Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities
Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.
Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.
Continue reading...South African artist Puleng Mongale explores how her childhood church still connects her to the women of her family, not through religion but shared history and memory
This image, called Holy Gang, combines an image of a church in my mother’s home town, Fateng-tse-Ntsho, in Free State province, South Africa, with self-portraits of me, multiplied to form a group of women. Although at first glance the women are moving towards the church, it is not the final destination.
Positioned higher, beyond the church, is what appears to be a rising sun. For me, the sun represents a place where I can meet and be with my ancestors beyond religious limitations, even though they were members of the church and I am not.
Continue reading...Deep sorrow mingles with illicit desire in this potent novella, the follow-up to a 2006 story about an isolated family in the Catalan mountains
Twenty years ago, Colm Tóibín published a steadily desolating novella set in the high villages of the Catalan Pyrenees. A woman walks out of her house and her life, starts along the mountain road and disappears in the snow. Her son Miquel, failing to find her body, waits through the dark months for the thaw. A Long Winter, which appeared in a standalone volume and then as the final story in the 2006 collection Mothers and Sons, followed Miquel through dramatically extreme circumstances and patient endurance. It was told with the most restrained prose ever likely to be employed for a son’s view of vultures circling a corpse.
Now, in The Bridge, a single year has passed in Miquel’s life and he is eking out an existence with his hurtful, unyielding father. The sheep are grazing their high summer pastures; a side hustle smuggling contraband brings in a little much-needed cash. In the bare conditions of the lonely farm, any warmth of feeling is a kind of contraband smuggled in by night; love between men is doubly illicit. The grave tenderness that grows between Miquel and his father’s maltreated servant Manolo gives The Bridge its emotional centre. These young men salve the emptiness with a few quiet words and touches. We sense their youthful beauty and resilience, their suppleness in a place of fixity.
Continue reading...Exclusive: sanctions against ministers and settler groups are ‘smoke and mirrors cop-out’ says Omar Barghouti
Britain’s legal and ethical obligation to stop a genocide in Gaza requires it to take bigger steps than halting trade with illegal Israeli settlements or imposing further sanctions, Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has said.
He described sanctions against individual settler groups or extremist ministers as a “smoke and mirrors cop-out and distraction” from the UK’s legal obligation under international law to end all support for Israel, including arms exports, trade deals and academic relations that “may directly or indirectly enable Israel’s illegal occupation” of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Continue reading...For a decade I lived with a fear so bad that I once tried to climb out of a tube carriage while it was in motion. Then a hypnotherapist told me to ask my parents one very important question
In 2000, I had been living in London for just over a decade and working at EMI Records for five years. I had moved to Brixton from Surrey – where space and peace were generally abundant – in the late 80s, and I’d noticed I was becoming increasingly anxious and claustrophobic, particularly on public transport.
As things got progressively worse, I had a string of distressing panic attacks. Every time, it felt like the world around me was closing in. Then, in July 2003, during my daily commute between Brixton and the South Bank, I had a panic attack so intense I tried to climb out of the tube carriage doors. Thankfully, other passengers held me back until we arrived at the next platform – but I knew the problem was no longer something I could ignore.
Continue reading...KATHMANDU (ANP/AFP/RTR) - Het dodental door de overstroming in Nepal is opgelopen tot 1114, meldt de rampenbestrijdingsdienst in het land. Nog eens 3916 mensen worden vermist. De ramp trof het gebied precies een week geleden. Het officiële dodental in Tibet staat volgens Chinese staatsmedia op zestien. Daar worden 546 mensen vermist.
Er zijn nog niet veel lichamen overgedragen aan de nabestaanden, meldt de politie. Dat is tot nu toe met maar 95 overledenen gebeurd. De meeste resten zijn nog niet geïdentificeerd. In veel gevallen wordt maar een klein deel van een lichaam gevonden.
Chinese reddingswerkers zijn er deze woensdag in geslaagd om de enige toegangsweg naar de grensovergang bij Gyirong te heropenen. Daarmee kan voor het eerst zwaar materieel naar het rampgebied gebracht worden. Dat is volgens de staatstelevisiezender CCTV inmiddels ook "in grote aantallen" gebeurd. De toevoer van hulpgoederen en materieel ging tot nu toe door de lucht.
EINDHOVEN (ANP) - De prijs voor een liter benzine heeft woensdag een nieuw record bereikt. Volgens cijfers van consumentenvoordeelplatform UnitedConsumers kost een liter Euro95 nu 2,666 euro, bijna 3 cent meer dan dinsdag. Daarmee is het vorige record van 6 mei verbroken, aldus UnitedConsumers. Toen kostte een liter benzine 2,646 euro.
Ook diesel is duurder geworden, komt naar voren uit de cijfers van het platform. Een liter diesel kost woensdag 2,633 euro, dat is ook bijna 3 cent meer dan dinsdag. Het record werd volgens UnitedConsumers bereikt op 8 april 2026, toen kostte diesel 2,819 per liter. Het gaat om adviesprijzen, die worden doorgaans alleen langs de snelweg gevraagd. Op andere tankstations is brandstof vaak goedkoper.
UnitedConsumers verwachtte dinsdag al dat de benzineprijs nu zijn oude record zou verbreken.
De brandstofprijzen zijn flink gestegen door de Iranoorlog die eind februari begon.
