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Ein zwölf Stockwerke hoher Wohnblock ist in der Nacht auf Donnerstag (Ortszeit) mitten in Miami eingestürzt. Die Feuerwehr der Stadt ist mit einem Grossaufgebot vor Ort.

Der Bund erhöht im Juli den Import von Kartoffeln um 5000 Tonnen. Wegen der schlechten Wetterbedingungen im April und Mai und dem hohen Verbrauch der Haushalte sind die Lagerbestände zurückgegangen.

Clint Capela und die Atlanta Hawks starten mit einem Auswärts-Sieg in die NBA-Halbfinal-Serie gegen die Milwaukee Bucks.

Eawag-Forscherinnen haben für ihren Umwelttoxizität-Test basierend auf Fischzelllinien das Gütesiegel der OECD erhalten. Mit dem Test lässt sich die Giftigkeit von Chemikalien ohne lebende Fische prüfen.

Kurz vor dem Bundesrats-Entscheid mischt sich Ex-Armeechef André Blattmann in die Kampfjet-Beschaffung ein. Er stellt infrage, ob die Schweiz überhaupt neue Flieger braucht. Die Offiziersgesellschaft tobt.

Überflutete Keller und lahmgelegte Zugstrecken nach heftigen Unwettern, keine Einreisesperre trotz Delta-Corona-Variante und die Gegner der Schweizer Nati im EM-Achtelfinal. Das und mehr auf Blick TV.

A 50MW lithium-ion battery energy storage system has come online in Cowley, on the outskirts of Oxford, in what is described as a UK first. EURACTIV's media partner, edie.net, reports.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Am Mittwoch ist zwischen dem Zuestoll und Tschingla ein 33-jähriger Basejumper mit seinem Wingsuit abgestürzt und tödlich verunglückt. Er sprang zusammen mit zwei weiteren Männern aus einem Helikopter.

KYIV, 24 June 2021 – The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Heidi Grau, made the following statement to the press after the regular meetings of the TCG ‎and its Working Groups held through video conferencing:

“In recent weeks, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) has observed a deterioration of the security situation in the disengagement areas. Also, the Mission continues to record the use of heavy weapons deployed in violation of the withdrawal lines. In addition, there are continued restrictions and other impediments to the freedom of movement of the OSCE SMM as well as targeting its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This precludes an effective implementation of the Mission's mandate.

Ceasefire violations were in the focus of the Security Working Group and the TCG. I regret to say that it was not possible to agree on concrete measures that could improve the security situation. The participants exchanged proposals for a joint document on the coordination and verification mechanism, however they could not reach consensus. An attempt to advance the discussion with regard to demining was also ineffective.

The Political Working Group continued informal consultations. Nevertheless, for quite some time now it has not been possible to find a constructive approach and fulfil the task of the TCG to develop an action plan in full compliance with the Minsk agreements. I would like to note that in this case procedural issues prevail over discussion of concrete measures.  

The participants of the Humanitarian Working Group had an in-depth discussion as regards the exchange of conflict-related detainees, paying particular attention to the aspect of “procedural clearance”. The remaining obstacles to the simultaneous opening of the new crossing points near Zolote and Shchastia in the Luhansk region were also duly considered.

Discussions in the Economic Working Group focused on water supplies, pension payments and property rights. Particular attention was also paid to environmental issues, in particular the possible establishment of an expert group on flooded mines. In this context, the participants were able to agree on a number of important procedural issues.

On their last day of duty in the TCG, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ambassador Pierre Morel, Coordinator of the Political Working Group and Ambassador Toni Frisch, Coordinator of the Humanitarian Working Group. In the course of the past six years, their diplomatic skills coupled with outstanding commitment and creativity, were crucial in facilitating progress on key aspects of the Minsk agreements.”

A woman in the Dominican Republic receives food from a government soup kitchen set up to help fight hunger triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, UN agencies warn against rising hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Credit: WFP/Karolyn Ureña

By Luis Felipe López-Calva
NEW YORK, Jun 24 2021 (IPS)

The first wave of COVID-19 never ended in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Since the region became a hotspot for the pandemic in June 2020, successive waves have continued to build upon the first.

