By Achim Steiner and Maria Ramos NEW YORK/JOHANNESBURG – Today, “mobile money” – a service enabling people to send, receive, and store money on a cellphone – allows a market trader in Kenya to borrow a modest amount at sunrise…
Category: Columns
Spend Fossil-Fuel Subsidies on Pandemic Relief and the Poor
By M. Chatib Basri, Rema N. Hanna, and Benjamin A. Olken JAKARTA/CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS – In addition to its health and human toll, the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to reverse much of the progress that developing countries have made in reducing…
European Parliament & gender equality—a continuing struggle
by Petra Ahrens and Lise Rolandsen Agustín on 22nd May 2020 @petrahrens There has been progress in the numerical representation of women in the European Parliament. But that’s not enough to achieve gender equality.
Corona Pandemic and the Workers
M Zahidul Haque DURING this Corona pandemic if one asks a worker-“How are you doing in this corona pandemic?” One would get a common reply with a set of problems—“Not so well; not yet received salary, under landlord’s pressure for…
Missing out on a dinner
Sudhirendar Sharma In the absolute silence enforced by the invisible coronavirus, the thub-thub of my own chest has become a metronome of interesting revelations. I recall how small odours of spices were infused by a clutch of magazines for emerging…
Nature is our best antiviral
By Enric Sala WASHINGTON, DC – The Seychelles, a string of 115 verdant, rocky islands in the Indian Ocean, recently announced – in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic – that it would protect 30% of its glittering turquoise waters…
Bureaucratic-Politico Archetypal: Case of Bangladesh
By Dr. Sinha MA Sayeed This day and age here in Bangladesh has grown and developed a sort of State-of-the-art Rule christened with the state-of-the-art defense from the very womb of ongoing parliamentary model for running the country and this…
The pandemic and the day after
by Andreas Antoniades on 15th May 2020 @aaantoniades Emergence from the coronavirus crisis cannot be to ‘business as usual’ but must urgently open a transition to socio-environmental sustainability.
Dangerous phase of coronavirus calls for more humane caring
Mostafa Kamal Majumder The coronavirus situation in Bangladesh is now at a very devastating stage. With limited testing facilities, more than one thousand new cases of infection are being found daily. The figures now speak for themselves. On Thursday the…
When machines think for us: Consequences for work and place
by Judith Clifton, Amy Glasmeier and Mia Gray on 14th May 2020 @_mia_gray The one sure way not to forecast the impact of artificial intelligence technologies is technological determinism.
German court decision ends treaty pretences
by John Weeks on 11th May 2020 @johnweeks41 With ‘coronabonds’ stymied, an exit from the crisis had depended on ECB monetary operations—until the German constitutional court weighed in. On May 5th the German constitutional court issued a ruling likely to…
Coronavirus: not a cinematic work of fiction – what a pity
Coronavirus Covid-19 has given us the rare opportunity of being heroes to our nation without ever (and hopefully never) engaging with the enemy Sir Frank Peters If Coronavirus were vitamin and not a virus, it would have a mass, unprecedented…
The Global Resilience Imperative
By Johan Rockström and Ottmar Edenhofer POTSDAM – As the COVID-19 crisis passes and governments try to shore up collapsing economies, many will be tempted to roll back their climate and nature commitments. They should resist that impulse. This century…
Climate Action Can Help to Fight Pandemics
By Aaron Bernstein BOSTON – The COVID-19 crisis has brought economies around the world to a standstill. Huge swaths of manufacturing have been idled, and sectors such as aviation and tourism are largely shuttered. Amid all the economic ruin, some…
The pandemic and the recolonisation of time
by Çiğdem Boz and Ayça Tekin-Koru on 8th May 2020 @Ayca_TekinKoru The expansion of free time during the crisis could lead to a reassessment of leisure and a revalorised public sphere. The Covid-19 crisis has engendered an unparalleled self-evaluation of…
Will everyone get a Ferrari some day?
