The donations keep coming. Today, The Childhood Trust has become the second charity to join us in raising and allocating funds, as it contributes £500,000 to our On the Breadline appeal, taking the total after just one week to an incredible £2.5 million.
Cash raised by the Childhood Trust is different, in that it will go to children living in poverty in London. As such, funds from the Trust will be targeted at funding initiatives that support disadvantaged children in the capital, while cash raised with Comic Relief will go wider — funding organisations that support people of all ages who are struggling in every corner of Britain.
We need your support. To help children affected by the cost-of-living crisis in London, donate here.
Jolie keeps up the fight
Rape and sexual violence have all too often been wielded as a weapon of war. They must be defeated.
Angelina Jolie, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Special Envoy, has worked tirelessly for a decade to bring to bear global attention to these crimes. The Standard has long supported her.
As Jolie told this paper today: “The rapes reported during the invasion of Ukraine follow a familiar pattern: soldiers move into a civilian area and attack and abuse women, out of a sense of impunity and entitlement.” This is compounded by the fact that sex offenders often feel “untouchable”, with little deterrent or accountability.
In 2008, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1820, which declared that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide”.
Yet appalling sex crimes have been committed by Russian forces during the war in Ukraine, with the first harrowing accounts filtering out of Bucha, Irpin and over areas surrounding Kyiv following the initial withdrawal.
So it is with anticipation that, starting today, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is hosting a two-day conference in London to renew efforts to tackle the scourge of sexual violence in conflict in many countries including Ukraine, Ethiopia and Colombia. We must not only listen to the testimony and recommendations of survivors of such horrific crimes, but act on their recommendations to support their demands.
Impunity ought never be countenanced. We should work together with the international community to ensure that those who commit these crimes — and the leaders who condone them — face the fullest extent of the law.
Dinosaurs go large
Dinosaurs are back, and they are bigger than ever. London’s Natural History Museum is preparing to host the titanosaur, which in its prime was 37 metres long, 5 meters tall and would have weighed 57 tonnes. This makes Diplodocus a relative lightweight, at a quarter of the mass.
The dinosaur is set to go on display in the spring, providing an opportunity for visitors to be awed not only by its size and grandeur but to think more about the natural world and our impact on it.
