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New phase for violence between Israelis and Palestinians?

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Nabulsi
The late Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, in the center with the weapon, the memory or legend of whom has been seized upon by a new generation of Palestinian militants. This photo is from Jerusalem24, a Palestinian radio station and news agency that publishes in English and Hebrew. They don’t claim a copyright or credit a photographer. To take such a picture is to risk being killed and having one’s family home demolished by the Israelis.

Why violence between Israelis and Palestinians
may be entering a devastating new phase

by Susan de Groot Heupner, Griffith University

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rushed to the Middle East this week to make yet another push for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians following yet another dramatic escalation in violence between the two sides.

Blinken urged peace in his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, but the prospects could hardly be dimmer.

More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the beginning of this year, mostly at the hands of Israeli security forces. And last Friday, a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israeli civilians outside a synagogue in the Israeli settlement of East Jerusalem, one of the worst attacks in the city in years.

This follows the deadliest year in the West Bank since the UN started tracking deaths in 2005, with 154 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

I spent a month in the West Bank in October as part of research for a book on far-right and Islamist politics. Within the first ten days after I arrived, seven children under the age of 18 were reported to have been killed. Over the course of one month, I documented 29 Palestinian deaths in total – and two killings of Israeli soldiers – most of whom under the age of 30.

Because the mainstream English media does not consistently report on these killings, I relied on several social media channels to cross-check names and pictures. And because of regular censorship on these platforms of Palestinian news sources, such as the Hamas-affiliated Quds News Network, the death toll is likely to have been even higher.

While peace has long been elusive in the occupied Palestinian territories, there is a new dimension to the latest violence in the West Bank, which some observers believe could now spiral out of control.

Unlike previous unrest, newly emerging Palestinian militant groups are increasingly fragmented and calling for a popular uprising. This demand, in turn, coincides with a radical shift to the extreme right in Israel’s government.

The emergence of the Lion’s Den

Many Palestinians, and the young in particular, have lost trust in the governing body of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, and other local factions to protect them from expanding Israeli settlements and suppression by Israeli security forces.

This new phase of resistance aims to unite these disaffected youths who are seeking an alternative to the traditional Palestinian power structures.

Several new armed groups have emerged in the past year and a half as the public support for armed resistance has grown stronger. Israeli security forces responded in early 2022 with an operation called “Break the Wave,” which targeted fighters in two West Bank cities, Nablus and Jenin.

This operation, which has paralyzed the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority in these areas, was followed by many more raids by security forces throughout 2022 and a deadly start to 2023. This has only amplified the anger of Palestinians.

At the vanguard of this uprising is one group called the Lion’s Den. It is believed to have evolved as an offshoot of an earlier group, the Nablus Brigade (an affiliate of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades).

The Lion’s Den has gained strength since the August killing of one of its founders,
Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a charismatic fighter also known as the Lion of Nablus. He was reported to be either 18 or 19 at the time of his death.

As an alternative to more established groups, such as the Islamic Jihad, the Lion’s Den has a relative lack of structure and organization. This disruptive appeal is part of what draws people to the group. Each time a notable member of the Lion’s Den is targeted and eliminated, the group loses strength in numbers and organization, but is boosted in its overall appeal.

As one fighter told Al Jazeera,

We are a group and not an organization. Anyone who wants to resist the occupation is welcome. […] It’s about sending a message [to Israel], that we will not sit idly by.

A right-wing government in Jerusalem

The pendulum of violence is also becoming less predictable with the establishment of an unprecedented far-right government in Israel.

The re-election of Netanyahu and the formation of a new coalition government with the ultra-orthodox and anti-Arab parties, the Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit, is likely to further legitimize support for de-centralized groups such as the Lion’s Den.

The appointment of Itamar Ben-Gvir as national security minister could inflame tensions even further. Ben-Gvir has previously been convicted for incitement of racism and unashamedly promoted violence against Palestinians in the weeks leading up to taking office.. He is also an outspoken advocate for settlement expansion and the ultimate annexation of the West Bank.

