News headlines in April 2020, page 4

NEW DEHLI, Apr 24 (IPS) - As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

Heartbreaking images of Indian farmers standing amidst swathes of rotting vegetables, fruits and grain have been flooding newspapers and TV screens lately. Crashing prices and transport bottlenecks due to the 40-day coronavirus lockdown in India, on till May 3, have driven some to set their unsold produce ablaze.   

LONDON, Apr 24 (IPS) - And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

In our current COVID 19 context of suffering and fear, that may sound like a strange and spooky quote. But let's be clear: what we have achieved so far in the present is not - and shouldn't be - indicative of what we can achieve in the future.

Apr 24 (IPS) - Soon schools in Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo, where some 6.5 million children are currently at home, will hopefully start teaching their children once again -- albeit online. 

BRISBANE, Australia, Apr 23 (IPS) - Feminist responses to COVID-19 have been swift, insightful, and numerous.

There have been webinars (so.many.webinars), twitter threadsillustrationspress releases and policy recommendations, and online house parties. Analysis pieces cover everything from the gendered impacts of COVID-19 to how to work remotely to the role of neoliberal capitalism.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 (IPS) - The UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), described as an integral part of its highly-ambitious development agenda, may be in deep trouble.

NEW YORK, Apr 23 (IPS) - Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, space for multilateral policy development and commitment has grown. Its growth in the global health field augurs well as we find ways to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

NEW YORK and MANILA, Apr 22 (IPS) - The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created an unprecedented human and economic crisis. Governments are taking strong actions, enforcing quarantines to reduce contagion, testing populations, building emergency intensive care units. Governments have also launched large fiscal stimulus plans to protect jobs and the economy, as well as temporary social protection programs such as income/food support, subsidies to utilities and care services.

LONDON, Apr 22 (IPS) - The implications and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are playing out before us. Much of the news coverage of the to date in both the Global North and the Global South has understandably focused on the horrifying impact of the disease on urban communitieswhere it is clearly hitting people, and economies, hardest.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 22 (IPS) - With much of the global economy stalled amid an unprecedented lockdown of nations grappling to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the author of a new United Nations report on the disease's impact on poverty told IPS that hundreds of millions more could pushed into poverty and we can expect to see social unrest.

WASHINGTON DC, Apr 22 (IPS) - I have been saying for a while that this is a ‘crisis like no other.' It is:

• More complex, with interlinked shocks to our health and our economies that have brought our way of life to an-almost complete stop;
• More uncertain, as we are learning only gradually how to treat the novel virus, make containment most effective, and restart our economies; and
• Truly global. Pandemics don't respect borders, neither do the economic shocks they cause.