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A Szlovákiai Fitneszközpontok Uniója autós tiltakozó felvonulásra indul a Pozsonyba vezető autópályán – a templomok után az edzőtermek megnyitását követelő tüntetők lassú haladással fogják akadályozni a forgalmat.

China ought to preserve Hong Kong's "high degree of autonomy, in line with ... international commitments", EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said on behalf of the EU, after new Chinese security measures that threatened to violate the 1997 China-UK deal on Hong Kong's special status. Borrell hoped for "continued stability and prosperity". But China's move was "the death knell" for Hong Kong democracy, the US said.

Europe must issue "perpetual bonds" to fund pandemic bailouts or risk collapse, billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros said Friday. "If the EU is unable to consider it now, it may not be able to survive," he said. Perpetual bonds never mature, but pay interest for ever. "What would be left of Europe without Italy?", Soros added, noting that Italy was most at risk of crashing out of the EU.

EU pandemic bailouts should be loans, not grants, and there should be no joint debt, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden said in a joint statement Saturday. "We propose to create an Emergency Recovery Fund based on a 'loans for loans' approach," they said. Arrangements should "not [lead] to any mutualisation of debt", the so-called "frugal four" added, after France and Germany earlier agreed more generous conditions.

The looming collapse of the Irish border deal, threatening security, is the elephant in the room in Brexit talks, a top UK think-tank has warned.

Alarm Phone, a hotline service for migrants in distress, has released video footing showing an Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) boat making dangerous manoeuvres next to people swimming for their lives at sea. Malta does not deny the footage.

Germany's Federal High Court (BGH) will announce later on Monday (25 May) its first ruling in the Dieselgate emissions scandal, which is set to guide other courts and have a major impact on the entire auto industry. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Among the casualties of coronavirus - worldwide and in the EU - is the defence sector. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has not made the world a less dangerous place and there is no alternative to having a functioning defence system.

Power is like manure, it should be spread, never piled up.

The EU Council announced last week (20 May) it had "adopted a decision to provide up to €3bn of macro-financial assistance to 10 enlargement and neighbourhood partners to help them cope with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic". "Financial assistance will be provided in the form of loans on highly favourable terms", its added. At €1.2bn Ukraine will get the largest loan. Tunisia will receive €600m.

The European Commission’s Farm to Fork strategy released last Wednesday makes bold first steps towards recognising the value of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Europe’s pest management professionals trained in IPM understand better than anyone how it now should be implemented widely throughout European societies to promote public health.

Szombattól a bergi határátkelőnél már átengedték az otthoni karantént igénylőket, azóta a szlovák-cseh határon Drétománál (Drietoma), valamint a szlovák-osztrák határon Horvátjárfalunál (Jarovce) belépők is intelligens karanténba vonulhatnak. Az eKaranténa alkalmazás egyelőre csak Androidos telefonokra tölthető le. Szombaton 5 új COVID-19 fertőzöttet diagnosztizáltak Szlovákiában, halálos áldozata nem volt a kórnak.

The "Frugal Four" (Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden) presented their own draft for an EU recovery fund in a 'non-paper' sent to the EU capitals on Saturday (23 May). The most important point: aid money must be repaid. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Human development backslides, education at global levels ‘not seen since the 1980s’ Young girl in Uruguay uses her laptop to study at home. Credit: UNDP Uruguay/Pablo La Rosa

By Saida Ali
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 25 2020 (IPS)

When I was a little girl, my mother told us the story of a woman who escaped from a monster by cooking stones: when the monster fell asleep waiting for his dinner, the woman ran for her life.

I thought of this tale when I read last month about Peninah Bahati Kitsao, a Kenyan widow who boiled stones in the hope of lulling her eight children to sleep. In Peninah’s case, the monster was hunger and poverty.

Shocked and saddened, Kenyans took to social media to call for help for her, but just a week later, Peninah’s four-month-old baby died. Unlike my mother’s story, unfortunately, there will be no escape from the monster for Peninah and millions of people like her, unless the world agrees to take action – and quickly.

For widowed women such as Peninah, the convergence of gendered norms and social and economic inequalities has always determined what befalls them: in the past, during the coronavirus crisis, and doubtless after the pandemic ends.

The multiple inequalities that she and so many other marginalised people face are not new phenomena: COVID-19 has merely placed them in the spotlight. These are the inequalities that have been the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for the past five years.