Israel’s Security Cabinet has also announced a series of harsh responses to the latest outbreak of violence in the West Bank. These include strengthening Jewish settlements in the West Bank, along with cancelling the social security benefits for families of attackers and making it easier for Israeli citizens to obtain gun licenses.

Whether it is the Lion’s Den or another group that takes the lead in the uprising, it is clear young Palestinians in the West Bank will no longer take a passive role when it comes to the actions of Israeli security forces or politicians.

With Abbas lacking any control over the new armed Palestinian groups and Israeli political leaders such as Bezalel Smotrich (head of the Religious Zionist Party) and Ben-Gvir shaping the narrative of Israeli politics, discussions of a two-state solution and peace in the Palestinian territories are likely to take a backseat for the foreseeable future.The Conversation

Susan de Groot Heupner, Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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Muendler & Góes: Lula faces a worse economy this time

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Lula and the neighbors
Lula and the neighbors: Brazilian President Lula da Silva in the presidential sash, with Uruguayan President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou to his left and to his right to former presidents of Uruguay, Pepe Mujica and Julio Sanguinetti. Photo by the Brazilian Presidency.

Brazil’s economic challenges are again Lula’s to
tackle – this time around they’re more daunting

by Marc-Andreas Muendler, University of California, San Diego and Carlos Góes, University of California, San Diego

Even when they’re in trouble, Brazilians rarely lose their sense of humor. But in recent years, their joviality has often given way to political division everywhere from social media to the dinner table.

One familiar quip – that Brazil is the country of the future and always will be – has lost its levity as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva begins his third presidential term. Lula previously led his country from 2003 to 2010. The president, who was sworn in again on Jan. 1, 2023, promised on the campaign trail that Brazil’s future can be like its past again: more prosperous and less polarized.

Having studied Brazil in our economic research, and having lived in the country for several years by birth or by choice, we argue that it will not be easy for Lula to fulfill his economic promises.

Unlike in his first two terms, when domestic and foreign markets helped the economy along, Lula now faces strong headwinds at home and abroad – and that means sound policies are even more important this time around.

Good times, bad times and economic choices

Brazil shot up from the world’s 14th-largest economy in 2003 to the seventh-biggest in 2010, during a boom that largely coincided with Lula’s prior presidency. At the same time, the country’s poverty rate, which the World Bank today pegs at the share of the population living on less than US$3.65 a day, fell sharply, from 26% to 12%.

Brazil exports so many gallons of orange juice, bags of coffee, bushels of wheat and other commodities that it’s serving up the world’s breakfast. Global growth during those years boosted the demand for these commodities as well as for Brazil’s processed goods. Manufacturing exports fueled Brazil’s growth in the decade following the year 2000 for the first time, led by sales of products like steel, car parts and cars, and aircraft made by Embraer.

During these boom years, Lula ran a balanced government budget, held inflation low and kept the Brazilian real’s exchange rate with other currencies under control – macroeconomic policies that he maintained from his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Lula also bundled Cardoso’s popular anti-poverty programs into Bolsa Família, a successful conditional cash transfer program. To remain enrolled and receive the monetary benefits, low-income families had to get their children vaccinated against diseases, keep them in school and meet other requirements.

Cynthia Benedetto, Embraer’s chief financial officer, observed in 2011: “Since my childhood I heard that Brazil is the country of the future,” and then warned, “Now the future has arrived, and I start to fear that it is short.”

She was right. The good times didn’t last.

During the second decade of this century, the prices of many of the commodities that Brazil exports fell or even plummeted. The country experienced two of the worst recessions in its history. In the downturn that lasted from late 2014 to mid-2016, nearly 5 million Brazilians lost their jobs. After a sluggish recovery, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and 10 million Brazilians became jobless in another big downturn.

