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Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir
The writer, Dr Yossef Ben-Meir, is a sociologist and president of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) in Morocco.
MARRAKECH (IDN) – Bill Nichols served as a volunteer consultant to the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) through the Farmer-to-Farmer Program (F2F) for two weeks in January 2020. Originally from New Mexico, now residing in Boston, Bill collaborated as an F2F volunteer with four of HAF’s tree nursery cooperatives in southern Morocco.
Viewpoint by Inge Kaul
The writer, Dr Inge Kaul, is Senior Fellow, Hertie School, Berlin and Non-resident Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC.
BERLIN (IDN) – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen organized two spectacular fund-raising events, one on May 4 and the other on June 27, 2020. The first drive collected €9.8 billion and the second €6.15 billion, including €4.9 billion announced together by the EU and the European Investment Bank.
Viewpoint by Patrick I Gomes
The writer, Dr Patrick I Gomes, was Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States for five years until Angola's Ambassador to the European Union, Mr. Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti, took over on March 1. The 79-nation inter-regional body officially became the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) on April 5, 2020. Dr Gomes was previously Ambassador of the Republic of Guyana, to the EU in Brussels.
Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback
The writer is a market analyst and commentator. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NEW YORK (IDN) – Major talks between the United States and the European Union to establish a shared tax framework for multinational companies broke down on the issue of seeking to secure an agreement on digital taxation. Big tech, which is heavily a U.S. creation, has long been in the sights of European economies, as their profits and revenues have soared and they have increasingly become major components of the 21st-century economy.
Viewpoint by Dr Natalia Kanem and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Dr Natalia Kanem is the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka Executive Director of UN Women.
NEW YORK (IDN) – As the Syria crisis enters its 10th year, the situation is especially dire for women and girls, with the effects of COVID-19 compounding the risks and hardships for millions of people inside the country and for refugees around the region.
Today nearly 12 million people in Syria require urgent humanitarian assistance and around 4 million depend on cross-border aid. Some 5.7 million Syrians have fled and are now residing in countries throughout the region.
Viewpoint by Alfredo Saad Filho*
LONDON (IDN) – The COVID-19 pandemic has stress-tested countries, economies and political systems like never before. Nowhere has the outcome been more devastating than in Brazil, arguably the country with the worst pandemic response in the world.
Brazil’s vulnerabilities are visible in the mass graves in São Paulo and Manaus. The country is competing with the USA for the largest number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases (more than one million) and the highest number of fatalities (above 50,000 – but likely to be a vast undercount). Disturbingly, there is no sign that Brazil’s cases or deaths have peaked yet.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It is a common trait in mankind to apply to ourselves a generosity of interpretation which we do not extend to others. We find proofs of wickedness, using evidence that we would not use against our own. We play down the sins of ourselves, our own country and our leaders, past and present.
In the days of the Nazi government in Germany, there was an inbuilt tendency in the Allies' reporting to distort what Hitler was doing. For example, they wanted to pin on him the fact that in the early days of the war that he had started the indiscriminating bombing of civilians. In fact, it was begun by the directors of British strategy, as some of the more honest of them later boasted.
Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
The writer, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
BANGKOK (IDN) – Developing countries of Asia and the Pacific are experiencing unbalanced tolls of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grim milestones in infections and deaths have left countless devastated. Yet, we must look at the economic and social impacts in small island developing States (SIDS), where setbacks are likely to undo years of development gains and push many people back into poverty.
Viewpoint by Dr Ram Puniyani
This article is the 11th in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship of the International Press Syndicate. The writer is a former professor of biomedical engineering and former senior medical officer affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (now Mumbai).
NEW DELHI (IDN) – In Minneapolis, the African American George Floyd lost his life as the white policeman, Derek Chauvin, caught hold of him and put his knee on his neck. This is a technique developed by the Israeli police. For nine long minutes, the knee of the white policeman was on the neck of George, who kept shouting, "I can't breathe".
Viewpoint by Lord Rami Ranger
The writer, Lord Rami Ranger, CBE of Mayfair is a Member of the British House of Lords.
LONDON (IDN) – There is a mischievous campaign against the statues of Mahatma Gandhi in the UK and other countries including the US launched by misguided and ill-informed few.
These statues were erected by a great public demand to recognise the immense contribution of Gandhi Ji to the free world. As a result, this protest is unwarranted, uncalled for, unnecessary and above all, counterproductive. [Ji is a gender-neutral honorific used as a suffix in many languages of the Indian subcontinent]
This interactive WHO dashboard/map provides the latest global numbers and numbers by country of COVID-19 cases on a daily Basis.
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