News headlines in September 2020, page 9

BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 08 (IPS) - As the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the length and breadth of Asia and the Pacific, finance ministries are continuing their relentless efforts to inject trillions of dollars for emergency health responses and fiscal packages. With continued lockdown measures and restricted borders, economic rebound seems uncertain.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 08 (IPS) - Agnes Kalibata, UN Special Envoy for 2021 Food Systems Summit and a former Rwandan Minister for Agriculture, has been tasked with leading the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit, on a date to be determined next year. In an interview with UN News, she outlined her vision for a transformed international system that is more resilient, fairer, and less harmful to the planet.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 08 (IPS) - With many in the world experiencing declining living standards, there has been growing frustration. Many hope that progressive taxation will improve things. While some economies once had progressive tax systems, recent decades have seen regression.

HYDERBAD, India, Sep 08 (IPS) - Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi says that $1 trillion can solve many of the problems the world's most marginalised communities are facing.

HYDERBAD, India, Sep 08 (IPS) - IPS senior correspondent Stella Paul interviews Nobel Laureate KAILASH SATYARTHI on the eve of Fair Share for Children Summit, a global virtual conference in which Nobel Laureates and world leaders are calling for the world's most marginalised children to be protected against the impacts of COVID-19.Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi warns of the danger that over one million children could die, not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of the economic crisis facing their families.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Satyarthi said that without prioritising children we could lose an entire generation as evidence mounts that the number of child labourers, child marriages, school dropouts and child slaves has increased as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 07 (IPS) - If countries considered Universal Health Coverage (UHC) a central policy in their health systems, the COVID-19 has surely demonstrated the need for its urgent and widespread roll out. The pandemic has upended world systems in a manner that no scientists or sophisticated global intelligence could have foreseen.

LONDON, Sep 07 (IPS) - When INTERPOL is asked to intervene against targeted killing.

Last June, news broke that Iran had issued an arrest warrant and asked INTERPOL for help in detaining US President Donald Trump and dozens of others it believed had carried out the drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad.¹ INTERPOL denied this request,² stating that it "would not consider requests of this nature" because "it is strictly forbidden for the Organisation to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character."³

SINGAPORE, Sep 07 (IPS) - The US residential polls are akin to a drama that is staged every four years in which the American are actors on stage and the rest of the world is the audience. With one major difference, however. While in a usual theatrical performance the viewers are there mostly for amusement, though some may be enlightened and enriched by the experience, in the case of the US elections, unlike in others, their fates are inextricably linked to the outcome of the play.

NEW YORK, Sep 07 (IPS) - Twenty-five years ago, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing set a path-breaking agenda for women's rights. As a result of the two-week gathering with more than 30,000 activists, representatives from 189 nations unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 07 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of millions of people worldwide, accounted for over 869,000 deaths, destabilised the global economy and triggered a marked rise in poverty and hunger in the developing world.

But the fallout from one of the most devastating consequences of the spreading virus is on the lives of a growing new generation: children.