The head of the global agency tackling Aids says she expects HIV rates to soar and deaths to multiply in the next four years as a direct impact of the “seismic” US cuts to aid spending.

Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids, said that if the funding permanently disappeared, the world faced an additional 6 million HIV infections and 4 million Aids-related deaths by 2029.

“It is a deadly funding crisis, a global response knocked totally off course. This is a pandemic, and pandemics have no borders,” she said in an interview with the Guardian at the UN international development funding summit this week in Seville, Spain.

Byanyima, a Ugandan aeronautical engineer and politician who has led UNAids since 2019, said seeing the impact of Donald Trump’s cuts had been the worst experience of her life.

“Personally I am devastated. Appalled. Shaken and disgusted. I don’t have the English words to use,” she said, admitting that the sheer scale of the challenge in the face of such massive cuts had made her consider resigning from her role.

“But I can’t run away. I told myself I’m going to fix it. I need to take my gloves off.”

US global health funding has stagnated over the past few years, and countries including the UK have been actively moving away from investment in aid from the target spending of 0.7% of GDP that UN member states set themselves in 2015. But in February, Trump abruptly halted Pepfar – the president’s emergency plan for Aids relief set up by Republican George Bush in 2003 to provide treatment, prevention and care for people living with or affected by HIV/Aids. A later vaguely worded waiver on certain parts of Pepfar funding had not had an effect on the ground, said experts.

“Every year, donors were reducing and the war in Ukraine saw that accelerate,” Byanyima said. “But the shock … Pepfar was 60% of my budget.

“It is a drop, a drop of money that is nothing in one of these rich G7 countries,” she said. “And it did so much for people who are so vulnerable. And yet you are spending so much more on wars. The rich men at the top take away from the poorest at the bottom.

“To create such crisis, such pain and such anger on the ground. This cut, that’s dedicated people losing jobs, loyal support gone, research ended, vulnerable people abandoned. And it is deaths. What went away immediately was prevention services, so we are very worried about the new infections and about deaths. Then support services and clinics. Now research, cutting edge research, is going.

“I myself had to have therapy to keep myself strong to be there for others. We have to make sure people who are staying do not burn out to try to even out our workload.

“This is a huge shift because it is so connected to geopolitics and to power shifts. It is seismic. But after the first wave of panic, and of pain, we have now to work hard, on less than half of what we had, to get change quickly to save lives.

“We already lost 12 million people we should not have lost if ARVs [antiretrovirals] had been shared immediately around the world instead of held on to by the pharmaceutical companies making money. We now face this, more deaths. Health is a human right, no one should die if we can prevent it.

“But of course many people will die, so many vulnerable people have already lost support, young girls, men who have sex with men, these are people who hide, who are shunned.

“There will be an additional 6 million newly infected persons in the world,” she said. “That has started already.”

Byanyima said the loss of overseas development assistance on all sides was now focusing attention on the unfair way in which Africa was treated by the west in terms of financing, debt interest and risk rates, and regarding illicit funding flows.

“African countries are struggling. Some much more than others. But they are not lying down and dying, and they are not holding out a begging bowl for more aid. Huge efforts are being made to fill the funding gaps in smart ways.

“We need debt justice, we need tax justice. The amount of money flowing from the south to the north has been greater than what has gone the other way for a long time and that is clear to see.

“The message for us all is clear too. The aid model cannot stand any more, it’s too unpredictable, the future has to be less about charity and more about international solidarity.”

The supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for the deportation of several immigrants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The decision comes after the court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.

The court’s latest order makes clear that the South Sudan flight detoured weeks ago can now complete the trip. It reverses findings from federal Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts, who said his order on those migrants still stands even after the high court lifted his broader decision.

The majority wrote that their decision on 23 June completely halted Murphy’s ruling and also rendered his decision on the South Sudan flight “unenforceable”. The court did not fully detail its legal reasoning on the underlying case, as is common on its emergency docket.

Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment. “Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the supreme court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote.

Attorneys for the eight migrants have said they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, where escalating political tensions have threatened to devolve into another civil war.

“We know they’ll face perilous conditions, and potentially immediate detention, upon arrival,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said Thursday.

The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration has called Murphy’s finding “a lawless act of defiance.”

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands. The eight men sent to South Sudan in May had been convicted of serious crimes in the US.

Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden, did not prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent to another country.

The supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for the deportation of several immigrants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The decision comes after the court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.

The court’s latest order makes clear that the South Sudan flight detoured weeks ago can now complete the trip. It reverses findings from federal Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts, who said his order on those migrants still stands even after the high court lifted his broader decision.

The majority wrote that their decision on 23 June completely halted Murphy’s ruling and also rendered his decision on the South Sudan flight “unenforceable”. The court did not fully detail its legal reasoning on the underlying case, as is common on its emergency docket.

Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment. “Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the supreme court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote.

Attorneys for the eight migrants have said they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, where escalating political tensions have threatened to devolve into another civil war.

“We know they’ll face perilous conditions, and potentially immediate detention, upon arrival,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said Thursday.

The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration has called Murphy’s finding “a lawless act of defiance.”

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands. The eight men sent to South Sudan in May had been convicted of serious crimes in the US.

Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden, did not prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent to another country.

Two female tourists from the UK and New Zealand have been killed by an elephant while on a walking safari in a national park in Zambia, police in the southern African country have said.

The Eastern Province police commissioner, Robertson Mweemba, said the victims, who he named as 68-year-old Easton Janet Taylor from the UK and 67-year-old Alison Jean Taylor from New Zealand, were attacked by a female elephant that was with a calf.

Safari guides who were with the group attempted to stop the elephant from charging at the women by firing shots at it, police said. The elephant was hit and wounded by the gunshots. The guides were unable to prevent the elephant’s attack and both women died at the scene, police said.

It happened at the South Luangwa national park in eastern Zambia, about 600km (370 miles) from the capital, Lusaka.

Female elephants are very protective of their calves and can respond aggressively to what they perceive as threats.

Last year, two American tourists were killed in separate encounters with elephants in different parts of Zambia. In both cases, the tourists were also women and were on a safari vehicle when they were attacked.

A man whose bones were shaped by a lifetime of hard labour more than 4,500 years ago has become the first ancient Egyptian to have his entire genetic code read and analysed by scientists.

The skeleton of the man, who lived at the dawn of the Age of the Pyramids, was recovered in 1902 from a sealed pottery vessel in a rock-cut tomb in Nuwayrat, 165 miles south of Cairo, and has been held in a museum since.

His DNA was remarkably well preserved given its age and the hot climate, which rapidly degrades biological material. Scientists suspect the unusual nature of the burial may have helped the DNA survive the past four millennia.

“It’s exciting that we can get genomes from this place and time,” said Pontus Skoglund, who leads the ancient genomics laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London. “It’s only one individual, but it provides a valuable first glimpse into the ancestry of an early Egyptian in the old kingdom.”

The skeleton was donated to the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology and later transferred to the city’s World Museum. There it survived bombings during the blitz that destroyed almost all of the other human remains in the collection.

According to radiocarbon dating, the man lived a few centuries after the unification of upper and lower Egypt, a critical time of transition between the early dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, which spanned the third to the sixth dynasties. The Old Kingdom, also known as the Age of the Pyramids, was marked by significant progress including the construction of the first step pyramid at Saqqara.

DNA from one of the man’s teeth found he had dark skin, brown eyes and hair, and north African Neolithic ancestry mixed with a 20% genetic contribution from the Fertile Crescent region in the Middle East. The finding supports archaeological evidence of ancient trade between the two regions.

The man’s bones cast further light on his story. Middle-aged, perhaps in his 60s, he was old for the time and riddled with arthritis. Marks on the skeleton suggest he spent long periods sitting on hard ground with his legs and arms extended and head down. His right foot revealed unusual signs of wear.

After studying tomb paintings of ancient Egyptian workers, the researchers suspect he may have been a potter or similar craftsman. The potter’s wheel was introduced to Egypt from the Fertile Crescent in about 2,500BC and was often stabilised with one foot. But the high-class burial, which took place before Egypt embraced artificial mummification, would have been unusual for such a worker.

Joel Irish, a professor of anthropology and archaeology at Liverpool John Moores University, said of all the occupations the team reviewed, the bone markings were most consistent with the man being a potter, but he might have been weaving baskets or doing other work on the ground.

Irish said: “It’s interesting that the man was found in a pot. That in itself is odd. He was put in a relatively high-class tomb and not any old person ends up in a rock-cut tomb. Maybe he was a super-good potter and ended up in someone’s favour.”

Skoglund said the work, published in Nature, sheds light on which tombs might harbour remains that are well-enough preserved to yield large amounts of DNA.

The team now plans to examine more skeletons in British collections to paint a fuller picture of the genetic history of the Egyptians. “There will be more individuals that we can get DNA from and we can use that to build an ancient, public genetic record of ancient Egypt,” he said.

Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania’s government for illegal detention and torture over their treatment during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May.

Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire’s case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam. “[The authorities] take you through sexual torture,” Mwangi said at the time.

Even in a region accustomed to recurrent rights abuses, the apparent targeting of foreigners by the Tanzanian authorities marked a new and worrying turn in a crackdown on critics and opponents of the president, Samia Suluhu Hassan.

In interviews with the Guardian, Mwangi and Atuhaire said they planned to initiate cases in a Tanzanian court as well as through regional and international avenues, including the east African court of justice and the African court on human and peoples’ rights.

“We’re not going to let them get away with this,” said Mwangi, a well-known Kenyan photojournalist and activist. Atuhaire, a lawyer, journalist and critic of the government of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, said: “We need to hold these guys accountable to know that they cannot violate people unprovoked like that.”

Mwangi and Atuhaire, who had travelled to Tanzania to attend a court hearing for a treason case against the opposition politician Tundu Lissu on 19 May, say they were taken from their hotel by people they described as security officials, illegally detained and verbally and physically abused.

Mwangi said his beating started at an immigration office that afternoon when a security official slapped and punched him repeatedly in the presence of Atuhaire and three lawyers. He said he was assaulted again at a police station, where security personnel accused the activists of having travelled to Tanzania to disrupt peace and ruin the country.

“The real torture,” Mwangi said, happened that evening when a group of about seven men – whom he described as having bloodshot eyes and smelling of alcohol – and a woman handcuffed and blindfolded him and Atuhaire and drove them to a compound.

Both activists said that at the compound they were ordered to strip and were suspended upside down then hit with wooden planks on their soles. They said their attackers stifled their screams by stuffing Mwangi’s underwear into his mouth and putting some cloth in Atuhaire’s mouth.

The activists said their attackers inserted what seemed to be their hands or other objects into their rectums and smeared excrement on Atuhaire’s body, then photographed them and told them not to reveal what had happened. Two days later they were dumped at their countries’ borders.

“I didn’t see us coming out of there alive,” said Atuhaire. “It was really, really painful.”

Mwangi said: “Nothing in my mind or in my life prepared me for this. I’ve been injured before, I’ve been beaten before, I’ve been shot before. My house has been bombed. I’ve seen all kind of extremities and cruelties, but I’ve never felt such kind of pain.”

The Guardian has approached a Tanzanian police spokesperson for comment. Last week Tanzania’s representative to the UN, Abdallah Possi, told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: “Although these claims against the government are highly doubtful, we take the allegations of torture, sexual abuse and malpractices very seriously. That is why the government is currently investigating and, if established, those concerned will be held accountable.”

A series of killings, kidnappings, arrests and tortures over the past year have prompted widespread condemnation locally and internationally. Among those killed was Mohamed Ali Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the main opposition party Chadema, who was found beaten and with his face doused with acid in September.

In April, Father Charles Kitima, a Catholic priest who is vocal on democratic reforms and rights issues, was brutally attacked near his residence. Earlier this month, the government deregistered a church belonging to Josephat Gwajima, a politician from the ruling party, after he called out illegal detentions and enforced disappearances and announced a prayer campaign to seek divine intervention for Hassan and other national leaders. And last week two men who posted talkshows about democracy and governance on YouTube were arrested for “improper use of social media”.

There is no evidence of Hassan’s personal involvement in the incidents, many of which the government has condemned. Nevertheless, opposition politicians and rights campaigners say her administration is overseeing a return to the fear-based tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli. Earlier this month she warned activists from neighbouring countries against “trying to destabilise” Tanzania.

Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian rights activist, described the targeting of non-Tanzanians as unprecedented and a “sign of huge panic” on the part of the Hassan administration in the run-up to her first presidential electoral test.

“What we’re seeing is a very insecure presidential candidate,” said Tsehai, who lives in self-exile in Nairobi. “She has to lean more heavily on that security apparatus. And she has decided that she doesn’t want to have any free or fair election. She just wants to get her second term. And that decision comes at a very heavy price.”

Last year, Tsehai was abducted from the streets of the Kenyan capital by armed men and feared she would become the latest victim of a spate of enforced deportations from Kenya. However, she was released a short time later without crossing the border after news of her kidnapping spread quickly on social media.

In the months after Hassan took office following Magufuli’s death in 2021, the president gained domestic and international approval for reconciling with the opposition and reversing some of Magufuli’s repressive policies. But since then a wave of repression has wiped out hopes of lasting reform.

Hassan’s CCM party has ruled the country since independence. The opposition and civil society have long called for reform of the constitution, which critics say grants the president and the ruling party excessive powers.

Earlier this year, Lissu was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime offences, and his Chadema party – which had called for a boycott of this year’s elections unless electoral reforms were enacted – was disqualified from participating.

Mwangi said CCM was acting for self-preservation. “What Suluhu is trying to do is win an election by any means necessary,” he said. “She’s reading from a dictator’s manual [that says] ‘brutalise and beat people into submission’.”

Atuhaire – whose work in exposing corruption won her an international women of courage award from the US last year – said her and Mwangi’s experience showed the “level of impunity” in Tanzania.

The activists are still nursing injuries on their feet and other parts of their bodies, in addition to having psychological trauma. They said they had decided to speak about their alleged abuse to shine a light on the plight of Tanzanians who had gone through similar experiences.

“There’s no level of shame or stigma that is more important than pursuing justice,” Atuhaire said. “Justice is the driving factor – these people must be held accountable for what they did to us, for what they have done to Tanzanians.”

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will sign an agreement in Washington on Friday to put an end to a conflict in the eastern DRC that has killed thousands, although questions remain on what it will mean for the region.

Donald Trump has trumpeted the diplomacy that led to the deal, and has publicly complained that he yet to receive a Nobel peace prize.

But the agreement has also come under scrutiny for its vagueness, including on the economic component, with the Trump administration eager to compete with China and profit from abundant mineral wealth in eastern of the DRC, an area which has long been turbulent.

In late 2021 the M23 rebel group in launched a new offensive that escalated sharply early this year, seizing broad swathes of territory including the key eastern DRC city of Goma.

The Kinshasa government has long said – a position supported by Washington – that M23, which consists mostly of ethnic Tutsis, receives military support from Rwanda.

Rwanda has denied directly supporting the rebels but has demanded an end to another armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which was established by ethnic Hutus linked to the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The Rwandan and DRC foreign ministers will sign the agreement in Washington in the presence of Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, a state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said. The White House also said Trump will meet the foreign ministers in the Oval Office.

In a joint statement, the three countries said the agreement would include “respect for territorial integrity and a prohibition of hostilities” as well as the disarmament of all “non-state armed groups”.

The agreement was mediated through Qatar, a frequent US partner, and Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman and father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany who was asked by the president to be a senior adviser on Africa.

The statement also spoke of a “regional economic integration framework” and of a future summit in Washington bringing together Trump, Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, and the DRC president, Felix Tshisekedi.

Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist who shared the 2018 Nobel peace prize for his work to end the DRC’s epidemic of sexual violence in war, voiced alarm that the agreement was too opaque.

He said that the talk of economic cooperation was an unjust reward for Rwanda. The deal “would amount to granting a reward for aggression, legitimising the plundering of Congolese natural resources, and forcing the victim to alienate their national heritage by sacrificing justice in order to ensure a precarious and fragile peace”, he said in a statement.

On the eve of the signing, the news outlet Africa Intelligence reported that the deal was asking Rwanda to withdraw its “defensive measures” and for the DRC to end all association with the FDLR.

The Rwandan foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, denied the matter on X. “As a matter of facts, the words ‘Rwanda Defense Force’, ‘Rwandan troops’ or ‘withdrawal’ are nowhere to be seen in the document,” he said.

In April, while on a visit to Washington to start the negotiations, the Congolese foreign minister, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, said that Rwanda should be obliged to withdraw from her country, which has been ravaged by decades of war.

Both countries have sought favour with the US. The DRC – which has enormous mineral reserves including lithium and cobalt, which are vital in electric vehicles – has pitched an agreement to seek US investment, loosely inspired by the Trump administration’s minerals deal with Ukraine.

Rwanda has been discussing taking in migrants deported from the US, a major priority for Trump.

Rwanda, one of the most stable countries in Africa, had reached a migration deal with Britain’s former Conservative government but the arrangement was killed by the Labour government that took office last year.

Extreme poverty is accelerating in 39 countries affected by war and conflict, leaving more than a billion people to go hungry, according to the World Bank.

Civil wars and confrontations between nations, mostly in Africa, have set back economic growth and reduced the incomes of more than a billion people, “driving up extreme poverty faster than anywhere else”, the Washington-based body said.

Underscoring the breadth of conflicts beyond the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars, it said the 39 developing economies classified as being in fragile and conflict-affected situations are plagued by instability and weak institutions, “hindering their ability to attain the robust, sustained economic growth needed for development”.

In its first assessment of conflict zones since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, the World Bank urged western governments to step up support for war-torn countries to end the conflicts and rebuild vital institutions.

