News headlines in 2020, page 54

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.

KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Jul 14 (IPS) - The recent explosion of private finance has nursed the hopedream or illusion that it can be mobilized for the public good, e.g., to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, associated with Agenda 2030. However, such hopes ignore how changes in financial investing have deeply transformed corporations, national economies and prospects for the world economy and social progress.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 13 (IPS) - Electric transport, still limited in Latin America despite its urban benefits, could expand during the post-pandemic economic recovery, says Adalberto Maluf, president of the Brazilian Association of Electric Vehicles (ABVE).

Jul 13 (IPS) - Europe, like the rest of the world, faces an extended crisis. An element of social distancing—mandatory or voluntary—will be with us for as long as this pandemic persists. This, coupled with continued supply chain disruptions and other problems, is prolonging an already difficult situation.

Based on updated IMF projections released last month, we now expect real GDP in the EU to contract by 9.3 percent in 2020 and then grow by 5.7 percent in 2021, returning to its 2019 level only in 2022.

If an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID 19 is found, the recovery could be faster—but the opposite would hold true if there are large new waves of infection.

MBABANE, Jul 13 (IPS) - When Fatima* became pregnant in the middle of the school year and dropped out of school, she was disowned by her parents. Hers is a story that could have ended as another statistic of dropout rates among female learners in Senegal.

GUATEMALA CITY, Jul 13 (IPS) - After decades of harrowing gang crime, homicides have plunged in El Salvador on the watch of the new president, Nayib Bukele. Faced with the growth of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs, previous governments resorted to "iron fist" policies to crush them, only to find these fuelled a backlash.