CLIMATE CHANGE: COULD THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS SPUR A GREEN RECOVERY? (6 MAY 2020)
BBC: The Covid-19 lockdown has cut climate change emissions – for now. But some governments want to go further by harnessing their economic recovery plans to boost low-carbon industries. Their slogan is “Build Back Better”, but can they succeed?
CORONAVIRUS MAY HAVE HALTED INEQUALITY PROTESTS IN CHILE BUT DID NOT END IT (5 MAY 2020)
Latin Times: For the longest time, Chile has been one of those countries where inequality has reigned unchecked. The masses, finally done with the elite having every possible amenity, had been protesting against this injustice for the past six months and it was not the fear of repercussions of going against the government but the pandemic that halted their campaigns as the nations observes a stay-at-home order.
Democracy Now!: We get an update from two doctors treating patients with the Navajo Nation, the largest Indigenous reservation in the country, which has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Michelle Tom is a member of the Navajo Nation and a family physician treating COVID-19 patients at the Winslow Indian Health Care Center and Little Colorado Medical Center in northern Arizona near the Navajo reservation. In Gallup, New Mexico, Dr. Sriram Shamasunder is leading a medical volunteer group of 21 nurses and doctors from the University of California, San Francisco as part of the HEAL Initiative. He says the coronavirus hit harder on the Navajo Nation due to a “trajectory of an underfunded health system,” and notes the Indian Health Service is funded at one-third the rate per capita as Medicare. “The level of inequity that you’re seeing … it’s part of this pattern.”
CORONAVIRUS FIGHT: UN CHIEF SAYS WORLD LEADERS ARE FALLING SHORT (1 MAY 2020)
Aljazeera: The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed his disappointment with international leaders’ response to the coronavirus challenge gripping the world. He called for a global ceasefire and said nations needed to unite to fight the pandemic together. Al Jazeera’s James Bays reports from the United Nations in New York in the United States.
INDIA’S FOREST WORKERS AND INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES UNDER LOCKDOWN (30 APRIL 2020)
Focus on the Global South: It is now a month since India went into complete lockdown on 26 March to contain the spread of Covid-19. As non-essential economic activity has come to a standstill, the lockdown has hit millions of people working in the informal sector. Although the Government has announced some relief schemes for the poor, several informal sector workers are outside the ambit of this relief package. As uncertainty about and fear of the pandemic continue to grow, India’s informal sector workers face extreme distress due to lack of state support and official apathy.
