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Merkel, Biden agree to stronger cooperation

26th January 2021

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed in a phone call on Monday that the COVID-19 pandemic can only be overcome through closer international cooperation, a government spokesman in Berlin said on Monday. "At the same time, she declared Germany's willingness to take on responsibility in dealing with international tasks together with its European and transatlantic partners," government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement. via Reuters

U.S. “proud to be back” in climate fight, Kerry tells leaders

26th January 2021

The United States is "proud to be back" in international efforts to tackle global warming, Washington's new special climate envoy John Kerry told a summit of world leaders on Monday. U.S. President Joe Biden is this week expected to release more policies to tackle climate change after rejoining the 2015 Paris climate agreement that predecessor Donald Trump quit saying it was too costly to the U.S. economy. "We're proud to be back. We come back with humility for the absence over ...

Malta: E-commerce generates €2.1 billion in 2020

25th January 2021

Turnover from e-commerce sales rose by 6.4 percent in 2020 compared with the previous year, reaching a total €2.1 billion. Figures by the Nationals Statistics Office show that eight in ten web orders last year were placed on the business’ own websites or apps while the remaining sales came through online marketplaces. The share of companies conducting business online grew from slightly under 24 percent in 2019 to 26.2 percent in 2020, outpacing the average across the EU where around a fifth of ...

Earth is losing ice faster today than in the mid-1990s, study suggests

25th January 2021

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Earth’s ice is melting faster today than in the mid-1990s, new research suggests, as climate change nudges global temperatures ever higher. Altogether, an estimated 28 trillion metric tons of ice have melted away from the world’s sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers since the mid-1990s. Annually, the melt rate is now about 57 percent faster than it was three decades ago, scientists report in a study published Monday in the journal The Cryosphere. “It was a surpri...

Explainer: South China Sea tension flares again as Biden takes charge

25th January 2021

(Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt entered the South China Sea over the weekend to promote "freedom of the seas" at a time of U.S. concern about China-Taiwan tensions and Beijing asserting its maritime agenda. Taiwan, meanwhile, reported an incursion of Chinese bombers and fighter jets into its air defence identification zone. The patrol comes just days after Joe Biden was sworn in as U.S. president and follows a year of repeated demonstrations of ...

CDE Viewpoint – Honesty is the only policy

24th January 2021

by Jesmond Saliba Our wonderful era of boundless information is accompanied by an equal potential for misinformation. The miracle of powerful knowledge-sharing that launched humanity into the third millennium has uncovered a nasty underbelly that intoxicates the values of accuracy, veracity, and legitimacy. Truth becomes a rocky terrain, especially when it is reduced to an interpretation of facts, and a double-decker problem crashes clumsily into our sense of certainty: whose interpretation ...

COVID-19 shots to cost $3 to $10 under African Union vaccine plan

20th January 2021

African countries will pay between $3 and $10 per vaccine dose to access 270 million COVID-19 shots secured this month by the African Union (AU), according to a draft briefing on the plan prepared by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and provided to Reuters. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who serves as AU chair, said last week arrangements had been made with the bank to support member states who want access to vaccines. Countries can pay back the loans in instalments ove...

Trump’s legacy: A more divided America, a more unsettled world

19th January 2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President Donald Trump delivered his inaugural speech on Jan. 20, 2017, he promised an end to “American carnage,” a bleak and dysfunctional nation he had promised that he alone could fix. Closing out his presidency exactly four years later, Trump leaves behind an even more polarized America, where thousands are dying daily from the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy is badly damaged and political violence has surged. Trump didn’t create the bitter differences that ...

IEA says oil, gas methane emissions down 10% in 2020 as output fell

18th January 2021

Global emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas production dropped 10% in 2020 mainly because of lower output as opposed to concerted climate action, a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) found. Methane has more than 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere and is liable to leak from oil and gas infrastructure, such as pipelines. Other industries, including agriculture, are also big methane emitters. Las...

UPDATED: World is on the brink of a ‘catastrophic moral failure’ on vaccines- WHO chief

18th January 2021

The world is on the brink of "catastrophic moral failure" in sharing COVID-19 vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization said on Monday, urging countries and manufacturers to spread doses more fairly around the world. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the prospects for equitable distribution were at "serious risk" just as its COVAX vaccine-sharing scheme aimed to start distributing inoculations next month. He noted 44 bilateral deals were signed last year and a...

