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International News

Billions risk being without access to water and sanitation services by 2030

It notes that still only 81 per cent of the world’s population would have access to safe drinking water at home, leaving 1.6 billion without; just 67 per cent would have safe sanitation services, leaving 2.8 billion in the lurch; and only 78 per cent would have basic handwashing facilities, leaving 1.9 billion adrift.

For the first time, the report also presented emerging national data on menstrual health.

In many countries, it showed a significant proportion of women and girls are unable to meet their menstrual health needs.

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European countries not supporting TRIPS waiver move to deal with COVID: Goyal

”We have tried in the WTO to promote waiver on TRIPS so that vaccines and essential medicines can be available to all in the world. “Sadly, the European countries, particularly, and many other developed countries are not supporting that move….Believe me, until all of us are vaccinated, until everybody in the world gets the benefit of modern technology, even the developed world will not be safe,” Union Minister Piyush Goyal said at a webinar of India Global Forum

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Development bank climate finance spending hit $66 bln in 2020 – report

A total $38 billion, or 58%, of the total went to low and middle income countries, the 2020 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance said.

Additional finance committed by other sources alongside the development banks totalled $85 billion, while direct funding from private sources was $5.9 billion.

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Boom, bust and bewildered: Bitcoin’s year so far

Wild price swings have been a defining feature of bitcoin throughout its near 13-year life. The first half of 2021 has been no different, despite hopes that greater liquidity in markets and stronger infrastructure would dampen swings.
“What we found out in the second quarter was that actually demand for bitcoin is price sensitive,” he said. “Some institutional investors started getting out of bitcoin in April … they thought bitcoin prices were too high relative to gold.”

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Floods may be nearly as important as droughts for future carbon accounting

“These wet extremes have basically been ignored in this field and we’re showing that researchers need to rethink it when designing schemes for future carbon accounting,” said senior study author Alexandra Konings, an assistant professor of Earth system science in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). “Specific regions might be much more important for flood impacts than previously thought.”

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WHO chief calls for vaccinating at least 10 per cent of population of every country by September

”Vast inequities in the access to vaccines are fuelling a two-track pandemic. While some countries have reached a high level of coverage, many others don’t have enough to vaccinate health workers, older people & other at-risk groups,” the World Health Organisation Director General said in a virtual address to India Global Forum.

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