Since 2020 the level of national income per head of population has shrunk by an average of 1.8% a year in the affected countries, while it has expanded by 2.9% in other developing economies, the report found.

The World Bank, which lends to poor nations to promote stable economic growth, said acute hunger was increasing and development goals set by the United Nations were now “further out of reach”.

The report said: “This year, 421 million people are struggling on less than $3 a day in economies afflicted by conflict or instability – more than in the rest of the world combined. That number is projected to rise to 435 million, or nearly 60% of the world’s extreme poor, by 2030.”

The number of deaths in wars and conflicts across the world was stable before the 2008 banking crisis, which forced many developing countries to cut back welfare and education programmes to pay for rising debt payments.

The report said the average number of such fatalities was about 50,000 between 2000 and 2004 and even lower between 2005 and 2008, but then there was an increase to more than 150,000 in 2014. Since the pandemic the number of deaths in conflict has averaged 200,000, reaching more than 300,000 in 2022.

“For the last three years, the world’s attention has been on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and this focus has now intensified,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s chief economist.

“Yet more than 70% of people suffering from conflict and instability are Africans. Untreated, these conditions become chronic. Half of the countries facing conflict or instability today have been in such conditions for 15 years or more. Misery on this scale is inevitably contagious.”

He said of the 39 economies currently classified as facing conflict or instability, 21 are in active conflict.

Several major donors to investment programmes across the developing world have reduced their funding in recent years, including the UK and the US.

Some philanthropic organisations, including the Bill Gates Foundation, have said they cannot increase funding to fill gaps left by governments, leaving many countries to scramble for funds to pay loan interest payments.

According to the report, the extreme-poverty rate has fallen to 6% on average across all developing world countries. However, in economies facing conflict or instability the rate is nearly 40%.

The 39 countries have a rate of national income per head of $1,500 (£1,282) a year, “which has barely budged since 2010 – even as GDP per capita has more than doubled to an average of $6,900 in other developing economies,” the report said.

Joining the army of local militia can also be an attractive option for young men and women. In 2022, the latest year for which such data was available, more than 270 million people were of working age in these economies, yet fewer than half were employed.

“The global community must pay greater attention to the plight of these economies,” said M Ayhan Kose, the World Bank Group’s deputy chief economist.

“Jumpstarting growth and development here will not be easy, but it can be done – and it has been done before. With targeted policies and stronger international support, policymakers can prevent conflict, strengthen governance, accelerate growth, and create jobs.”

At least 16 people have been killed and 400 injured in Kenya as a nationwide demonstration to honour those killed during last year’s anti-government protests turned chaotic, with police clashing with protesters in different parts of the country.

A joint statement from groups supporting the protests said 83 people were seriously injured and at least eight people were being treated for gunshot wounds.

“We pray for our nation, dialogue and a way forward from the political impasse facing Kenya,” said the statement from the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the Police Reforms Working Group and the Kenya Medical Association.

Thousands of Kenyans took to the streets early on Wednesday to pay tribute to more than 60 people who died when police opened fire on a crowd that tried to storm parliament while MPs inside passed legislation to raise taxes.

“We face an unfortunate paradox as a country where more lives are being lost as the people seek justice for the lives already lost,” the LSK’s president, Faith Odhiambo, said on X. “Our hearts break for all the victims of the continued trend of police brutality and excesses.”

In Nairobi, police barricaded major roads a few kilometres from the central business district and turned away buses and minibuses farther away from the city centre. They also blocked off access to key buildings, including the parliament and the official residence of the president, William Ruto, with razor wire.

In the city centre, where many businesses were closed, thousands gathered for the march, waving Kenyan flags and placards with images of victims of last year’s protests.

Others lit street fires and chanted slogans against Ruto. Later violence ensued, with police firing tear gas and water cannons and hitting protesters with batons, while protesters threw stones and other objects at them.

A source at Kenyatta national hospital in Nairobi told Reuters the facility had received 56 people, most of them with injuries from rubber bullets.

The planned marches also developed into clashes between civilians and police in the cities of Mombasa, Nakuru and Kisumu and other parts of the country. Protestors torched parts of court buildings in Kikuyu town in Kiambu county.

The communications authority of Kenya ordered TV and radio stations to stop live coverage of the protests, threatening those that failed to follow the directive with regulatory action. NTV and KTN, two leading TV stations, were later taken off air.

Lawmakers left parliament buildings in Nairobi, and protests continued to intensify in the city centre. Elsewhere, throngs of people marched along major roads towards the capital.

Outrage has been growing in Kenya over the past few years due to corruption, unemployment, government excesses and rising living costs.

Wednesday’s protests come against a backdrop of demonstrations last year prompted by proposed tax increases, in which dozens of people died and many more disappeared.

The street protests reduced over time, but killings, arrests and disappearances continued, triggering more anger towards the authorities.

Two incidents this month – the death of the teacher Albert Ojwang in police custody after reportedly criticising a senior police official on social media, and the police shooting of the vendor Boniface Kariuki at close range during a protest over Ojwang’s death – have further inflamed public anger.

Stephanie Marie, a young protester in Nairobi, said she was at Wednesday’s march because of Ojwang. “It could be my brother, it could be my cousin, it could be anyone,” she said. “These are just normal boys, doing normal things.”

She called for leaders to heed what the they were saying: “The people voted. You’re here for the people. You’re working for the people ... We just want you to listen to the people. That’s it.”

Another young protester in Nairobi, Innocent, was commemorating the loss of his friend in last year’s protests. He said he’d been exposed to a lot of teargas from police on Wednesday but he was relentless.

“The youth are unstoppable,” he said. “Because we’ve come to fight for our rights.” He added: “We don’t want bad leadership”.

The funeral of the former Zambian president Edgar Lungu has been stopped while mourners waited in a cathedral in Johannesburg, as an extraordinary feud Lungu had with his successor continues to play out after his death.

A high court judge in Pretoria ordered a halt to Lungu’s burial at the Cathedral of Christ the King in central Johannesburg on Wednesday morning, following a last-minute request by by Zambia’s attorney general. Lungu’s black-clad wife arrived at the cathedral, visibly upset, shortly after the judge’s order and a mass was held instead.

The judge ordered a full hearing to take place 4 August.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died in South Africa this month aged 68 after an undisclosed illness. His family said he had made a specific request that the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, should not attend his funeral. The government had planned a state funeral presided over by Hichilema.

The attorney general, Mulilo Kabesha, told the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation that state funerals with full military honours were required by law, citing a previous local court ruling on the burial of Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda.

Kabesha said: “The high court ruled that a former president is not a private arrangement, is not private property, is national property and his burial should be handled by the state. The moment that a national mourning is declared, the law kicks in.”

Court papers filed by Kabesha said a grave had been prepared for Lungu in the national cemetery where all other former presidents were buried. A state funeral for Lungu has already been cancelled twice.

Hichilema defeated Lungu in a bitterly fought election in 2021, having lost to him in 2016. In 2017, Hichilema was sent to prison for four months on charges of treason, when his convoy did not give way to Lungu’s presidential motorcade. The charges were dropped and Hichilema released after an international outcry.

After Hichilema took power, Lungu accused his successor of targeting him and in effect placing him under house arrest. In 2023, police stopped Lungu from going out for runs, saying they were “political activism” and needed to be approved beforehand to “ensure public safety”.

Lungu’s wife, Esther Lungu, and their children have faced various corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing cars, which she was due to face in court this week.

Last year, Lungu attempted to return to frontline politics but was barred from running again for the presidency in next year’s election. Zambia’s constitutional court ruled that when Lungu took over as president after the incumbent, Michael Sata, died in 2015, the period until the 2016 election counted as a full first term in power.

Associated Press contributed to this report

The funeral of the former Zambian president Edgar Lungu has been stopped while mourners waited in a cathedral in Johannesburg, as an extraordinary feud Lungu had with his successor continues to play out after his death.

A high court judge in Pretoria ordered a halt to Lungu’s burial at the Cathedral of Christ the King in central Johannesburg on Wednesday morning, following a last-minute request by by Zambia’s attorney general. Lungu’s black-clad wife arrived at the cathedral, visibly upset, shortly after the judge’s order and a mass was held instead.

The judge ordered a full hearing to take place 4 August.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died in South Africa this month aged 68 after an undisclosed illness. His family said he had made a specific request that the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, should not attend his funeral. The government had planned a state funeral presided over by Hichilema.

The attorney general, Mulilo Kabesha, told the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation that state funerals with full military honours were required by law, citing a previous local court ruling on the burial of Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda.

Kabesha said: “The high court ruled that a former president is not a private arrangement, is not private property, is national property and his burial should be handled by the state. The moment that a national mourning is declared, the law kicks in.”

Court papers filed by Kabesha said a grave had been prepared for Lungu in the national cemetery where all other former presidents were buried. A state funeral for Lungu has already been cancelled twice.

