Category:

Disaster & Management

COVID-19 pandemic will push 47 million more women, girls into extreme poverty by 2021: UN

The pandemic will push 96 million people into extreme poverty by 2021, 47 million of whom are women and girls. This will increase the total number of women and girls living in extreme poverty to 435 million, with projections showing that this number will not revert to pre-pandemic levels until 2030, the UN agencies said.

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Blaze breaks out again on supertanker off Sri Lanka, cargo area intact

The New Diamond, a very large crude carrier (VLCC) chartered by Indian Oil Corp (IOC), was fully loaded with the equivalent of about 2 million barrels of oil, Refinitiv data showed.

Photographs taken by Sri Lanka’s air force showed extensive damage to the tanker’s funnel, and thick black smoke and flames coming from the bridge, that sits just behind the cargo area.

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UN chief urges Japan, others to meet goals on climate change

Clean energy delivers more jobs, cleaner air, better health and stronger economic growth,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

It makes no sense economically to burn money on coal plants that will soon become stranded assets,” he added. There is simply no rational case for coal power in any investment plan.”

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Pandemic brings hard times for farmers, worsening hunger

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization forecasts that the number of undernourished people will increase by up to 132 million in this year, while the number of acutely malnourished children will rise by 6.7 billion worldwide due to the pandemic.

“We are facing two pandemics. COVID-19, which beyond its health toll is crushing livelihoods, and hunger, a scourge the international community pledged to eradicate by the end of this decade,” Qu Dongyu, the FAO’s director-general said in a commentary ahead of the virtual meeting.

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78,357 new cases take India’s COVID-19 tally past 37 lakh, death toll rises to 66,333

The death toll climbed to 66,333 with 1,045 more fatalities reported in 24 hours. India has so far reported 37,69,523 cases of the viral disease, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The total number of COVID-19 recoveries in the country has surged to 29,01,908, while the fatality rate has further declined to 1.76 per cent. There are 8,01,282, active cases in the country which comprises 21.26 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

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COVID-19 antibodies present in patients four months after recovery – study

An editorial that accompanied the study cautioned that it is unclear if recovered patients’ antibodies will protect them from reinfection.

However, it suggested that antibody tests may be a cost-effective alternative to infection testing alone, and may work better in surveying populations as countries look to safely reopen their economies and schools.

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Germany’s Merkel says world needs to do more to combat climate change

The European Commission will next month propose a new 2030 climate target for a 50% or 55% emissions reduction against 1990 levels, compared with an existing goal for a 40%.
Germany is Europe’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, and the country’s environment ministry said last week that, while it can meet its climate target for 2020, it would have missed the goal if the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus pandemic had not caused a large drop in emissions.

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