When governments around the world adopted the SDGs’ 17 global goals and 169 targets in September 2015, they pledged to end poverty and food insecurity, protect the planet and ensure that no one would be left behind in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity by 2030.

These 17 ambitious goals were to be at the heart of a revitalized global partnership built on the spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable. But as the COVID-19 pandemic grips the planet, the threat of a collapsing global economy has further slowed the limited progress that has been made on achieving these goals – to the point where the 2030 vision now looks more like a mirage than a roadmap.

In Niger, 1.6 million vulnerable children are affected by humanitarian crises, including border closures and COVID-19 containment measures.

As the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis continues to wreak havoc across the world – with the most vulnerable suffering the most – the UN chief said on last week that the task of eradicating poverty and achieving the development goals “has never been more challenging, more urgent and more necessary”. Credit: UNICEF/Juan Haro

Even long before the pandemic, it was clear that these goals would be challenging to achieve. Before the finalisation and adoption of the 2030 Agenda, feminists and civil society organisations participating in the negotiations were raising red flags when they realised that the implementation of the global goals would be undermined by the lack of will on the part of governments around the world to financing its development agenda and committing to the systemic, structural change essentials to tackling the roots of extreme poverty, economic inequality and the rising concentration of wealth.

COVID-19 crisis aside, what global inequality has shown us is that international economic governance is skewed in favour of developed countries. While we know that the populations and economies of many developed countries have been hard hit by the pandemic, we must not forget that even in the time of COVID-19, the extraction of financial and non-financial resources from the global South to the global North carries on unabated.

As inequalities scholar Branko Milanovic observes in his book The Haves and the Have Nots, wealth has been unevenly spread throughout the world for many centuries, and where you are born largely determines your wealth and opportunities in life.

These determinants are key factors in the financial commitments that have been made to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda by the world’s governments. And even the commitments made before the pandemic were not sufficient: the shortfall in the funding needed to achieve SDGs in developing countries is now estimated to be $2.5 to $3 trillion per year.

This comes on top of the shortfall in financing for development more generally, with many wealthy nations failing to meet their obligation of 0.7% of their gross national income to official development assistance (ODA).

We do not yet know the full toll that COVID-19 will take on humanity – but the signs are deeply troubling. Research by the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) warns of an increase in global poverty by as much as half a billion people, or 8% of the total human population.

This will not only set us back to the poverty levels of the early 1990s, but also means that our ability to achieve the SDGs is under immense threat. New analysis from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has also pointed to the consequences of the pandemic on women’s and girls’ health and exercise of rights.

The global projections shared by UNFPA are mind-blowing: for every three months that the COVID-19 continues, up to 2 million more women will go without access to modern contraceptives, there will be an additional 15 million cases of gender-based violence, and over the next decade, 2 million additional female genital mutilation cases and 13 million additional child marriages will occur – all of which could have been averted. We can already see the reversal of decades on gains in women’s rights.

COVID-19 is amplifying deep-seated gender inequalities, but we must remember that in pre-pandemic times we had barely shifted the needle on the status of millions of people in precarious, informal work.

Peninah Bahati Kitsao was a laundry lady before social distancing policies meant that she and millions more domestic workers lost their incomes, and those whose work was already undervalued and underpaid and for whom food insecurity was a daily reality were pushed even further away from the world envisioned by the 17 global goals.

In their worldwide pledge to “leave no one behind”, the global goals explicitly intended to address the rights and needs of people such as Peninah: the people least often heard and already furthest behind.

Achieving the SDGs always required explicit, concrete steps to end extreme poverty, curb inequalities, confront discrimination and fast-track progress for the hundreds of millions who need it most – and COVID-19 has not changed this requirement. Around the world, the calls for concerted action are increasing.

As part of its Economic Rescue Plan for All, Oxfam is urging both immediate debt cancellation for poor countries, and direct help via cash grants to people such as Peninah. Feminists led by AWID (the Association for Women’s Rights in Development) are rallying behind a campaign for bailouts for people such as Peninah, including domestic workers, sex workers, undocumented workers, underpaid and unpaid care workers, migrant workers, seasonal agricultural workers, and all those whose work is essential to our societies.

Feminist economists remind us that contradictions and crises are a constant feature of financialised capitalism and the system rides on the backs of the poor.

