More than 950,000 Belgians have responded to a couple seeking €1.9m ($2m; £1.7m) to cover the cost of their baby’s life-saving treatment. Nine-month-old Pia, who has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and lives in Antwerp, requires the drug Zolgensma, which has not been approved for use in Europe but is available in the US.

Her parents have now raised enough for a single course of treatment. “I can fly instead of crawl,” a message on the TeamPia fundraising page said. Belgium has a population of 11.4 million and Pia’s mother, Ellen De Meyer, said almost one in 10 Belgians had contributed. The money was raised through a text messaging donation service – €2 for each text received – launched just days ago and through contributions to a campaign posted to the crowdfunding site GoFundMe.”It is overwhelming that a country can come together for something like this,” Ms De Meyer told Belgium’s VRT News, adding: “The fact that this happens in two days is insane.”(BBC)…[+]

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says urgent action is needed to tackle gender-based violence in the country. At an emergency sitting of parliament, Mr Ramaphosa said figures of violence against women and children were similar to those of a country at war.

Some 2,700 women and 1,000 children were murdered by men last year and at least 100 rapes were reported daily. The spike in violence against women has ignited protests in many parts of the country. Mr Ramaphosa pledged $75m (£60m) for measures including public education, strengthening the criminal justice system, increasing sentences for perpetrators of sexual offences and providing better care for victims.

The plan also includes measures to improve women’s economic power. Murders recorded by the police have been rising every year for the last decade, and sexual offences including rape have risen 4.6% this year.

Mr Ramaphosa also addressed the recent xenophobic attacks which gripped parts of Johannesburg a few days ago and acknowledged that South Africa was facing a serious crisis of violence and intolerance. He said a fact finding mission led by two former African heads of state would investigate the causes of recent violent attacks in the country.(BBC)…[+]

SANTIAGO – Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s ex-president and now the UN human rights chief, has denied allegations by a Brazilian businessman under investigation in Brazil’s massive Car Wash scandal that he paid $141,000 to cover debts incurred by her 2013 presidential campaign.

Bachelet, a socialist who served from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018, denied the claims that were reported on Monday by the Brazilian newspaper Folho de Sao Paolo. It said Leo Pinheiro told prosecutors as part of a plea bargain that his engineering firm, OAS, paid the money at the suggestion of the former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “My truth is the same as always, I have never had links with OAS,” she told Chilean TV station 24 Horas in Geneva.

Lula is serving a 12-year prison sentence for taking bribes in connection with the scandal, which involved payoffs and political kickbacks on contracts with oil company Petrobras and other state-run companies. Cristiano Zanin Martins, Lula’s lawyer, told Reuters his client had not recommended any such payments and that the latest claims were part of a “strategy” by prosecutors to persecute Lula “politically”.

“Leo Pinheiro’s version is denied by a statement filed on Feb. 7, 2017 by his own company – OAS – which said that ‘no contracts or donations were made to former presidents of the Republic, nor for institutes or foundations linked to them’,” he said.(Reuters)…[+]