WHO stops short of advising proof of COVID-19 shots for travel

16th January 2021

The World Health Organization refrained from advising proof of COVID-19 vaccination or immunity as a condition for international travel, citing “critical unknowns” regarding their efficacy in reducing transmission and limited availability. The WHO’s Emergency Committee, composed of 19 independent experts, held its sixth meeting in a year as the global death toll from the pandemic reached two million among more than 90 million cases. The experts issued a series of recommendations, which WH...

From a new coalition to a technocrat government – Italy’s options to overcome latest crisis

15th January 2021

Reuters/POLITICO - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resisted calls to resign on Thursday after a junior coalition party pulled out of his government, stripping him of a parliamentary majority in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Conte signalled he wanted to take his fight for survival to parliament, with his main coalition partners backing plans to try to find so-called "responsible" lawmakers from among opposition ranks to prop up the administration. Italy is no strang...

No country is an island: collective approach to COVID-19 vaccines is the only way to go

14th January 2021

As countries across the world begin to purchase and roll out COVID-19 vaccines, a key question is how far the vaccine is from reaching Africa and how accessible it will be for the continent. Moina Spooner, Commissioning Editor with The Conversation Africa, asked Mosoka Fallah, an expert on infectious diseases, to provide his insights. The last I checked, the cost of the current COVID-19 vaccines (which demonstrated the most efficacy) ranged from $19.50 per dose (Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine)...

Brexit trade problems: what’s gone wrong and can it be fixed?

14th January 2021

Queues of lorries at borders and empty supermarket shelves confirm what most already knew: the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) has increased trade barriers between the EU and the UK. So what problems are arising, and can anything be done to improve them? 1. Rules of origin Upon announcing the deal on Christmas Eve, Boris Johnson claimed it would “enable UK goods to be sold without tariffs, without quotas in the EU market”. This has since been proven to be misleading. Goo...

What will Congress do now that Trump has been impeached a second time?

14th January 2021

Jan 13 (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Wednesday made Donald Trump the first U.S. president to be impeached twice, formally charging him with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Here's a guide to what happens next. Is the impeachment proceeding over? No. Impeachment refers only to the House, the lower chamber of Congress, bringing charges, or Articles of Impeachment. The next major step is for the Senate, the up...

WHO team arrives in China’s Wuhan to investigate COVID-19 origins

14th January 2021

WUHAN, China (Reuters) - An international team of scientists led by the World Health Organization arrived on Thursday in China's central city of Wuhan to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus that sparked the pandemic, state television said. The team arrived late in the morning on a budget airline from Singapore and was expected to head into two weeks of quarantine. They had been set to arrive earlier this month, and China's delay of their visit drew rare public criticism from the...

Insights – COVID-19 fuelling education’s tech disruption, deepening digital divide

12th January 2021

TORONTO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The COVID-19 pandemic deepened inequities in accessing and benefiting from education but the future of learning could be a more equal one, participants told Reuters Next panels on Monday. The pandemic hastened a rise in virtual learning and a disruption of the status quo already under way but probably won't eliminate in-person instruction for good, they said. COVID-19 forced the University of Oxford and myriad other school...

Photo Story: One Planet Summit

12th January 2021

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the end of One Planet Summit, part of World Nature Day, at the Reception Room of the Elysee Palace, in Paris, France, 11 January 2021. The One Planet Summit, a largely virtual event hosted by France in partnership with the United Nations and the World Bank, will include French President, German Chancellor, and European Union chief. EPA-EFE/LUDOVIC MARIN

Malta: Current account balance registers €100M deficit in Q3

12th January 2021

The current account of the balance of payments in the third quarter 2020 recorded a deficit of €100 million, down from a €300 million surplus registered in the same period a year earlier. At the same time, however, figures released by Eurostat show that the deficit was lower than the €300 million registered in Q2 2020. As a whole, the current account balance in the EU reached a surplus of €75.6 billion between July and September 2020, equivalent to 2.6 percent of total GDP, a decrease from the ...

Malta: Trade deficit slims down to €38M in November

11th January 2021

The balance of imports and exports registered a deficit of €2.0 billion between January and November 2020, a decrease of €1.578 billion compared with the same period the year before. Figures for November by the National Statistics Office show total imports of €365.2 million and total exports of €326.7 million, closing at a deficit of €38.4 million – the narrowest yet in 2020. Corresponding figures for the same month in 2019 stood at €495.6 million in imports and €401.7 million in exports. Miner...