Hichilema defeated Lungu in a bitterly fought election in 2021, having lost to him in 2016. In 2017, Hichilema was sent to prison for four months on charges of treason, when his convoy did not give way to Lungu’s presidential motorcade. The charges were dropped and Hichilema released after an international outcry.

After Hichilema took power, Lungu accused his successor of targeting him and in effect placing him under house arrest. In 2023, police stopped Lungu from going out for runs, saying they were “political activism” and needed to be approved beforehand to “ensure public safety”.

Lungu’s wife, Esther Lungu, and their children have faced various corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing cars, which she was due to face in court this week.

Last year, Lungu attempted to return to frontline politics but was barred from running again for the presidency in next year’s election. Zambia’s constitutional court ruled that when Lungu took over as president after the incumbent, Michael Sata, died in 2015, the period until the 2016 election counted as a full first term in power.

Associated Press contributed to this report

Kenyans plan to march countrywide on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the historic storming of parliament by protesters, to honour those killed during last year’s anti-government protests, but there are fears that the march could escalate into unrest.

Rights activists, family members of killed and missing protesters, and young Kenyans, who were the main drivers of last year’s protests, have mobilised online and offline, with opposition leaders terming the day a “people’s public holiday” and the government warning against attempts to disrupt public order.

Last year’s demonstrations, in which 60 people died and many more disappeared, were prompted by proposed tax increases. They started peacefully on 18 June but later turned chaotic after a violent police response, and people accused of being involved in the protests disappeared and were killed. The demands of the protests then widened to calls for reform and the resignation of the president, William Ruto.

In reaction, Ruto scrapped the finance bill that contained the proposed tax increases and restructured his cabinet to include opposition figures and create a “broad-based” government.

The street protests started declining from September, but killings, arrests, disappearances and public resentment towards the authorities continued.

A recent series of demonstrations were triggered by the death of a teacher, Albert Ojwang, this month while he was being held in police custody after reportedly criticising a senior police official on social media. Public anger erupted further as an officer shot a vendor, Boniface Kariuki, at close range during another round of protests last week.

In addition to concerns about police brutality, issues Kenyans protested about last year – including corruption, unemployment, government excesses and rising living costs – persist.

Mikhail Nyamweya, a political analyst, said the trust of many Kenyans – especially younger people – in the government remains low and they view the administration as “unresponsive and detached from everyday struggles”.

“Despite promises of reform, the Kenyan youth view the state as incapable of delivering and always quick to suppress dissent through coercive means,” he said. “Continued reports of human rights violations and inadequate accountability have reinforced the perception that little has changed.”

Wednesday’s plan includes peaceful processions in different parts of the country, and digital campaigns using hashtags. In Nairobi, people are expected to walk towards the parliament and the president’s office, laying flowers along the road and light candles outside the premises. Vigils were scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Recent demonstrations, including those over the death of Ojwang, have been infiltrated by men whom protesters have described as hired goons who disrupt protests by beating and robbing peaceful demonstrators.

Last week, Nairobi’s regional police commander, George Seda, called for calm from those who participate. “What I would like to urge the public is, let’s restrict ourselves to what we call ‘peaceful demonstrations’,” he said. “Let’s not have demonstrations that are going to interfere with other people who may not be part of the demonstrators.”

But some of Ruto’s allies and pro-government politicians have made threats against younger Kenyans. David Ndii, the chairperson of Ruto’s council of economic advisers, posted on X: “You allow yourself to be weaponised by self seekers, there’ll be casualties”, before telling a user: “Wewe tokea [You show up], and say your goodbyes before you leave home just in case you catch a stray.”

Rights activists have called for solidarity. “Let’s stand together as brothers and sisters tomorrow, united in solidarity,” said Hanifa Adan on X. “Let’s look out for one another and protect each other. May the Lord shield us from violence, political interference, and most of all, from the brutality of bloodthirsty police.”

In a joint statement on Tuesday, envoys from 12 countries including the US and the UK stated its support for “every Kenyan’s right to peaceful assembly and to express themselves” and urged all parties “to facilitate peaceful demonstrations and to refrain from violence”.

The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops called for peaceful activities on Wednesday and criticised excessive use of force by police during demonstrations.

“A society that instils fear in its youth for simply speaking out is a society walking away from justice,” Nyeri archbishop Anthony Muheria said at a press conference. “The government’s primary responsibility is to protect its citizens, not to threaten, silence, or punish them.”

The head of the World Health Organization has condemned an attack on a hospital in Sudan that he said had killed more than 40 civilians, as the country’s civil war, which has caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, rages on.

The attack on al-Mujlad hospital in West Kordofan happened on Saturday close to the frontline between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The WHO’s local office, which did not assign blame, said six children and five health workers were among the dead and that there were “dozens of injuries”.

The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces have been fighting since April 2023, when a power struggle broke out into open warfare in the capital, Khartoum. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 12 million displaced, 4 million of them to outside the country. More than 20 million are in need of food aid and areas of the country are in famine.

The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a post on X: “We cannot say this louder: attacks on health must stop everywhere!”

The RSF said in a statement on its website that the armed forces were responsible for Saturday’s attack. “The Rapid Support Forces strongly condemn and denounce the barbaric aggression … This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva conventions, which explicitly prohibit the targeting of health facilities and personnel,” it said.

The news site Darfur 24 cited the West Kordofan Emergency Response Rooms, part of a network of Sudanese grassroots humanitarian groups, as saying the attack was an airstrike carried out using a Sudanese military plane. Emergency Lawyers, a group that documents abuses by both sides in the war, said the hospital was hit by a military drone.

Nabil Abdallah, a spokesperson for Sudan’s military, said the allegations were false. “Sudanese armed forces do not violate international law and do not target civilians, but target the places of militia gatherings everywhere as legitimate targets, against facilities used by the militia for military purposes,” Abdallah said.

“These are lies and propaganda aimed at blaming false charges [on] the Sudanese state and its armed forces and [are] part of the regional and international conspiracy against Sudan.”

The United Nations’ children’s agency, Unicef, said in an X post: “The attacks do not only kill and injure but also severely impede the communities’ ability to receive life-saving services. We urge the government and all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law. The attacks and violence must end now.”

In January, 70 people were killed in an attack on what was then the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher, in the Darfur region. The attack was blamed on the RSF.

In March, Sudan’s armed forces recaptured the presidential palace as they asserted control over Khartoum. Meanwhile, the RSF consolidated their dominance over the western region of Darfur, where their predecessors, the Janjaweed Arab militias, were accused of committing genocide against non-Arab tribes in 2004.

Earlier this month, a UN aid convoy came under attack, with five people killed, as it tried to bring supplies to El Fasher, which has been under siege by the RSF for more than a year.

Virginia Gamba, the UN secretary general’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, told the UN Human Rights Council on Monday: “Both parties have committed serious human rights violations.”

She said: “RSF and allied armed Arab militias continue to conduct ethnically motivated attacks against the Zaghawa, Masalit and Fur groups. The risk of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan remains very high.”

Residents of two Nigerian communities who are taking legal action against Shell over oil pollution are set to take their cases to trial at the high court in 2027.

Members of the Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger delta, which have a combined population of about 50,000, are suing Shell and a Nigerian-based subsidiary of the company, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, which is now the Renaissance Africa Energy Company.

The two communities began the legal action in 2015, claiming they had suffered systemic and ongoing oil pollution for years due to the companies’ operations in the African country, including the pollution of drinking water.

They are seeking compensation and asking for the companies to clean up damage caused by the spills.

The companies are defending the claims, saying that the majority of spills are caused by the criminal acts of third parties or illegal oil refining, for which they are not liable.

On Friday, Mrs Justice May ruled on more than 20 preliminary issues in the claims after a hearing held in London over four weeks in February and March.

She said that “some 85 spills have, so far, been identified”, but added that the case was “still at a very early stage”.

Her findings included that Shell could be sued for damage from pipeline spills caused by third parties, such as vandals, in efforts to steal oil, a process known as bunkering.

She also said that, while there was a five-year limitation period on bringing legal claims, a “new cause of action will arise each day that oil remains” on land affected by the spills.

The cases are due to be tried over four months, starting in March 2027.

Reacting to the ruling, the leader of the Ogale community, King Bebe Okpabi, said: “It has been 10 years now since we started this case. We hope that now Shell will stop these shenanigans and sit down with us to sort this out. People in Ogale are dying; Shell need to bring a remedy. We thank the judicial system of the UK for this judgment.”

A Shell spokesperson said that the company also welcomed the judgment. They said: “For many years, the vast majority of spills in the Niger Delta have been caused by third parties acting unlawfully, such as oil thieves who drill holes in pipelines or saboteurs.

“This criminality is the cause of the majority of spills in the Bille and Ogale claims, and we maintain that Shell is not liable for the criminal acts of third parties or illegal refining. These challenges are managed by a joint-venture, which Shell’s former subsidiary operated, using its expertise in spill response and clean-up.”

