Kenya’s slum football team kicks poverty to the curb

Lawyer Shadrack Wambui has turned to boxing to help young people in poor Nairobi neighbourhoods, combining his passion for the sport with informal lessons on the law and legal clinics to resolve marital disputes.

Food parcels are distributed by charity groups in Tokyo to help the the growing number of Japanese pushed into poverty by the coronavirus pandemic.

Local authorities in China's Hunan province designated farmer Liu Qingyou's family as impoverished in 2014 as Xi ramped up a "targeted poverty relief" strategy that sent officials door-to-door to assess poorer households. But from his vantage point, Liu and his family of five still live modestly, and he worries for their future -- despite being counted as lifted from poverty.

Rights activists and medical experts have urged the government to take concrete actions to prevent underage marriages. Activists say poverty is one of the biggest push factors behind child marriage in Pakistan.

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

The Federal Executive Council has approved the National Poverty Reduction With Growth Strategy submitted by the Presidential Economic Advisory Council.

Police fired tear gas canisters at DW's East Africa correspondent Mariel Müller while she was covering a protest in Nairobi. Amnesty International and the Foreign Press Association of Africa have condemned the attack.

Is it better to be poor in the US or India? What does living below a country's poverty line mean for the way people sustain themselves? We speak to photographer-economist duo Chow and Lin about their book "The Poverty Line", a decade-long project that explores what living with limited resources means for the dinner plates of different communities around the globe. Their exhibition "Summer of Fireflies: The Poverty Line Solo Exhibition" will be showing at the Rencontres d'Arles festival from July 4.

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

With prices soaring in crisis-hit Lebanon, many women can no longer afford sanitary pads. Packs of sanitary towels now cost between 13,000 and 35,000 Lebanese pounds -- between $8.60 and $23 at the official exchange rate -- up from just 3,000 pounds ($2) before the economic crisis. With more than half the population living in poverty, tens of thousands of women are now on a desperate hunt for affordable alternatives. Some women are making their own, using baby nappies or even rags.

Inside the rundown building in Kariobangi-North, it's almost entirely women and girls, all training under the watchful eye of boxing coach Alfred Analo Anjere -- founder of BoxGirls Kenya. In 14 years, more than 3,000 girls and women have taken up the sport at the centre. All started out for the same reason -- wanting to defend themselves in their gritty neighbourhoods, which are harsh worlds where poverty prevails and it is survival of the fittest.

Pope Francis said that those who are indifferent to the poor "offend God." In a Christmas season overshadowed by coronavirus worries, he also urged followers to value the "little things in life."