News headlines in July 2020, page 5

NEW YORK, Jul 21 (IPS) - The world is in the midst of the Great Migration Clash, a bitter struggle between those who "want out" of their countries and those who want others to "keep out" of their countries. More than a billion people would like to move permanently to another country and no less than a billion people say fewer or no immigrants should be allowed to move into their countries.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 (IPS) - Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the World Food Programme, began the IPS United Nations Bureau webinar "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women and Girls" by reminiscing on a talk she gave in 1995 entitled "Women eat last". She remarked that after 25 years, the phrase is still something that is relevant to the present day.

CHEPKITALE, Kenya, Jul 21 (IPS) - The Ogiek community, indigenous peoples from Kenya's Chepkitale National Reserve, are in the process of implementing a modern tool to inform and guide the conservation and management of the natural forest. The community has inhabited this area for many generations, long before Kenya was a republic. Through this process, they hope to get the government to formally recognise their customary tenure in line with the Community Land Act.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 21 (IPS) - A factoid is unreliable information repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact. One such factoid repeatedly echoed across the globe by the tobacco industry is that tobacco tax increases worsen cigarette smuggling.

BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 21 (IPS) - GDP has been increasingly challenged on many grounds as a measure of economic and social progress. Clearly, GDP does not take account of other dimensions of wellbeing, natural resource depletion or environmental damage.

LA JOLLA, California, United States, Jul 20 (IPS) - On June 10, 2020, Senator Ricardo Monreal, President of the Political Coordination Board of the Senate of Mexico, presented a legislative initiative to reform Article 28 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, in order to cluster in a single regulator of economic competition, the Telecommunications, Broadcasting and Energy sectors.

THABA-TSEKA, Lesotho, Jul 20 (IPS) - The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and given rise to a new, deeply concerning wave of rape culture in Lesotho. Although the true extent is not known yet, we have noticed concerning reports that the onset of the pandemic has worsened sexual violence with more women and girls being confined to small living places whilst social tensions are exacerbated.

NEW YORK, Jul 20 (IPS) - "We may all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now," Martin Luther King Jr once said. His timeless wisdom rings truer than ever today for the many challenges the world is facing. COVID-19, continued armed conflicts and forced displacement, climate-change induced disasters, deep divides and widespread discrimination mark the human family in the 21st century.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 20 (IPS) - "The vision and promise of the United Nations is that food, healthcare, water and sanitation, education, decent work and social security are not commodities for sale to those who can afford them, but basic human rights to which we are all entitled." Those were the poignant words of the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, in a hard hitting speech on 18 July 2020 to mark Mandela Day.

KATHMANDU, Jul 20 (IPS) - Nepal's education system was in crisis long before the pandemic hit. But with schools closed now for four straight months, remote learning has also exposed the class divide in access to education.