Your editorial (The Guardian view on Zambia’s Trumpian predicament: US aid cuts are dwarfed by a far bigger heist, 10 January) highlights research by Prof Andrew Fischer, and the exploitation of Zambia’s commodity resources via illicit financial schemes. Many Zambians have raised the issue of this looting for years, but have met coordinated resistance. Consequently, Zambia’s treasury loses billions of dollars in revenue. These losses are driven by well-known multinationals working in concert with certain insiders close to the Zambian state.

Your editorial also says: “The US decision to cut $50m a year in aid to Zambia … is dreadful, and the reason given, corruption, rings hollow.” Alas, I disagree and wish to place this in context.

The aid cut followed large-scale theft of US-donated medical supplies by individuals connected to and within the Zambian state. Even before Donald Trump assumed office, Michael Gonzales, the US ambassador, confronted Zambian authorities about this. US officials engaged in 33 meetings with senior members of the Zambian government and officers from the Zambia police service and other law enforcement agencies. US officials urged the Zambians to take action to ensure medicines reached the country’s poorest citizens. The president’s inner circle ignored the warnings, ultimately leading to the aid cut. The Zambian government’s reaction was to dismiss these legitimate concerns, saying diplomats should stay out of Zambia’s internal affairs.

This response is inadequate, as the issues go beyond mere bureaucratic inefficiency and touch on profound state corruption.

The government’s refusal to confront this reality is disappointing and has led to more suffering, where ordinary people who benefited from this aid will be most affected.
Emmanuel Mwamba
Zambia’s high commissioner to South Africa (2015-19)

As a Zambian and UK citizen, I am both enraged and heartbroken by Prof Andrew Fischer’s research exposing the systematic plunder of my country’s wealth. While Donald Trump cuts our aid, citing “corruption”, the real thieves operate with complete impunity under the guise of legitimate business.

The figures are devastating: $5bn extracted in 2021 alone. This isn’t corruption in the traditional sense, it’s legalised theft orchestrated by multinational corporations that exploit our resources while leaving us in poverty. How can we be called corrupt when the very system designed to “help” us facilitates our exploitation?

I think of my fellow Zambians struggling to access basic healthcare, education and clean water while billions flow to Swiss bank accounts. We sit on some of the world’s most valuable mineral deposits, yet we’re drowning in debt. This isn’t coincidence – it’s by design.

Foreign direct investment is often foreign direct extraction in disguise. Companies like Glencore and First Quantum Minerals have treated Zambia like a cash machine, using complex financial structures to strip our wealth while paying minimal taxes. When confronted, they simply leave or settle for pennies in the pound.

This global economic architecture, which enables legal plunder, must be challenged. African countries need new models of resource governance that prioritise our people over foreign shareholders. We need transparency requirements exposing these shadowy financial flows, progressive taxation capturing fair value from our resources, and regional cooperation preventing companies from playing us against each other.

The west’s moralising about corruption while facilitating this systematic theft is breathtaking hypocrisy. Until the international community addresses the structural violence of this extractive system, their aid will remain what it truly is – a drop in the ocean compared with the torrent of wealth flowing out of Africa.
Fiona Mulaisho
London

A woman from Yorkshire has died from rabies after contact with a stray dog while on holiday in Morocco, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.

Yvonne Ford, from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, was diagnosed in Yorkshire and Humber after returning from the north African country in February.

In a Facebook post, Ford’s daughter Robyn Thomson said her mother had become infected after being “scratched very slightly by a puppy”.

“At the time, she did not think any harm would come of it and didn’t think much of it,” Thomson wrote. “Two weeks ago, she became ill, starting with a headache and resulted in her losing her ability to walk, talk, sleep, swallow.”

Thomson, who said her mother died soon afterwards, warned people about the dangers of rabies. “We never thought something like this could happen to someone we love,” she wrote. “Please take animal bites seriously, vaccinate your pets, and educate those around you.”

The UKHSA said there was no risk to the wider public because there was no evidence that rabies could be passed between people. However, as a precautionary measure it was assessing health workers and close contacts to offer vaccination where necessary.

Rabies is a deadly virus spread via the saliva of infected animals, and people usually contract it after being bitten.

Animals such as cows, cats and foxes can carry the virus but, in some countries, stray dogs are the most likely to spread rabies to humans.

Once a person shows signs and symptoms of rabies, the disease is nearly always fatal, but treating a wound immediately after being bitten may prevent death.

The first symptoms can be similar to flu, while later symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, agitation, anxiety, difficulty swallowing and excessive saliva.

The case is only the seventh time this millennium that a person in the UK has been diagnosed with rabies after exposure to an infected animal. All cases started with the person becoming infected abroad.

In he UK rabies is not found in wild or domestic animals and, aside from cases linked to individuals being bitten by bats, which can carry a rabies-like virus, there has not been a reported case of a person becoming infected in the UK from an animal other than a bat since 1902.

Inflected people may develop fears over such things as swallowing drinks and can experience hallucinations and paralysis.

Dr Katherine Russell, the head of emerging infections and zoonoses at the UKHSA, said: “I would like to extend my condolences to this individual’s family at this time.

“If you are bitten, scratched or licked by an animal in a country where rabies is found, then you should wash the wound or site of exposure with plenty of soap and water and seek medical advice without delay in order to get post-exposure treatment to prevent rabies.”

Clothes discarded by UK consumers and shipped to Ghana have been found in a huge rubbish dump in protected wetlands, an investigation has found.

Reporters for Unearthed working with Greenpeace Africa found garments from Next in the dump and other sites, and items from George at Asda and Marks & Spencer washed up nearby.

The dumps are in an internationally recognised wetland that is home to three species of sea turtle. Local people complain that their fishing nets, waterways and beaches are clogged with synthetic fast-fashion garments exported to Ghana from the UK and Europe.

In a third dump on the banks of the river leading to the conservation site, Unearthed reporters found garments from M&S, Zara, H&M and Primark.

The fashion labels acknowledged that the industry faces challenges in processing textile waste. M&S, George and Primark said they ran take-back schemes intended to help address the issue. H&M, Zara and George said they would support an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework to hold labels accountable for their products’ end-of-life impact.

The global fast-fashion overspill has overwhelmed Ghana’s capital, Accra, with tangled clothes carpeting city beaches and lining canals.

New dump sites are springing up beyond urban areas and in conservation areas that are vital for wildlife, the investigation found. Reporters also found textile waste, including UK labels, tangled in vegetation, half-buried in sand, and in waste washed up at a beach resort where a manager said he burned piles of clothes every week.

At the heart of Ghana’s used clothing trade is Kantamanto, one of the world’s biggest secondhand clothes markets. It receives more than 1,000 tonnes of clothes every week, but one trader said the quality was worse than it used to be. “In the past, we had good clothes to sell to take care of our families, but these days the used clothes we find in the bales are not fit for resale,” said Mercy Asantewa. “They are poorly made and are already falling apart when we open the bales.”

There is only one engineered dump site in the region, and another is being built. The head of Accra’s waste management department, Solomon Noi, calculates that 100 tonnes of garments leave the market daily as waste. The city is able to collect and process just 30 tonnes.

“The remaining 70 tonnes end up in waste dumps, drains, lagoons, wetlands and the sea and other environmentally sensitive places,” he said.

UK consumers discard about 1.5m tonnes of used textiles every year. Many do not get recycled. About 730,000 tonnes a year are incinerated or go into landfills. Of the 650,000 tonnes sent to be reused and recycled, 420,000 – more than two-thirds – are exported. Ghana receives more than any other country.

A group of Ghanaian traders visited Brussels in 2023 and argued that the EU should introduce EPR legislation to hold fashion companies accountable for the end-of-life impact of their products. The UK’s Textile Recyclers Association has asked the government to consider something similar.

Ghana’s Densu delta is designated a site of international importance under the intergovernmental Ramsar convention on wetlands. Endangered leatherback and green turtles lay their eggs there, and the mudflats also support rare roseate terns, which migrate from the UK, and curlew sandpipers.

Unearthed’s reporters found two recently opened dump sites in the wetland’s protected area and a third dump upstream on the banks of the Densu.

Properly engineered landfills include a lined bottom, a system for collecting and treating leachate, groundwater monitoring, gas extraction and a cap system. Drone footage of the Akkaway dump, the newest site, shows a large area of the wetlands where the vegetation had been removed. Piles of waste sit on bare earth, close to lagoons and streams, with no lining or other visible pollution mitigation systems.

An official from the local government, the Weija Gbawe municipal assembly, told a reporter that it was in charge of the Akkaway dump and supervised the work there. Siting a new dump site in protected wetlands, however, appears to violate Ghana’s environmental policy and landfill guidelines, and the country’s obligations under the Ramsar convention.

The assembly did not respond to a formal request for comment.

People who depend on the wetlands for their livelihoods said they were worried about the impact of the pollution. Seth Tetteh, 31, has lived near the delta for seven years. “It’s only since three years ago that they started dumping the borla [the waste] further upstream. So when you start fishing and cast your net, it brings in fish, clothes and other things, so … the fishermen … find it very tedious,” he said.