Photo Story: Students protest against distance learning and the postponement of high schools reopening in the Lazio region

11th January 2021

Lessons and outdoor assembly against distance learning (Didattica a Distanza, DAD) organized by the students of the 'Righi' high school inside Villa Borghese, in Rome. Secondary school students in Lazio region will continue distance learning after Lazio Region President Nicola Zingaretti signed an order to postpone the reopening of high schools to 18 January 2021, given an increase in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection curve. Italian Education Minister Lucia Azzolina said on th...

U.N. chief Guterres seeks to stay on for second term – Bloomberg News

11th January 2021

(Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the five permanent members of the Security Council that he would like to stay on for a second term, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday citing two diplomats familiar with the matter. Guterres is likely to officially inform the president of the UN General Assembly soon, the report added. Guterres, 71, took office as the ninth secretary-general in January, 2017 for a five year term that finishes at the end of the year. ...

Even with a vaccine, we need to adjust our mindset to playing the COVID-19 long game

11th January 2021

Australia - Incredibly, a whole year has passed since the first emergence of COVID-19. What looked like a temporary inconvenience at first is turning into a permanent fixture that might forever change life as we knew it before 2020. But how long will people continue to comply with the measures necessary to overcome the virus as complacency and fatigue set in? As new outbreaks have cropped up in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland in recent weeks, governments have responded with strin...

Largest Arctic Ozone hole has now closed – CAMS

9th January 2021

Scientists monitoring the "unprecedented" hole at the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) announced the closure of the largest Arctic ozone hole ever recorded. https://twitter.com/CopernicusECMWF/status/1253273035248975873 Ozone columns over large parts of the Arctic have reached record-breaking low values this year, and the ozone layer over the Arctic is severely depleted at altitudes of around 18 km. The last time similarly strong chemical ozone depletion was observed ove...

Analysis: Facebook and Twitter crackdown around Capitol siege is too little, too late

9th January 2021

PALO ALTO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - By the time social media companies took action against users and groups spurring on the siege of Capitol Hill this week, culminating in the suspension of U.S. President Donald Trump's accounts, it was too little too late. For weeks, content on big tech platforms Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc's YouTube as well as upstart fringe social networks foretold the storming of the U.S Capitol on Wednesday that led to five deaths. In one Facebook post iden...

Government, Unions, Schools reach deal: students back to school on Monday

8th January 2021

A joint press statement between Government, the MUT and representatives of Church and Independent Schools confirmed that all students will be back in their classrooms on Monday and the teachers' strike has been called off. This followed a meeting attended by the same organisations, educational authorities as well as Health Superintendent Prof Charmaine Gauci. Government said the existing protocols, including contact tracing, would be enchanced and also pledged to give priority to school staf...

Malta: Unemployment rate peaks in November

8th January 2021

The rate of unemployment in November rose by 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, reaching 4.8 percent – the highest level recorded in 2020. Seasonally adjusted figures by the National Statistics Office show a total 13,081 persons in unemployment, 104 more than those registered in October and 3,422 more than in February when the unemployment rate stood at its lowest in the twelve months under review (3.5%). There was no month-on-month change in the unemployment rate within the 24-74 a...

World food price index rises for seventh month running in Dec -FAO

7th January 2021

World food prices rose for a seventh consecutive month in December, with all the major categories, barring sugar, posting gains last month, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 107.5 points last month versus 105.2 in November. The November figure was previously given as 105.0. For the whole of 2020, the benchmar...

Malta: Labour supply surpassed 235,000 by mid-2020

7th January 2021

Labour supply stood at 235,309 in May 2020, up by 7.9 percent compared to the same month the previous year. Data by the National Statistics Office shows that registered full-time employment also grew in the twelve-month period, rising by 6.7 percent to reach 230,900 gainfully occupied. Between May 2019 and May 2020, the rate of persons in full-time jobs increased by 7.3 percent among women and by 6.3 percent among men. People in part-time employment decreased by 8.6 percent from 64,175 in May ...

WHO Europe urges safe flexibility on timing of COVID-19 vaccine doses

7th January 2021

European countries rolling out the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine should be flexible on the time between the first and second doses, the World Health Organization's director for the region said on Thursday. The WHO's Hans Kluge's comments come as some countries including Britain are seeking to counter low vaccine supplies by extending the gap between first and second doses to up to 12 weeks, and by considering lower volume doses of some shots. Kluge said it was important to strike a bal...