Despite being home to just 8% of the world’s population, the region has suffered 20% of total confirmed COVID-19 cases and 32% of total confirmed COVID-19 deaths. The relentless spread of the virus has brought with it not only the tragic loss of so many lives, but also devastating economic and social damages.

Poverty and hunger are once again on the rise in the region and growth prospects are bleak. With limited access to vaccines in many countries, hopes for a return to “normal” remain distant.

Luis Felipe López-Calva

What went so wrong? With adequate warning of the spreading virus, many countries in the region responded swiftly at the onset with strict containment measures.

Unfortunately, in LAC it was not only the response to the pandemic that mattered – but fundamentally, the “pre-existing conditions” that characterized the region prior to the pandemic’s arrival.

These pre-existing conditions, or structural weaknesses, made countries in the region more vulnerable to the multiple and interconnected crises associated with COVID-19.

UNDP’s recently launched Regional Human Development Report, “Trapped: High Inequality and Low Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean”, looks at two of these conditions: high-inequality and low-productivity.

It explores how underlying factors related to ineffective governance work to propel these outcomes in a mutually reinforcing vicious cycle (a “trap”). In particular, it highlights how the concentration of power in the hands of “the few” works to distort public policies in ways that both perpetuate existing patterns of inequality and hold back productivity growth in the region.

Exiting this trap will only happen if countries take bold action to embrace systemic solutions that consider the complexity of the dynamics between governance, inequality, and productivity. For years, countries in the region have invested in various solutions to address these challenges.

Community kitchen serves hot lunches for Peruvians. Credit: WFP/Guillermo Galdos

However, many of these responses were short-term, designed to separately address different symptoms of a much deeper problem. This has left countries with a large set of fragmented and costly policies that segment the labor market, provide erratic risk protection to households, do not redistribute income sufficiently towards lower-income groups, and bias the allocation of resources in ways that punish productivity and stable growth.

The region cannot afford to stay stuck on this path.

While the pandemic has accelerated the urgency of this challenge, citizens were already demanding change before we knew what COVID-19 was. As citizens poured onto the streets of LAC in late 2019, it became eminently clear that “business as usual” was not working for “the many.”

LAC countries made important development progress over the past thirty years, but the events of more recent years have revealed just how fragile that progress was. We celebrated a temporary reduction of inequality in the 1990s and early 2000s, but it was both insufficient and unsustainable—largely propelled by a commodity boom, targeted cash transfers, and a compression of the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers.

While many countries achieved middle-income status, they have been unable to consolidate themselves as middle-class societies. Millions have been left behind as opportunities have fallen short of people’s aspirations for their own lives and their expectations of their governments.

What we have learned is that there is no single “silver bullet” policy that can change this. The region already has many “good” policies in place. The challenge we face now is a structural one.

It requires rethinking the foundations of our systems from a longer-term perspective and considering the interconnected ways in which these issues work to reinforce one another in positive or negative directions.

While there are many potential entry points, the potential for universal social protection systems that ensure that everybody is protected, that income is redistributed towards those in need, that the policies deployed to achieve these aims provide incentives to firms and workers to increase productivity, and that the sources of revenue are sustainable, is particularly important.

This requires a principle of universality understood in three complementary dimensions: (i) All the population exposed to a given risk needs to be covered through the same program; (ii) The source of financing should be the same for each program, based on the type of risk covered; and (iii) When programs provide in kind benefits, quality should be the same for all.

A social protection system built around these universal principles offers the region a route to increasing spending in social protection while strengthening the foundations of long-term growth, and a path to enhance social inclusion.

Moving in this direction could represent “a third moment” in the history of social protection in the region. The first moment occurred over 75 years ago, when countries began the construction of their social protection systems; and the second moment occurred in the early 1990s, as countries emerged from the “lost-decade” of the 1980s.

It is possible that the current moment of crisis associated with COVID-19 may open the required political space for this third moment to take place, as countries contemplate substantial changes to their social protection and taxation systems in their efforts to contain social damage, restore fiscal balances, and resume growth.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, UN Development Program (UNDP)

Les autorités allemandes chargées de la concurrence font pression sur les géants américains de la technologie depuis l’entrée en vigueur de nouvelles règles en janvier.