“Before, you could drink [the river water]. But now, when you go, you can’t drink it. The water is a bit black.”

Residents near the upstream dump, called Weija Ashbread, told reporters that before the site existed, the area was mostly wild. . There were “alligators, bush cats … all kinds of birds and rabbits too”, said Ibrahim Sadiq, 19, a student who lives nearby. Now when it rains “there are so many mosquitoes and the smell, it’s very bad”.

An M&S spokesperson said the company did not send excess clothing to any other country or landfill, but offered customers

“options to give their clothes another life with our recently launched repair service by Sojo, and with our in-store take-back recycling schemes with partners such as Oxfam for clothing and Handle for beauty products, as part of our plan A to reduce our impact on the planet”.

A spokesperson for George, Asda’s clothing brand, said there had been no increase in the volume of textiles produced or the number of annual fashion seasons it put out over the past 10 years, and that they had more than 800 recycling banks and a take-back scheme.

“We have a zero-waste policy, which applies to our total business,” the spokesperson said. “We would be supportive of exploring a textile EPR, providing any fees generated are used to improve the recycling infrastructure in the UK.”

A statement from Primark said: “We don’t authorise any of the clothing collected through our customer textile takeback scheme or any of our unsold stock to be sent to Ghana or anywhere else in Africa … We know that no single company can solve the issue of textile waste alone. Real progress will only come if the industry comes together. ”

H&M acknowledged that the industry faced challenges such as a lack of end-of-life solutions and fully scaled recycling solutions for discarded textiles. A spokesperson said: “While this is an industry-wide challenge, we acknowledge our role in contributing to the problem, notably when our products reach markets with inadequate or no waste management or recycling infrastructures.”

A spokesperson for Zara’s parent company, Inditex, said Zara would support an EPR policy mandated by the government: “We believe that advancing toward common legislation in this field will establish a unified framework that sets the same rules for all players. We understand that the separate collection of textile waste is the foundation of a circular model. That is why we not only promote new textile recycling technologies but also develop the necessary capabilities to make them feasible.”

Next did not respond to a request for comment.

• Additional reporting by Viola Wohlgemuth and Richa Syal

If male baboons were subject to the same kind of cultural commentary as humans, the phrase “deadbeat dads” might be called for, such is the primate’s relatively limited involvement in raising their young.

But a study suggests that even their little effort might go a long way, with female baboons who experience a stronger relationship with their fathers when young tending to live longer as adults.

“Among primates, humans are really unusual in how much dads contribute to raising offspring,” said Prof Elizabeth Archie, co-author of the research from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“Most primates’ dads really don’t contribute very much, but what the baboons are showing us is that maybe we’ve been under-appreciating dads in some species of primates.”

In the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Archie and colleagues reported how they studied wild baboons in Kenya, focusing on 216 females fathered by 102 males, as confirmed by genetic data.

The team studied the frequency of grooming interactions between fathers and daughters during the first four years of the females’ lives, as well as recording the total number of days fathers and daughters lived in the same group over that period. They then tracked how long the daughters lived as adults.

Archie said the team focused on female offspring because males often moved to other social groups as adults, making it difficult to track how long they live.

The researchers found that female baboons who, during the first four years of their life, lived in the same group as their fathers for longer and spent more time grooming with them, lived two to four years longer as adults than those who experienced weaker relationships with their dads. If only one of the two occurred, an increase of about two to three years was found, Archie added.

“A typical lifespan for a female baboon, if she reaches adulthood, [is] 18 years,” she said, noting that females tended to have offspring every 18 months or so. “So living two to three years longer would allow her time potentially to have another kid.”

That, Archie added, might provide an incentive for fathers, given males were less able to fight others for mates as they get older.

“They can no longer compete for females, but what they can do is help their daughters,” said Archie. “And if their daughters live a little bit longer, then the fathers will pass on more genes and have higher fitness because their daughters are living longer and having more kids.”

The researchers found that strong relationships between young females and adult males in general, or with males who were not their fathers, was not associated with an increase in females’ survival as adults.

Archie said it was not yet clear why the strength of early-life relationships between daughters and fathers might affect females’ survival as adults, but said a number of mechanisms could be at play.

Among them, she suggested fathers were more likely to step in should their daughters get into fights, or by sheer intimidation create a “zone of safety” around them so they were less likely to have food stolen or be injured or harassed – helping them grow into healthier adults.

But, Archie noted, there was another possibility.

“Maybe it is just that healthy daughters have good relationships with their fathers, and they also live longer,” she said.

The US government funding cuts will hit a chimpanzee conservation project nurtured by the primatologist Jane Goodall.

USAid has been subjected to swingeing cuts under Donald Trump, with global effects that are still unfolding. Now it has emerged that the agency will withdraw from the Hope Through Action project managed by the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). USAid had pledged $29.5m (£22m) over five years to the project, which was designed to protect endangered chimpanzees and their habitats in western Tanzania.

Launched in November 2023, the project is intended to protect endangered chimpanzees through reforestation and “community-led methodology” in order to conserve biodiversity conservation and improve local livelihoods.

Its work is built upon Jane Goodall’s research.She “redefined species conservation” by highlighting the importance of cooperation between local people and the natural environment to protect chimpanzees from extinction.

According to JGI figures, chimpanzees have become extinct in three African countries, and overall population numbers have fallen from millions to below 340,000.

Goodall criticised Trump during his first term in office when he signed an executive order dismantling Barack Obama’s clean power plan. She called Trump’s climate agenda “immensely depressing”.

In collaboration with JGI Austria, Ecosia – a Berlin-based search engine that donates 100% of its profits to climate action – has offered $100,000 over the next three years to further TGI Tanzania’s Gombe reforestation project. The donation far from covers the original funding amount, but it is intended to pay for the planting of 360,000 seedlings, work put at risk after the project was defunded.

The director of JGI Austria, Diana Leizinger, said: “We refuse to abandon people and nature. Where hope could have been destroyed, we are helping it grow again.”

An analysis in April by Refugees International found that 98% of USAid’s awards related to the climate had been discontinued.

USAid was approached for comment.

UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.

With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.

“I’m calling for the UN general assembly to authorise peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys,” said the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food.

Fakhri’s call for intervention comes amid deepening concern over the increased targeting of aid convoys in Africa and the Middle East.

The UN’s human rights office said it was “deeply disturbed” by the rising number of attacks, warning that any attempt to block aid or target humanitarians was a war crime.

Recently, humanitarian convoys have been deliberately targeted in Central African Republic and also in Haiti in the Caribbean.

Earlier this month, a UN aid convoy of 15 trucks – the first attempt to reach the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher for a year – was attacked, killing five people.

The most high-profile obstruction of aid, however, involves the Gaza Strip. Three months ago, Israel imposed a full humanitarian blockade on Gaza, cutting off food and other critical supplies to the Palestinian territory. Aid convoys entering Gaza have also been repeatedly attacked.

Fakhri said that unless there was concerted international intervention to protect aid delivery throughout the world, humanitarian organisations would eventually cease distribution, creating a “dystopia”.

He said the UN security council, which passed a resolution in 2018 condemning the unlawful denial of aid to civilians, had been rendered ineffective because members kept vetoing attempts to help.

“Where the security council is blocked by a veto, the general assembly has the authority to call for peacekeepers,” said Fakhri.

He said such a move could happen quickly with a majority vote of the 193 member states required – a proportion that Fakhri predicted would easily be reached.

“What the general assembly would do is politically implement what countries are already obliged to do.”

Frustration over the lack of international action to safeguard vital aid supplies – particularly in Gaza – has forced activists to take matters into their own hands.

Last week, a yacht attempted to break the Israeli blockade and deliver aid to Gaza but was prevented by Israel.

On the same day the boat was intercepted, a land aid convoy set off from Tunisia with the similar intention of breaking Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.

In Africa, aid delivery in Sudan has become increasingly fraught as key routes are blocked or attacked while aid facilities and humanitarian workers have been targeted.

Jeremy Laurence, a Geneva-based spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said: “We are deeply disturbed by the intentional obstruction of aid trying to reach civilians from Gaza to Sudan and elsewhere, including through attacks on aid convoys.

“Worryingly, these practices appear to be on the increase,” Laurence said. “Wilfully impeding relief supplies to starve civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.”

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch described as “horrifying” the spike in the frequency and severity of attacks on humanitarian workers.

Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director at HRW, said:“Last year set a grim record for the number of humanitarian workers killed in conflict zones – more than 360 – most of them in Gaza but also in Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere.”

Fakhri added: “Whoever controls aid has a significant amount of power in a particular region and conflict.”

He warned that if attacks continued then traditional aid distributors such as the UN could be forced to give up.

“It makes it less likely for the UN, for the international community, for the Red Cross, for civil society organisations, to do that work and then who will take over? These militarised operations seen in Gaza?” he said.

