The heads of the world’s most powerful global finance, health, and trade organisations have joined forces to urge government leaders to fund a new $50 billion roadmap to help end the pandemic that has ravaged lives and livelihoods for the past 18 months, as well as lay the groundwork for a truly global recovery and improved health security.
Leaders of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization, and World Trade Organization [Kristalina Georgieva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, David Malpass, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala] said governments must act quickly or risk continued waves and explosive outbreaks of COVID-19, as well as more transmissible diseases.
The joint statement is based on a recent IMF staff analysis that stated that $50 billion in fresh investment is required to boost production capacity, supply, trade flows, and delivery, allowing for faster equitable distribution of diagnostics, oxygen, treatments, medical supplies, and vaccines. This injection would also have a significant positive impact on global economic growth.
MYANMANearly 1,500 people died in Myanmar from heat-related causes in April alone, emergency service organizations told Radio Free Asia, compounding the misery for many in a country plagued by conflict and lacking adequate infrastructure and services.
Human rights proponents say that since supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan stormed military properties to protest his arrest, political repression in Pakistan has increased.
Orthodox priests in Ukraine are finding themselves trying to serve their church and support their state, even when those two are at adds as Orthodox Christians get ready to celebrate Easter on May 5.
Protests related to Israel-Hamas war have erupted on American college campuses, with some leading to clashes between student groups and police.And despite the dangers, student journalists and their news organizations are leading press coverage.
Lake Malawi, Malawi’s largest body of water, is seeing an unprecedented surge in water level. Almost ninety percent of the beach area, according to the authorities, is under water, damaging land, crops, and lakeside hotels, resorts, and lodges.
About one-fifth of Bangladesh’s ready-made garment factories do not meet fire, electrical and structural safety standards 11 years after the collapse of Rana Plaza that left more than 1,100 garment workers dead, according to an industry monitoring body.
Lawmakers in the Solomon Islands elect a new prime minister.Southeast Asia May Day protests. Record heat wave temperatures. Why sumo wrestlers held crying babies.
According to a new report by Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which was published in the journal Nature, the average income of people around the world will be cut by one-fifth by the middle of the century due to climate change.