Political upheaval

Bad choices made tough and unlucky times worse.

A combination of economic mismanagement, widespread corruption, political turmoil and a global pandemic all contributed to 10 years of backward sliding after a decade of progress.

Lula’s allies, including some in his inner circle, were found to be part of one corruption scheme after another. Lula himself ended up in prison for corruption until Brazil’s Supreme Court declared the case a mistrial because the presiding judge was determined to have been biased.

Brazilians elected Lula’s hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, in the 2010 and 2014 presidential races. She cast aside some of her predecessors’ policies that had buttressed economic stability.

Rousseff ended the central bank’s de facto independence and lowered interest rates in an abrupt turnaround that sparked inflation. She gave up on balancing the budget.

Once corruption was exposed in state-owned oil company Petrobras, the construction industry and at Brazil’s massive state-run development bank, economic activity slowed across the board. Rousseff oversaw one of Brazil’s most severe economic contractions in memory: GDP shrank by 7% and public debt increased 20 percentage points as a share of GDP from 2014 to 2016.

Brazil’s Congress impeached and convicted Rousseff in 2016 for fiscal improprieties. Her vice president, Michel Temer, served out the rest of her term and appointed Lula’s central bank chair, Henrique Meirelles, as minister of finance to help rein in public debt.

Jair Bolsonaro, a vocal admirer of Brazil’s 20th-century military dictatorship, became president in 2019 by riding the wave of widespread sentiment against Lula’s and Rousseff’s Workers’ Party. Bolsonaro prioritized short-term political gain over long-term adjustment, often clashing with his own economic aides and dodging rules meant to curb government spending.

By 2020, Brazil’s economy ranked No. 12 in the world in terms of GDP, and living conditions deteriorated. In 2021, the poverty rate likely hit the highest level in a decade, according to estimates by researchers at IPEA, a government think tank, as well as IBGE, Brazil’s statistics agency.

The pandemic and the social spending fluctuations it brought about have made it hard to accurately track economic trends in recent years. But the numbers suggest that Brazil is close again to where it started the 21st century.

Back to the future

Lula’s economic challenges are daunting, over and above the political crisis after the riots by opposition supporters in Brasília.

First, the economic outlook is gloomy. Inflation has led central banks worldwide to increase interest rates, and the International Monetary Fund forecasts a global slowdown in 2023.

Even if the world still wants Brazil’s coffee, orange juice and cereal from wheat or corn for breakfast, we doubt that foreign demand for Brazil’s exports will bounce back to the levels seen in past boom years.

Global prices for many of the commodities Brazil exports have been sliding downward for the past 15 years. They briefly reached their 2008 peak level again in mid-2022, partly driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing global turmoil that drove food prices up.

But the prices of commodities that are particularly important to Brazil, such as soybeans, corn and coffee, are all down significantly from their recent peaks.

During his 2022 campaign, Lula promised to slash taxes on the upper-middle class and increase benefits for the poor while keeping government finances under control.

This arithmetic is feasible in an era of rapid growth, when newly generated wealth can finance public transfers. At times of slow or no growth, like today, it becomes much harder to pull off.

Second, unlike when Lula first took office following a period of fiscal stability, this time he must credibly rebuild much of the fiscal framework.

After boosts to benefits, tax cuts and some unfunded pension commitments to retirees, it’s become hard to balance Brazil’s budget. In response to the crisis in the mid-2010s, Brazil’s Congress passed a spending cap that gradually rises so as to foster slow fiscal adjustment while avoiding harsh austerity. But Bolsonaro essentially got rid of the cap by circumventing it.

One example is the federal government’s obligation to cover court-mandated payments: Bolsonaro delayed the disbursement of 110 billion reais ($21.6 billion), equal to more than 1% of Brazil’s GDP, in 2022. That means the new government has to pay this year’s and some of last year’s bills at the same time.

