News headlines in 2020, page 40

ROME, Aug 26 (IPS) - Any of the first names that the media reported as having Covid were those of the rich and powerful, from movie stars to political leaders. Be ye ever so high, the virus is above thee – or so it seemed.

KATHMANDU, Aug 25 (IPS) - Despite dire predictions about a drastic drop in remittances that Nepal gets from its workers abroad due to the Covid-19 induced economic downturn, money transfers have hit Rs875 billion which is only 0.5% less than the preceding year.

Aug 25 (IPS) - The race for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is well underway. It's tempting to assume that once the first vaccine is approved for human use, all the problems of this pandemic will be immediately solved. Unfortunately, that is not exactly the case.

PARIS, Aug 25 (IPS) - The voices of indigenous people worldwide are being silenced and their lives made invisible. Stewards of the earth, they are left at the fringes of public discourse in countries around the globe. Indigenous people are not "extinct", they exist, and they are building innovative networks and solutions, that could be the key to many of our world's problems.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 25 (IPS) - The World Bank leadership must urgently abandon its ‘Maximizing Finance for Development' (MFD) hoax. Instead, it should resume its traditional multilateral development bank role of mobilizing funds at minimal cost to finance developing countries.

Mexico City, Aug 25 (IPS) - Mayan anthropologist Ezer May fears that the tourism development and real estate construction boom that will be unleashed by the Mayan Train, the main infrastructure project of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will disrupt his community.

LA JOLLA, California, Aug 24 (IPS) - Just over five years ago, a major oil discovery occurred on the northeastern coast of South America. There have been a series of additional discoveries ever since. But this time it was not Venezuela. It was Guyana.

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Aug 24 (IPS) - Oluwaseun Sangoleye's son developed rickets after rejecting baby formula. So she started a business to make natural baby cereal from locally-sourced ingredients in Nigeria.

SINGAPORE, Aug 24 (IPS) - There is not much good news for President Donald Trump of the United States these days.

If electoral polls have any credibility, he is staring at the face of almost certain defeat in the elections come November. So, when the so-called Abraham Accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was sealed in a telephone call between him and the leaders of Israel and the UAE, signalling a sliver of silver lining in the otherwise hovering dark clouds over him, Trump was ecstatic.

A Trump twitter called it a "HUGE breakthrough among "three GREAT friends!".

BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 24 (IPS) - The COVID 19 Pandemic continues relentlessly. Deaths approaching a million globally, 22 million infected and growing. Brazil, India, the US and Russia accounting for almost 50% of the total cases in the world.

"I feel it coming, a series of disasters created through our diligent yet unconscious efforts. If they're big enough to wake up the world, but not enough to smash everything, I'd call them learning experiences, the only ones able to overcome our inertia" - Denis de Rougemont, 1977