One of the most important lessons from Peninah Bahati Kitsao’s terrible, preventable anguish is that without addressing gender inequality, the SDGs’ promise of equitable social development will not be fulfilled.

Her story underscores the fact that women and girls comprise the majority of those living in poverty, experience persistent and multi-dimensional inequalities, and bear the brunt of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

Discrimination, place of residence, socio-economic status, governance and vulnerability – all factors identified by the United Nations Development Program – are why Peninah and her countless sisters around the world in precarious jobs, with no access to family planning or education, have always been left behind.

We will never build a better world until we all step up to do battle with the monster of hunger and inequality that took Peninah’s child.

 

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The post Are the SDGs in Reverse Gear? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Saida Ali is an intersectional feminist and international policy analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya, and an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity. She tweets at @SaidaAaliyah

The post Are the SDGs in Reverse Gear? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday (24 May) became the first serving Israeli prime minister to go on trial, proclaiming his innocence in the corridor before walking into court to face charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Közleményben ítélte el a Hongkongra vonatkozó kínai nemzetbiztonsági törvénytervezetet Mike Pompeo amerikai külügyminiszter.

Az amerikai diplomácia vezetője szerint a törvény elfogadása Pekingben a “lélekharang” megkondítását jelentené Hongkong számára. “Bármilyen döntés, amely érintené Hongkongnak a kínai-brit közös nyilatkozatban garantált autonómiáját és szabadságát, elkerülhetetlenül hatással lenne az egy ország-két rendszerről alkotott álláspontunkra” – hangoztatta a közleményben Pompeo.

Az amerikai kormányzat által ellentmondásosnak ítélt nemzetbiztonsági törvénytervezetet a pénteken kezdődött parlamenti ülésszakon tárgyalja a pekingi parlament. A törvény betiltaná a lázadást, az elszakadási törekvések hangoztatását és a pekingi központi kormányzat ellen irányuló, “felforgatónak” minősített cselekményeket.

Pompeo pénteken leszögezte: “az Egyesült Államok erőteljesen felszólítja Pekinget, hogy gondolja át végzetes javaslatát, teljesítse nemzetközi kötelezettségeit és tartsa tiszteletben Hongkong magas szintű autonómiáját, demokratikus intézményeit, polgári szabadságjogait”. A külügyminiszter kijelentette azt is, hogy az Egyesült Államok “Hongkong népe mellett áll”.

Donald Trump tavaly a hongkongi emberi jogokról és demokráciáról szóló törvényt írt alá, a demokrácia mellett tüntető hongkongiak támogatásának kinyilvánításaként. A törvény kimondja, hogy az amerikai kormányzatnak évente jelentést kell tennie a szövetségi kongresszusnak arról, hogy nem sérül-e Hongkong autonómiája. Pompeo egy szerdai sajtókonferenciáján kijelentette, hogy ezt a jelentést még azért nem terjesztette a kongresszus elé, mert meg akarta várni a pekingi parlament döntéseit. “Szorosan figyelemmel kísérjük, hogy mi történik” – fogalmazott Pompeo.

Kazakhstan‘s new leadership, faced with concurrent challenges of volatile oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic, has approved nineteen new renewable energy projects worth $1.1 billion in the country’s latest effort to go green and diversify its energy supply. To date,...

Am diesjährigen Europatag hätte eigentlich der Startschuss für die Konferenz zur Zukunft Europas fallen sollen. Durch den Ausbruch der Corona-Pandemie ist das Vorhaben in den Hintergrund gerückt. Könnte die deutsche Ratspräsidentschaft der Initiative neuen Aufwind verleihen?

Die Welt hat sich dramatisch verändert, seit der damalige EU-Haushaltskommissar Oettinger im Mai 2018 seinen Vorschlag für den neuen Mehrjährigen Finanzrahmen (MFR) der EU für die Zeit von 2021 bis 2027 auf den Tisch gelegt hat. Fridays For Future haben...

Der Chef der Migros-Tochtergesellschaft Hotelplan, Thomas Stirnimann, hat in einem Interview seinen Unmut über die Fluggesellschaft Swiss kundgetan. «Es ist unglaublich, was sich die Swiss derzeit erlaubt», sagte er den «Zeitungen der CH-Media» vom Montag.