cambodia / India: honest media opposed
Cambodia’s prime minister Hun Sen has shut down the last few independent media outlets in the country, six months before a general election. He cancelled Voice Of Democracy‘s operating licence after they published an article which he claimed slandered his son. Amnesty International said this is slamming the door on what is left of independent media and a warning to other critical voices who still dare to ask questions about the government, the prime minister, and his family. Pray for Cambodians to have safe access to truthful news. Indian tax authorities searched BBC offices after it aired a story of prime minister Narendra Modi’s role in anti-Muslim violence when he was chief minister of the state. It was only broadcast in the UK. Modi is blocking Indians from sharing ‘the Modi question’ online, calling it hostile propaganda. A spokesman for him called the BBC ‘the most corrupt organisation in the world’.
Global: scammers profit from Turkey-Syria earthquake
Scammers are using Turkey and Syria’s earthquakes to trick people into donating to fake causes. These scams claim to raise money for survivors, but instead they channel donations away from real charities into their own PayPal accounts. One of over a hundred recently created fundraisers for Turkey is TurkeyRelief, which joined Twitter and touts for donations. Its PayPal account has received US$900, but that includes $500 from the page’s creator, who donated to their own cause to make them appear authentic. On TikTok Live, content creators make money by receiving digital gifts. TikTok livestreams show photos with sound effects and ask for donations. One video shows a distressed child running from an explosion. Their plea for TikTok gifts is ‘Please help achieve this goal’. But the photo of the child is not from Turkey. The same image was on Twitter in 2018 with the caption ‘Stop African Genocide’.
Kenya: farmers battle birds
Sometimes called ‘feathered locusts’, queleas are pests across eastern and southern Africa. A quelea eats 10g of grain daily. Not a huge amount, but flocks can number two million and collectively consume 20 tonnes of grain in 24 hours. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that £41m worth of crops are lost to the birds annually. The latest quelea invasion in Kisumu, amounting to ten million birds, has already decimated 300 acres of rice fields. Another 2,000 acres are still at risk during the harvest season. Worse hit is Narok county where the birds invaded wheat farms, destroying 40% of the harvest. The prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa has meant fewer seeds from wild grasses, a primary source of food for queleas. Kenyan scientists suggest this may be behind the invasion of cultivated land as the birds look for alternatives.
