By Antoine Rolland, Thomson Reuters Foundation
5 Min Read
NGOTO, Central African Republic, Dec 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - S ince the coronavirus forced his school to close in March, Papin has been working six days a week at a diamond mine in the Central African Republic (CAR) - hauling sacks of mud and rubble under a hot sun.
He is among a dozen children working at the open-pit mine near the southern town of Ngoto, where about 100 miners use shovels and sieves to scour the red earth for diamonds. It is back-breaking work and Papin longs to return to the classroom.
5 Min Read
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Joe Biden takes office as U.S. president on Wednesday with a long list of LGBT+ policy pledges - from scrapping Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military recruits to passing an anti-discrimination law.
The former vice president has promised to appoint a cabinet that “looks like America”, nominating former rival for the Democratic presidential candidacy Pete Buttigieg as the first openly gay cabinet secretary, at the Transportation Department.
Activists said the incoming administration had spoken with numerous LGBT+ advocacy groups since the Nov. 3 election, expressing optimism that a Biden White House would move swiftly to make good on its policy pledges.
Lawyers for Alexei Navalny on Monday said they have not been granted access to him since the Kremlin critic was detained on his return to Russia on Sunday, and that his condition was unknown.
6 Min Read
(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Ivana Gaziova had an abortion as a teenager, she didn’t want to talk about it to anyone apart from her closest cousin. Six years on, a push to tighten Slovakia’s abortion law impelled her to speak out.
Gaziova, a waitress from Bratislava, has gone public with her own story to campaign against the government-led proposal, which critics see as part of a trend towards more socially conservative policies in central Europe.
“We should all talk about it, it’s just normal for you to decide what’s going to happen with your own body. but girls feel guilty because they think society will judge them,” Gaziova said.