South Africa’s president says it has been a “dark and shameful week” for his country following a surge in violence against women. Cyril Ramaphosa’s remarks come after several femicides, including one woman who was eight months pregnant and found stabbed and hanging from a tree.

He noted they had occurred since some coronavirus restrictions were lifted, including a ban on the sale of alcohol.

The culture of silence around gender-based violence had to end, he said. “Gender-based violence thrives in a climate of silence. With our silence, by looking the other way because we believe it is a personal or family matter, we become complicit in this most insidious of crimes,” President Ramaphosa said. As many as 51% of women in South Africa had experienced violence at the hands of someone they were in a relationship with, the president’s statement said.(BBC)…[+]

A woman has hatched three ducklings called Beep, Peep and Meep from eggs she bought in Waitrose. Charli Lello, 29, from Hertfordshire, put the Clarence Court eggs in an incubator as an experiment to pass the time after being furloughed. She said the ducklings would live “a very happy life” with her pet chickens. A Waitrose spokesman said fertilised eggs were safe to eat and “entirely indistinguishable” from normal eggs, unless incubated. 

Ms Lello, who normally works as an assistant manager in a shop, got the idea after seeing a video on Facebook of someone hatching quail eggs from a supermarket. “While I was in Waitrose, I saw the duck eggs and thought maybe they would work as well. I was so excited for them to hatch but I still had in the back of my mind that these are supermarket eggs. “They have been collected, bashed around on a delivery truck, then rattled around on a trolley onto a shelf, picked up and put down by who knows how many people, so they still might not go all the way.”(BBC)…[+]

India is to convert another 500 railway carriages to create 8,000 more beds for coronavirus patients in Delhi, amid a surge in infections. Home Minister Amit Shah announced a package of new emergency measures for the capital, including a rapid increase in testing for Covid-19. Nursing homes will also be requisitioned.

He met Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to address the crisis. India’s daily number of confirmed new cases has reached almost 12,000. The total number of 320,922 officially confirmed cases puts India fourth in the world – after the US, Brazil and Russia – in the pandemic. The death toll in India stands at 9,195, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University from official sources. The Hindustan Times reports that Delhi is the third worst-hit state in India after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. It reports that Delhi’s bed capacity across private and government hospitals for Covid-19 patients stands at 9,698, of which 4,248 beds are vacant.(BBC)…[+]

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in cities across Lebanon amid escalating protests as the country faces a collapse in its currency. Anger has surged as the Lebanese pound tumbled to record lows, having lost 70% of its value since October when protests began. The prime minister has called an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the economic crisis.

The protests paused during coronavirus lockdown, but recently resumed. The depreciation of the Lebanese pound has plunged the country into its worst economic crisis in decades. Many Lebanese citizens who rely on hard currency savings have fallen into poverty, their plight worsened by the pandemic.(BBC)…[+]