Fakhri was referring to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israel-backed logistics group that aims to replace Gaza’s UN-led food and humanitarian supply distribution network.

Last Wednesday, Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza who were seeking food from a GHF distribution centre, with dozens more wounded.

Charbonneau urged greater justice for attacks on humanitarians and aid convoys. “One big motivator is impunity, which emboldens the governments of Israel, Russia, the warring parties in Sudan and others to target or fire indiscriminately at civilians, including humanitarian workers,” he said. “The problem is they feel confident they can get away with it.”

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with a death in custody, the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread anger and protests in the capital.

Albert Ojwang, 31, died in police custody last weekend after he was arrested over his criticism of a senior officer online.

Police said initially he died after hitting his own head against the wall, but a government pathologist later said the injuries were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

The case has renewed focus on long-standing allegations of police brutality in the east African country and protesters have called for the resignation of deputy inspector general Eliud Kipkoech Lagat, the subject of Ojwang’s comments.

On Friday, police spokesperson Michael Muchiri confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a constable had been arrested in connection to the incident. He gave no further details and redirected inquiries to the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

A spokesperson for the IPOA, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Muchiri said five officers had been removed from active duty, to “allow for transparent investigations”.

President William Ruto has called for a swift investigation, and promised on Friday the government would “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

The arrest follows the IPOA saying 20 people had died in custody in the past four months.

Ojwang’s death has been a catalyst for simmering anger over a spate of abductions following anti-government protests last year. Rights groups say dozens were illegally detained in the rallies’ aftermath, with many still missing, and others have been arrested for criticism of the government and Ruto.

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with a death in custody, the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread anger and protests in the capital.

Albert Ojwang, 31, died in police custody last weekend after he was arrested over his criticism of a senior officer online.

Police said initially he died after hitting his own head against the wall, but a government pathologist later said the injuries were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

The case has renewed focus on long-standing allegations of police brutality in the east African country and protesters have called for the resignation of deputy inspector general Eliud Kipkoech Lagat, the subject of Ojwang’s comments.

On Friday, police spokesperson Michael Muchiri confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a constable had been arrested in connection to the incident. He gave no further details and redirected inquiries to the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

A spokesperson for the IPOA, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Muchiri said five officers had been removed from active duty, to “allow for transparent investigations”.

President William Ruto has called for a swift investigation, and promised on Friday the government would “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

The arrest follows the IPOA saying 20 people had died in custody in the past four months.

Ojwang’s death has been a catalyst for simmering anger over a spate of abductions following anti-government protests last year. Rights groups say dozens were illegally detained in the rallies’ aftermath, with many still missing, and others have been arrested for criticism of the government and Ruto.

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with a death in custody, the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread anger and protests in the capital.

Albert Ojwang, 31, died in police custody last weekend after he was arrested over his criticism of a senior officer online.

Police said initially he died after hitting his own head against the wall, but a government pathologist later said the injuries were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

The case has renewed focus on long-standing allegations of police brutality in the east African country and protesters have called for the resignation of deputy inspector general Eliud Kipkoech Lagat, the subject of Ojwang’s comments.

On Friday, police spokesperson Michael Muchiri confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a constable had been arrested in connection to the incident. He gave no further details and redirected inquiries to the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

A spokesperson for the IPOA, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Muchiri said five officers had been removed from active duty, to “allow for transparent investigations”.

President William Ruto has called for a swift investigation, and promised on Friday the government would “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

The arrest follows the IPOA saying 20 people had died in custody in the past four months.

Ojwang’s death has been a catalyst for simmering anger over a spate of abductions following anti-government protests last year. Rights groups say dozens were illegally detained in the rallies’ aftermath, with many still missing, and others have been arrested for criticism of the government and Ruto.

A wave of anger and frustration has gripped South Africa after the murder of 30-year-old Olorato Mongale, allegedly by a man she went on a date with. It is the latest in a series of high-profile cases of violence against women and children in the country.

Friends of Mongale, a former journalist who had been studying for a master’s degree in ICT policy, raised the alarm when she stopped checking in with them while on a date in Johannesburg on 25 May. Her body was found that day.

The main suspect, Philangenkosi Makhanya, was killed in a shootout with police five days later, while another suspect, Bongani Mthimkhulu, remains on the run. South African police said more than 20 women had come forward to claim the two men had kidnapped and robbed them after masquerading as suitors at malls across South Africa, in what police called a “romance dating scam”.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, according to available data. In the year to 31 March 2024, more than 27,600 people were murdered, 5,578 of them women and 1,656 children, according to South African police data.

Globally, in 2023, approximately 1.3 women per 100,000 were killed by an intimate partner or relative, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) found that during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic the rate was 5.5.

Cameron Kasambala, the community manager at the advocacy group Women For Change, said: “Women die no matter what they do. They’ve been stabbed while they sleep, shot in broad daylight and had their houses burned down by former partners.”

She pointed to the violent repression of South Africa’s black majority by the white minority during apartheid, which ended more than three decades ago. “Men compensate by becoming hypermasculine, by being violent and aggressive … It’s rooted in our violent history and exacerbated by poverty and substance abuse,” said Kasambala.

Other high-profile cases have included Racquel “Kelly” Smith selling her six-year-old daughter Joshlin, and that of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a student whose rape and murder in 2019 sparked huge protests. However, activists emphasise that thousands more go unnoticed every year.

In April, Women For Change handed over a petition with 150,000 signatures demanding that the government declare “gender-based violence and femicide” (GBVF) to be a national disaster. Kasambala said: “This stance will then filter down to the police, the courts and hospitals.”

Sindisiwe Chikunga, the minister for women, youth and persons with disabilities, replied in a letter: “The government remains fully committed to a whole-of-society, multi-sectoral response to the GBVF crisis.” She did not mention the national disaster demand.

Naeemah Abrahams, who leads the SAMRC’s femicide research, said: “When we try and solve it, it’s not going to be just the law. We’ve got great laws.”

Social norms around men being financial providers fuel violence, Abrahams said, with many believing, “if women step out of these societal expectations, she should be corrected for it”.

Mongale’s loved ones were incredibly proud of her achievements, said Criselda Kananda, the best friend of Mongale’s mother, Keabetswe. These included teaching English in South Korea and buying a flat in her home city of Bloemfontein.

Kananda said: “Olorato was such a bubbly ball of energy, who just lit up any space that she entered, who never took no for an answer.”

On Monday, Mongale’s mother went to her only child’s apartment for the first time since her death and found baking ingredients ready to make a cake. Kananda said: “We really are struggling … It’s things like these that are now painting a reality that she is no more.”

Family, friends and supporters of the jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah have spoken about the conditions of his long imprisonment as his mother, Laila Soueif, remains in a London hospital in declining health on a hunger strike to secure his release.

Amid a mounting campaign to put pressure on British ministers to intervene more forcefully on Abd el-Fattah’s behalf, supporters say his continued detention is part of a campaign of vengeance motivated by the personal animus of the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, towards him.

The activist, who came to prominence during Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square protests, has been jailed twice, the second time months after his release from prison in 2019, and continues to be imprisoned despite completing his five-year sentence last autumn.

Abd el-Fattah’s first period in prison – from 2015 to 2019 – was spent in the Tora maximum-security prison, a place designed to hold violent jihadists, but since 2018 he has been held in Wadi al-Natrun in Beheira province in the Nile delta.

While the physical conditions are less harsh than in Tora – where Abd el-Fattah was beaten – his treatment in Wadi al-Natrun has been designed deliberately to isolate and demoralise him, say supporters, depriving him for three years of books and limiting his contact with other prisoners.

Between September 2019 to May 2022 he was held in a small, poorly ventilated cell, denied a bed and mattress as well as reading materials and exercise. “The idea was to crush his spirit,” says Mona Seif, his sister, who has visited her brother in jail. “I think after so many trials and attempts to break him, the regime has realised that the way crush to him is to isolate him from the world and render him mute. That’s been the tactic since his second period in jail beginning in 2019.”

What has become clear to Seif, and others campaigning to release him, is that the treatment of her brother is being driven by a very personal animosity directed at Abd el-Fattah and his family by Egypt’s president.

“It seems very personal,” says Seif. “Since 2019 the unofficial messages we have been getting from different Egyptian institutions is that our file is with Sisi.”

Abd el-Fattah was a familiar and always approachable figure in Tahrir Square during the 2011 mass protests that led to the fall of the government of Hosni Mubarak. Articulate, passionate and thoughtful, his great skill was seen in bringing different groups together.

Sentenced to jail for organising a political protest without permission in 2015, Abd el-Fattah was briefly released in March 2019 but was rearrested months later and charged with spreading “fake news undermining national security” for a retweet.

One person with a personal insight into what Abd el-Fattah has been through is the activist and poet Ahmed Douma, who was imprisoned during his first spell in jail in Tora, where for 10 months the two men were in separate, solitary cells facing each other, until the authorities decided their proximity was a problem.