While Bolsonaro dismissed the severity of COVID-19 when it was spreading uncontrolled through his country, his government did help people cope with its economic fallout by allowing emergency spending that breached Brazil’s spending cap. However, his administration maneuvered to perpetuate the state of emergency and kept spending levels higher than the cap would allow long after Brazilians stopped staying at home for public health reasons.

Third, we expect political divisions, including some within Lula’s administration, to be another obstacle. Different factions on his economic team are likely to be at loggerheads for the foreseeable future because they prefer starkly different policies.

Simone Tebet, the new economic planning minister who is in charge of coordinating spending, has several fiscal conservatives on her team.

Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, in contrast, has appointed undersecretaries known to invariably advocate for more spending. Plans for taxes and spending released to date set a budget surplus of 0.5% of GDP as the new government’s target, primarily financed with more tax collection.

Using budget projections by the International Monetary Fund, we consider those revenue projections overly optimistic.

To be sure, any new government deserves time to prove itself, especially under tough circumstances. But patience is rarer in Brazil than humor – and always has been.The Conversation

Marc-Andreas Muendler, Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego and Carlos Góes, Doctoral Candidate in Economics, University of California, San Diego

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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A modest list for a guy unlikely to appear on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

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smasho
The editor, and in the background a crime scene patch that ought to be decorated.

A hard times wish list

photos, article and list by Eric Jackson

The other day I shopped around, looking at farm / garden / yard tools to replace the ones stolen in mid-2021 and a few others that are broken. I could get hardcore about things that I never had – not going to do roto-tilling but use of a wood chipper would be a fabulous luxury to add to soil-building activities and so on. I have NEVER contemplated a lawn in the plasto suburban sense, but there are spots on my 900 square meters in which sodding with the Japanese grass that does not need to be cut. No riding lawnmower for me.

THEN, there are things to do with the house. Were I all of a sudden a zillionaire, a new roof with solar panels and batteries. A few patches will do, but at my age and with my clumsiness I am not climbing up on the roof to do any repairs. There is plumbing / pipefitting and electrical work that could be done. The place could stand to be painted inside and out, with cracks spackled up first. Floors would be nicer if tiled. The bare cement patches over where the thugs smashed in last year? THOSE I might decorate myself, thinking in terms of graphic designs to be printed at a printing place and glued down.

Anyway, a relatively low-budget journalist / blogger’s / peasant’s wish list for some of the outdoor work:

Garden rake — $8.39
Leaf rake — $9.29
Pruning shears — $15.99
Dual sharpening wheel – $169.95
Chainsaw — $129.99
Weed whacker — $199.99
Hoe – $19.95
Picking stick – $9.50
Pitchfork – yet to be priced
Wheelbarrow – yet to be priced.

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Putting up star apples — that’s a Panagringo hippie peasant thing to do!

 

 

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A new Middle East war on Israel’s agenda

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DVID
Back in 2019, Netanyahu inspects the artillery along with US and Israeli diplomats and military officers. From a US Department of Defense video.

‘War is clearly back on the agenda:’ US government
says Israel was behind the drone attack on Iran.

by Jake Johnson — Commom Dreams

Unnamed US officials on Sunday confirmed suspicions that Israel was behind the weekend drone attack on a purported military facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan, heightening concerns that the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up for a broader assault on Iran as international nuclear talks remain at a standstill.

The New York Times reported that the drone attack—which Iran says it mostly thwarted—was “the work of the Mossad, Israel’s premier intelligence agency, according to senior intelligence officials who were familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the United States about the incident.”

“American officials quickly sent out word on Sunday morning that the United States was not responsible for the attack,” the Times noted. “One official confirmed that it had been conducted by Israel but did not have details about the target.”

The Times added that the “facility that was struck on Saturday was in the middle of the city and did not appear to be nuclear-related.”

