World Bank: COVID-19 to push five million more Nigerians into poverty in 2020

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Monday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Monday.

Extreme poverty is set to rise this year for the first time in more than two decades, with coronavirus expected to push up to 115 million people into that category, the World Bank has said.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Saturday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Saturday.⁣⁣⁣⁣

Civilians accounted for most of the more than 5,000 landmine deaths and injures recorded last year, according to the 2020 Landmine Monitor report. Myanmar, says the report, is the only state actor actively planting them.

Alan Sinfield, the Chief Executive Officer of 9Mobile speaks to GuardianTV exclusively on customer growth, competition, COVID-19 response, and how the pandemic actually affected their revenue.

Amid falling prices of raw materials, recession, and now COVID-19, Africa is in serious trouble as debt burden grows. Zambia is on the brink of defaulting on its foreign debt as a so-called grace period expires. 

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Tuesday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Tuesday.⁣

French charity Secours Catholique recently published its annual report on poverty. The NGO, which helped around 1.4 million people in 2019, estimates that their median income is €537 per month, well below the poverty line in France. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, people across job sectors have been left with little or no work, with many households slipping into poverty as a result. Our colleagues at France 2 report, with FRANCE 24's James Vasina.

The World Bank has downgraded its previous prediction for global growth in 2021 to 4 percent. The organisation warned of a subdued recovery that could lag even further if countries do not stem the rise in coronavirus infections and effectively deploy vaccines. The European Union is also starting to look ahead to how to spend its recovery fund – with the largest recipient, Italy, on the brink of political crisis.

The brewer Heineken is cutting 8,000 jobs around the world, around 10 percent of its current workforce. The Dutch company reported losses of €204 million for 2020, as Covid-19 restrictions shut down much of the hospitality sector over the past year. Also today, we look at President Joe Biden's efforts to win support from business leaders for his $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan. He hosted several top CEOs for a meeting in the White House on Tuesday, along with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

A recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit on the state of democratic freedoms has downgraded France to a "flawed democracy", as civil liberties in rich and poor countries alike come under attack amid Covid-19 restrictions. We discuss the delicate balancing act of protecting individual freedoms in the midst of a global health crisis with the report's author Joan Hoey, Europe Editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit. She says that although "nobody has put forward a convincing alternative to the policy of lockdowns and social distancing", checks and balances remain essential.

Rich countries need to share their Covid-19 vaccines evenly amongst the entire global population, or else the coronavirus will never go away. That's the message from the organisation The ONE, which campaigns to end extreme poverty and preventable disease. The NGO has created a series of films called "Pandemica" to highlight the argument that if Covid-19 is not tackled universally, it will continue to mutate and cross borders. We spoke to the deputy director of The ONE in France, Maé Kurkjian.