Malta registers highest producer price increase in EU

6th January 2021

Industrial producer prices in Malta rose by 1.8 percent year-on-year in November 2020, bucking the trend across the European Union. Figures by Eurostat shows that Hungary and Slovenia were the only other two member states to record an increase (both +1.1%) in the same period as EU producer prices fell by an average 1.8 percent. The energy sector was the only downward trend in the bloc, as prices declined by 7.5 percent from November 2019. Durable consumer goods, on the other hand, contributed t...

China plays down WHO concern about delay in coronavirus team’s trip

6th January 2021

China played down on Wednesday World Health Organization (WHO) concern about a delay in authorisation for a visit by team of experts looking into the origins of the novel coronavirus, saying arrangements were being worked out. The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Tuesday he was "very disappointed" that China had not authorised the entry of the team for the investigation, which he said was a WHO priority. The novel coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of W...

UNICEF appeals to make 2021 ‘safer, healthier world for children’

2nd January 2021

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday that more than 371,500 children would be born on the first day of 2021. “The children born today enter a world far different than even a year ago, and a New Year brings a new opportunity to reimagine it”, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. As always, the Pacific island nation of Fiji will welcome the first baby of the new year and the United States the last one. Over half of these global births are estimated to take p...

From floods to locusts, ‘climate breakdown’ cost rich and poor in 2020

31st December 2020

Disasters fuelled by weather and climate extremes brought “catastrophic results for millions” across rich and poor nations in 2020, causing thousands of deaths and tens of billions of dollars in losses, charity Christian Aid said this week. In a report, the aid agency identified 15 of the most destructive climate disasters of the year - from wildfires to floods and storms and locust swarms - nine of which led to damage worth at least $5 billion each, based on insured losses. Financial cos...

How Brexit changed the English Language

30th December 2020

Recent research has revealed a number of expressions that have entered everyday use since Brexit started. Terms like “Article 50”, “no deal”, “hard border” may now seem just part of life but they were seldom, if ever, used before Brexit. New and interesting phraseological patterns have also arisen around some of these words. For example, treaty articles didn’t used to get “triggered”. Instead, they were “invoked”. But we now take as obvious that Article 50 of the Treaty of the...

Britain’s plans for staggered school return under review – minister

29th December 2020

Britain plans a staggered return for secondary school pupils after the Christmas holidays, but this is under review in the face of a spread in a new variant of the coronavirus, cabinet office minister Michael Gove said on Monday. Gove said the current plan was that students doing GCSEs and A-levels this year and the children of key workers would return to school next week, with other secondary school students returning the following week. But he said that this could be changed. “We do kee...

How to outsmart your COVID-19 fears and boost your mood in 2021

28th December 2020

After a year of toxic stress ignited by so much fear and uncertainty, now is a good time to reset, pay attention to your mental health and develop some healthy ways to manage the pressures going forward. Brain science has led to some drug-free techniques that you can put to use right now. I am health psychologist who developed a method that harnesses our rip-roaring emotions to rapidly switch off stress and activate positive emotions instead. This technique from emotional brain training i...

Instagram’s redesign shifts toward shopping – here’s how that can be harmful

28th December 2020

Recently, when I opened Instagram, I noticed that the usual spot for checking notifications is now a Shop tab. The Instagram blog post announcing the redesign said that the change will support small businesses and connect people with their favourite brands and creators. This made me pause. As a researcher who studies social media, people and society, I’m concerned about the effects of surveillance capitalism. This includes social media companies profiting from collecting user data, making al...

WHO reiterates COVID-19 will not be last pandemic

27th December 2020

World Health Organization Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Saturday warned that the coronavirus crisis will not be the last pandemic. In a video message marking Sunday's first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, Tedros said all countries must invest in preparedness capacities to prevent, detect and mitigate emergencies of all kinds because "history tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEIPefMsf70&a...

How does Britain’s parliament approve the Brexit trade deal?

26th December 2020

Britain and the European Union agreed terms of a trade deal on Thursday after months of knife-edge negotiations and seven days before transitional arrangements come to an end. That gives Britain's parliament just days to scrutinise and pass the laws needed to implement the deal before a Dec. 31 deadline. IS THERE ENOUGH TIME? Yes, just. Parliament has been recalled to sit on Dec. 30 from 0930 GMT. It will debate and vote upon the legislation needed to put the bill into law. WILL ...

What’s the deal? The nuts and bolts of the new post-Brexit agreement

26th December 2020

CDE / DPA / Reuters -The post-Brexit trade deal reached by the United Kingdom and the European Union goes beyond the EU's so-called "Canada-style" trade accord, the BBC said on Friday, citing what it said was a full copy of the accord. The 1,246-page document includes about 800 pages of annexes and footnotes, the BBC said, adding that the pages of legal text will determine every aspect of trade between the UK and the EU. Despite enormous disagreements over the past years, the European Uni...