Heute u.a. mit dabei: Rechtes Werben um Viktor Orbán, Ausbreitung der Delta-Variante des Coronavirus, und neues EU-Geld für die Türkei.

Une vingtaine d’artistes plasticiens africains ou impliqués dans le continent participent à une exposition collective d’art contemporain sur le thème du masque à la maison rouge à Cotonou.

Une vingtaine d’artistes plasticiens africains ou impliqués dans le continent participent à une exposition collective d’art contemporain sur le thème du masque à la maison rouge à Cotonou.

Wir bekommen es am Montag im Achtelfinal in Bukarest (21 Uhr) mit dem dicksten Brocken zu tun: Weltmeister Frankreich. Kein Grund, Trübsal zu blasen. Unser Motto gegen «Les Bleus»: Allez, les Rouges!

Le fabricant de téléphone tiendrait des pratiques anticoncurrentielles selon Bercy qui a engagé des poursuites contre la compagnie américaine, apprend-on mercredi (23 juin).

Die heftigen Gewitter sorgen auch bei den öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln für Chaos. Verschiedenste Bahnlinien sind unterbrochen. Der Flughafen-Bahnhof Zürich ist wieder teilweise befahrbar.

Az Egyesült Államok és az Európai Unió “agresszív” politikája miatt erősödik a bizalmatlanság Európában – vélekedett Vlagyimir Putyin egy Németországban megjelent írásában, amely szerint a Krím félsziget “kilépett” Ukrajnából.

A Die Zeit című liberális német hetilap hírportálján a Szovjetunió elleni náci hadjárat kezdetének 80. évfordulója alkalmából közölt vendégkommentárban az orosz államfő úgy vélte, hogy a Vörös Hadsereg “hősei” nemcsak szülőföldjük függetlenségét és méltóságát védelmezték, hanem “megmentették Európát és az egész világot a rabszolgaságtól”, és nem azért léptek német földre, hogy bosszút álljanak a németeken, hanem hogy “beteljesítsék nagy és nemes felszabadító küldetésüket”.

A világháború szörnyűségei ellenére az európai nemzeteknek sikerült visszatérni a kölcsönös bizalomhoz és tisztelethez, és elindultak az integráció felé, hogy lezárják a huszadik század első felének “európai tragédiáit” – írta Putyin. Kiemelte: “reméltük, hogy a hidegháború vége győzelem lesz egész Európának”, és megvalósul a “Lisszabontól Vlagyivosztokig” egységes kontinens eszméje.

Oroszország éppen ebben a szellemben, a “közös értékek és érdekek” által összetartott “nagy Európa” kiépítésének logikája alapján igyekezett formálni kapcsolatait az európaiakkal. Azonban egy más megközelítés érvényesült, amelynek alapja a konfrontációra építő “hidegháborús relikvia”, a NATO bővítése – fejtette ki Putyin, rámutatva, hogy öt bővítési hullámban 14 új tagot vettek fel a szervezetbe, köztük egykori szovjet tagköztársaságokat.

Úgy vélte, az erősödő bizalmatlanság fő oka a katonai szövetség kiterjesztése keletre, azaz Oroszország határai felé. Hozzátette: sok ország “ultimátumot” kapott, választania kellett a “kollektív Nyugat” és Oroszország között. Ennek az “agresszív politikának” a következményeit szemlélteti a 2014-es “ukrajnai tragédia”, amelyben Putyin szerint Európa tevőlegesen támogatott egy “fegyveres, alkotmányellenes államcsínyt” Ukrajnában.

“Ezzel kezdődött minden” – vélekedett az orosz elnök, aki szerint az Egyesült Államok által szervezett és az Európai Unió tagállamai által támogatott puccs vezetett Ukrajna megosztottságához és ahhoz, hogy a Krím félsziget “kilépett” Ukrajnából. Ugyanakkor Oroszország mindennek ellenére továbbra is nyitott a “fair és kreatív együttműködésre” – fejtette ki az orosz elnök.

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