Sudhirendar Sharma Even if everyone were to get a Ferrari, it will only be the Fiat of its generation With Covid-19 having slowed down everything, and with frugality in thoughts and actions set in, the idea of ‘de-growth’ may seem…
SAU Fab lab’s contribution to control Corona
M ZAHIDUL HAQUE THE Fab Lab (Fabrication Laboratory) at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka was established in January 2017 under the Higher Education Quality Enhance Project (HEQEP), implemented by Bangladesh University Grants Commission and funded by the World Bank. ‘A…
Overconsumption, globalised supply chain and Covid-19 crisis
by Meadhbh Bolger on 6th May 2020 @MeadhbhBolger We must build back more resilient, just societies that consume within ecological limits. The immediate response to the Covid-19 crisis must continue to be saving lives, preventing the further spread of the…
Brexit, transition and Ireland
by Brendan Donnelly 6th May 2020 Eight months before the end of the transition period the British government seems intent upon two courses of action which will exacerbate the inevitable political and economic damage to the United Kingdom when it…
Protect journalists’ eights so we can stop Covid-19 disinfodemic
By Stella Paul HYDERABAD, India, May 1 2020 (IPS) – Andrew Sam Raja Pandian, a digital journalist and founder of a news portal in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, was arrested for running two news articles related to COVID-19.
Covid-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh: Incident-triggered neglect
Prof. Dr. Md. Belal Hossain ‘Virus’ is from a Greek word meaning ‘poison’ that was initially described by Edward Jenner in 1798. A virus is a highly contagious host-specific, non-cellular pathogenic organism, nucleoprotein particle and capable of replicating itself only…
Press Freedom Day in Corona Era
M ZAHIDUL HAQUE ONCE I asked an English-speaking Journalist who used to work in a reputed Middle-East country newspaper—“How much press freedom do you enjoy? Do you face any restriction while publishing news and views?” Well, he said-“there is no…
Social trust and government responses to Covid-19
by Sevasti Chatzopoulou on 4th May 2020 How governments have addressed the pandemic has reflected different levels of social trust—which will have consequences for its aftermath.
A Joint Pledge of Defeating the COVID-19 Pandemic
Ranjan Roy, PhD. The world has been facing a quintessential global health challenge – Coronavirus (COVID-19). The COVID-19 pandemic brings with it the third and greatest economic, financial, and social shock of the 21st Century, after 9/11 and the Global…
Locust Attack in Teknaf ?
M Zahidul Haque ENTOMOLOGISTS said that the insects which attacked some house’s yards in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar is not locust but a locust-like insect, may be a species of the grasshopper family; some opined a Bombay, India origin. However, the…
Press freedom as a guarantee for human dignity, well-being
By Jan Lundius STOCKHOLM / ROME, May 1 2020 (IPS) – United Nations has designated at least 170 specific days of the year as occasions to mark particular events or topics to promote the objectives of the Organization. 2 This…
Address stigma and prejudices against coronavirus victims
Mostafa Kamal Majumder The Narayanganj Sadar Upazila administration is campaigning to persuade the residents of a mahalla of the district town not to disturb the family of a doctor for contracting coronavirus. Shilpi Aktar, the doctor who has been seeing…
Press freedom needs protection from pandemic too
By Farhana Haque Rahman ROME, Apr 30 2020 (IPS) – Wearing an orange jacket and face mask, Li Zehua, a Chinese freelance journalist, can be seen filming himself in a car. He is sure that state security agents have been…
Scaling up Covid-19 response now to avoid higher costs later
Ceyla Pazarbasioglu & Ayhan Kose After a decade of uninterrupted growth, the global economy came to a sudden halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The question now is not whether there will be a global recession but how deep it…
Four scenarios for Europe’s future after the crisis
by Philippe Pochet on 30th April 2020 @philippepochet What kind of Europe will take shape after the coronavirus crisis? Four scenarios, widely varying in their social and ecological consequences, are possible.