A Brexit trade deal at last – so what?

25th December 2020

LONDON/BRUSSELS, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Nearly five years since the Brexit crisis began, the United Kingdom and the European Union have clinched a trade deal that defines their relationship after Dec. 31. Why does it matter after all the twists and turns of Britain's exit from the EU? 1) ATMOSPHERE - Britain formally left the EU on Jan. 31 but has been in a status quo transition period since then. The deal struck on Thursday avoids an acrimonious and economically tumultuous end to that phase ...

CorporateDispatchPRO eJournal – A year in review, a year to preview

25th December 2020

The word ‘disruption’ was spoken with quasi-glorification in thought-leadership circles until disruption hit in a very real way in 2020. In fact, the world beyond the pandemic is being propelled by the pursuit in the opposite direction: a sense of stability. As the third decade of the third millennium opens before us, CorporateDispatch PRO takes a look at the lessons learned from the last twenty years, culminating in the Covid-19 outbreak and development of vaccines to erase it. ...

WHO reassures Santa is immune to Covid-19 and will be able to deliver Christmas presents

24th December 2020

Amid all the daily news bulletins from the World Health Organisation on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on the Covid-19 WHO Health Emergencies Programme, found time to issue an important message to children around the world and keep the Christmas spirit alive. Santa Claus is immune to coronavirus and will be able to deliver Christmas presents, she reassured children. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1341490779009773568 Children were told th...

WHO confirms COVID variant ‘substantially’ more infectious

24th December 2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) in Europe met on Wednesday to discuss the new coronavirus variant, which has wreaked havoc on the UK and caused high alert across Europe. The WHO's European region comprises 53 countries, including Russia and several Central Asian nations. In total,the region has registered nearly 24 million coronavirus cases and over 500,000 deaths. WHO Europe said it gathered its members to discuss strategies to counter the new, more infectious variant:"Th...

U.N. says Mladenov will not take up role as U.N. Libya envoy

23rd December 2020

Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov has told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres he will be unable to take up the role as United Nations Libya envoy next year due to "personal and family reasons," a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday. Mladenov has been the U.N. Middle East envoy since 2015, charged with mediating between Israel and the Palestinians. The U.N. Security Council last week approved Guterres's proposal to appoint Mladenov as Libya mediator and Norwegian Tor Wennesland to succeed ...

Nowhere to hide, Coronavirus reaches end of earth as first outbreak hits Antarctica

23rd December 2020

The coronavirus has landed in Antarctica, the last continent previously free from COVID-19, Chile’s military said this week, as health and army officials scrambled to clear out and quarantine staff from a remote research station surrounded by ocean and icebergs. Chile’s armed forces said at least 36 people had been infected at its Bernardo O’Higgins base, including 26 army personnel and 10 civilian contractors conducting maintenance at the base. The permanently staffed research station, o...

WHO members to meet on Wednesday on new virus variant

22nd December 2020

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has called a meeting of members for Wednesday to discuss strategies to counter a new, more infectious variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in Britain. A spokeswoman said the meeting was designed to help with information-sharing. "Limiting travel to contain spread is prudent until we have better info," Hans Kluge, the WHO's Regional Director for Europe, tweeted. However, the Geneva-based body has cautioned against major alarm...

Restorers save Giotto frescoes in Assisi’s Chapel of the Magdalene

22nd December 2020

ASSISI, Italy (Reuters) - They are using medical syringes in Assisi these days, but it has nothing to do with the pandemic. Restorers are using them to save priceless 700-year-old frescoes by Giotto. They are almost finished with a year-long project to clean and consolidate the frescoes in the Chapel of the Magdalene in the lower basilica of St. Francis that houses the tomb of the 13th century saint. The frescoes depict scenes from the life of Mary Magdalene, including one where Jesus res...

Malta: Total employment at a stable 59 percent rate

22nd December 2020

The rate of employment among people aged 15 and over stood at 59.4 percent between July and September, up by 0.2 percent from the previous quarter. The rate was 59.3 percent in the third quarter last year, according to figures by the National Statistics Office. Three-fourths of people aged between 15 and 64 were in employment in Q3 2020, with a rate of 80.8 among men and 65.5 percent among women. The biggest share of persons in employment was observed in the 25-34 age group. Just under 230,000...