News headlines in July 2020, page 7

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 16 (IPS) - Announcing an independent evaluation of the global Covid-19 response on 9th July, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked why it has been "difficult for humans to unite and fight a common enemy that is killing people indiscriminately?".

NAIROBI, Jul 15 (IPS) - While men are more likely to die from COVID-19, women are facing the full blow of the socio-economic fallout from the ongoing pandemic as well seeing a reversal in equality gains made over the last two decades, says an all-women panel of international thought leaders, who met virtually during a discussion convened by IPS.

OVALLE, Chile, Jul 15 (IPS) - "The harvested water has helped us at critical times and the fog nets have also brought us visibility. Today we produce beer here and many tourists come," says Daniel Rojas, president of the Peña Blanca Agricultural Community in Chile.

Jul 15 (IPS) - In March, 10,000 NHS staff signed a letter to UK prime minister Boris Johnson demanding better protection against COVID-19. Nurses and doctors wanted to treat patients without fear of infecting them and to minimise their own risk of falling ill. But they lacked the proper protective equipment.

GENEVA, Jul 15 (IPS) - Two years have passed since the introduction of the illegal pay cuts imposed on staff in the Professional category-- and above-- working for the UN in Geneva, following a cost of living survey conducted by the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) in 2016.

ROME, Jul 15 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some lesser-known realities, or some we had not wanted to think about, and exposed its consequences for the right of people to feed themselves in dignity.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 (IPS) - While it is too early to assess the full impact of the global COVID-19 lockdowns, at least 83 million to 132 million more people may go hungry this year -- 690 million people were classified as hungry in 2019 -- as the pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of global food systems. 

TUNIS, Jul 14 (IPS) - In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, the idea that water would drive the wars of the future took hold among analysts and the media. Three decades later and that grim prospect has, fortunately, not yet materialised, and international cooperation, despite its ups and downsis the norm in the management of transboundary waters.

NEW YORK, Jul 14 (IPS) - President Erdogan's "reconversion" of the Hagia Sophia, into a mosque is a very Trumpian move, making a populist gestures to his base evoking shared misconceptions of history, reckless of its actual diplomatic and economic cost.

SYDNEY, Australia, Jul 14 (IPS) - Pregnant with her second child, 30-year-old Ndiabou Niang was enduring pelvic pain, but couldn't afford to access prenatal care in Diabe Salla, a village on the outskirts of the small town of Thilogne in north-east Senegal. Her husband was unemployed and her earnings of under CFAF 10,000 (17 USD) from selling seasonal fruits in the local market were insufficient to make ends meet.