Unlike Abd el-Fattah, Douma was pardoned and released by Sisi in 2023. January 2011 – when 18 days of mass protests led to the resignation of the then president, Hosni Mubarak – “was, still is, and will forever remain a personal enemy to Sisi. And Alaa was one of the symbols of that period,” Douma told the Guardian.

“At the same time, he’s an activist who has audience and influence – a thinker with his own philosophy and interest in how political movements develop, how people move, how they understand things.

“And of course, he also became a symbol of the stupidity of the authorities.

“The truth is that even one hour in prison inevitably leaves an impact, and it’s not trivial,” adds Douma, who spent more than 10 years in prison. “There’s depression from what happened in prison, whether things that happened to you directly or which you witnessed. Torture, assault and so on.

“It’s not just the impact on the body, but on the mind. At some point, you realise that you’ve been in solitary confinement for days, months, days or years, with no communication. I haven’t even begun the journey of recovery from the effects of those 10 years.”

Aida Seif El-Dawla, a psychiatrist, human rights defender and co-founder of El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, says: “Look, in Egypt, detention is a psychological torture. I don’t know what those people are punished for except that they expressed an opinion. And to put people in prison because they expressed an opinion, that’s not a legal punishment. But apparently, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi thinks otherwise.

“This is the punishment of the saddest father who tortures his children for non-obedience.”

What is clear is that the Egyptian authorities regard Abd el-Fattah’s detention as open ended, holding him beyond his originally scheduled release date and also holding another potential prosecution over him.

Mahmoud Shalaby, a researcher at Amnesty International who deals with Egypt, says: “The whole thing is about making an example of him. He’s already been brutally punished. He has spent almost 10 years in prison solely for practising his human rights. Alaa’s case is extremely extraordinary, especially as Egypt has a history of releasing dual nationals who are arbitrarily detained.

“I think the fear is that if he was released, he would go abroad and criticise the government from there. But that’s not a reason to keep him arbitrarily in prison.”

His lawyer, Khaled Ali, says: “Alaa should have been released on 28 September last year.” Instead, the courts have declined to include his period of pretrial detention, prior to ratification of the sentence, meaning he will not be released until 2027 – if then.

Ali says: “He was sentenced to five years in prison and he has been detained since 28 September 2019. His sentence should have ended on 28 September 2024.”

After a hunger strike in 2022, Abd el-Fattah has been allowed access to books and now a television in Wadi al-Natrun, from where he is able to write and receive letters from his family.

“Alaa and my mum are both big science fiction fans and so he reads a massive amount,” says Seif. “Science fiction, graphic novels and anything to do with science. Now he is allowed a television, he follows tournaments. He’ll treat a tournament as a whole project. If Wimbledon is on, he will follow for the day.

“But because of the way the prison was constructed, the exercise area is a big hole with concrete walls and no ceiling. He hasn’t walked in sun for over five years.”

The family are able to monitor his mood via his response to the cats that have sought shelter in the prison and whom he has adopted. “If his mood is good he shares lots of pictures of the cats.” His mood in recent months as his release date has come and gone has not been good.

Attempts by successive British governments and EU officials – among others – to intervene behind the scenes have been a failure as Egypt has faced no consequences for its human rights abuses. Lacking interlocutors with influence within Sisi’s immediate circle, Abd el-Fattah’s case is stuck, even as his mother’s health in London has dangerously worsened.

One person who has been involved in advocacy for Abd el-Fattah says: “The policy of private engagement has been going on for over 10 years. You only see movement on human rights issues in Egypt where there is the threat of action.”

Seif says: “They just want his absolute surrender and Alaa completely broken and mimicking the regime’s narrative. Even the slightest indication of independence they see as defiance. The whole thing is a senseless act of pure vengeance that leaves us to keep guessing, what is it for, and when will be enough.”

Ahmed Douma adds: “If I could send him a message and tell him anything, I would tell him that we are with him. And that his freedom and Laila’s life are our personal battle.”

The severe thunderstorms that have been lashing parts of Europe over recent days are expected to give way to high temperatures this week. Several regions could climb to 10C (50F) above seasonal norms, with Italy braced for the full force of the heat. Florence in Tuscany is forecast to soar to a sweltering 39C on Thursday and across the weekend.

Germany, France and Belgium will also face hot weather from Wednesday, with widespread highs at least 9C above the June average. Many other parts of Europe are forecast to experience temperatures 5-7C above normal. This is the result of a high-pressure system creating a heat dome over the region, whereby sinking air compresses and warms as it descends, trapping heat near the surface.

Meanwhile, South Africa is in the grip of a powerful storm system that has triggered alerts for severe weather nationwide. Over the weekend, Western Cape and Northern Cape bore the brunt of the system. As the week progresses, the storm is likely to intensify and move eastwards, bringing extreme weather to central and eastern regions.

The conditions are driving a significant drop in temperature, with daytime highs in some areas plummeting to more than 7C below the seasonal average. Gusty winds are making it feel even more frigid.

Heavy rain has also been hammering Eastern Cape, with coastal areas expected to be hit by more than 100mm on Monday, potentially causing floods. Strong winds sweeping across the region are expected to strengthen to about 60mph (100km/h) on Monday, exacerbating the impact of the storm. Snowfall is also expected, with significant accumulations likely to cause widespread travel disruption and infrastructure challenges.

The intense weather is the result of a strong cut-off low system, which occurs when a low-pressure area becomes detached from the main jet stream. This allows cold, dry air to descend from higher altitudes and combine with moisture at the surface to produce the volatile mix of rain, wind and snow that has been battering swaths of the country.

South African authorities are urging residents to stay alert, limit travel and monitor official weather updates over the coming days.

The Kenyan government has told its tea factories to stop working with the Rainforest Alliance because it says the costs involved in securing the ethical label don’t add up for farmers.

The non-profit organisation is one of the world’s most recognisable certification schemes with its green frog seal on food packaging a sign consumers “can feel confident that these products support a better world”.

However the world’s third largest tea producer has ordered tea factories to suspend certification work because the cost is adding to the financial strain on struggling smallholders.

A recent Fairtrade Foundation poll found only one in five tea workers and farmers in Kenya are earning enough each month to support their families with essentials.

In a memo issued after an industry summit, the agriculture principal secretary, Paul Ronoh, said the “burden of implementation” of the Rainforest Alliance scheme was vested on tea factories then “cascaded to the tea farmers and growers”.

This cost “ordinarily should be met by the customers”, Ronoh said.

Rainforest Alliance is a global non-profit organisation that works to promote sustainable agriculture, forestry and responsible business practices.

The green frog seal appears on nearly 240 brands and is almost ubiquitous in UK supermarket tea ranges with big names including Tetley, PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea among those signed up. About half the tea consumed in the UK comes from Kenya.

The widespread demand for ethical certification is linked to the reputational risk of sourcing from tea-producing regions with a long list of problems. These include low wages, unsafe working conditions, gender inequality and environmentally unsustainable practices.

In addition, countries such as India and Kenya are grappling with climate crisis-related weather changes.

However critics complain that while buyers for western markets only want to buy certified tea they rarely offer to pay a premium for it.

While UK consumers are happy to splurge on coffee, the same is not true of tea. The average price of a teabag is “just 2 or 3p” despite the fact that the cost to grow and pick tea is increasing, according to a recent Fairtrade Foundation report on the subject.

Although Rainforest Alliance facilitates certification, it does not set the fees charged by external auditors who evaluate whether growers meet its “sustainable agriculture standard”.

The cost of certification depends on factors such as farm size, with growers often grouping together. For a smallholder-managed tea factory the annual cost is estimated to be about $3,000. This could come down however as a streamlined process that cuts the preparation work involved in an audit is being introduced this year.

Ronoh said that as the Rainforest Alliance logo “had not demonstrated solid impact commensurate to the costs of implementation, the meeting resolved to suspend the scheme with immediate effect”.

Tea is a major cash crop for Kenya and the decision comes as the country grapples with the knock-on effect of a moribund tea price on the millions of people who rely on it for their livelihood.

The Rainforest Alliance says it is engaging with the State Department of Agriculture in Kenya to “gain clarity and to work towards a joint resolution quickly”.

It has contacted certificate-holders to assure them that the endorsement remains valid until the expiration date, meaning “farmers are able to sell their tea as certified”.

A spokesperson said: “We remain committed to supporting in Kenya to the fullest extent possible, and our tea brands and companies have communicated that they remain fully committed to continuing to purchase Rainforest Alliance certified tea.”

The Kenyan government is said to be considering putting in place a localised certification model. It would likely have similar sustainability goals but lower compliance costs and less administrative complexity.

A spokesperson for the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), an NGO focused on tackling problems in the tea sector, said it hoped the Kenyan suspension would be “short-lived and that a solution to this current impasse will be found”.

Certification is a “critical tool to allow all stakeholders in the tea supply chain to ensure that the workers, farmers and communities who rely on tea for their livelihoods are being treated fairly”, the ETP added.