The Wall Street Journal also reported Sunday that Israel carried out the attack, which was launched hours before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East for planned trips to Israel, Egypt, and the occupied West Bank.

Last week, CIA Director William Burns made an unannounced trip to Israel to discuss “Iran and other regional issues,” according to the Journal.

Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in a statement that he is “deeply concerned by the gathering clouds of war in the Middle East.”

“This latest act of sabotage conducted via a military attack inside Iran is a dangerous escalation and should be cause for concern for everyone who opposes war,” said Abdi. “War will only further empower the most violent and repressive forces inside Iran at the expense of ordinary Iranians demanding freedom, and will embolden reactionary elements in Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US.”

Israel’s latest attack inside Iran’s borders came after negotiations aimed at bringing the US back into the Iran nuclear accord—which former President Donald Trump violated in 2018—hit a wall. President Joe Biden told a rallygoer in November that the Iran deal “is dead, but we’re not gonna announce it.”

Israel’s spy agency has made clear that a newly negotiated nuclear accord would not stop its attacks on Iran.

“Even if a nuclear deal is signed, it will not give Iran immunity from the Mossad operations,” Mossad chief David Barnea said in September. “We won’t take part in this charade and we don’t close our eyes to the proven truth.”

Earlier this month, Netanyahu—a longtime Iran hawk who has been making false predictions about Tehran’s supposed nuclear bomb ambitions for years—vowed to “act powerfully and openly on the international level against the return to the nuclear agreement.”

In the absence of a nuclear agreement, the Journal reported Sunday that the US and Israel are looking for “new ways to contain” Iran, which condemned the Saturday attack as “cowardly.”

Citing the Journal’s story, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft tweeted Sunday that “unlike before, when US officials stayed silent or only confirmed Israel’s role in attacks on Iran days later, now US officials immediately name Israel and appear to hint that it is part of a joint effort to ‘contain’ Iran.”

“War is clearly back on the agenda,” Parsi added.

Abdi of NIAC echoed that warning, arguing that “the Islamic Republic’s brutal crackdown against the Iranian people, its assistance in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and its rapidly expanding nuclear program freed from the restraints of the JCPOA have pushed tensions to a boiling point.”

“This, coupled with the rise of a hardline administration in Israel that appears determined to push the envelope militarily, an increasingly assertive Saudi royal family, and a US that has been unable to turn the page on the Trump administration’s destabilizing Middle East policies, makes for an exceedingly volatile cocktail,” Abdi said. “For those of us who favor democracy, human rights, and peace, it is vital that we call for all sides to exercise restraint and to prioritize non-military solutions to the tensions threatening the region.”

 

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Editorials: Ricky & Yanibel? and GOP meltdown

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them
Ricardo Martinelli and Yanibel Ábrego on the campaign trail. He’s on track — sort of — to be the nominee of his new political party, complete with his initials. She, and he, are campaigning to take his old political party, Cambio Democratico, from its leader from the time of Martinelli’s last disqualification, corporate lawyer Rómulo Roux. Martinelli has two or three criminal trials later this year, conviction at which could leave him disqualified again. Yanibel apparently has the support of the Electoral Tribunal. Will there be an RM / CD alliance with her standing in for him in May of next year? Photo from Ábrego’s Twitter feed.

Martinelli’s game is falling apart but he’s leading and who’s to stop him?

If you want Martinelista slanted news with some fake stuff in the mix, read the newspapers or listen to the broadcasts from his media empire. Quickly now, before the wheels of justice turn to take away the EPASA newspaper chain in the New Business case, which is about how he allegedly used public funds to buy those media properties.

OR, you might want to check out the Twitter feeds of the Martinelista camp, especially now that of his designated spokesman Mr. Camacho. Denials that don’t match the allegation and all that. He has a lot of hard-wired acolytes now, and some of the rest of the electorate not fallen into that sort of fanaticism is ready to buy the “He stole but he got things done” pitch.

No proof, they say. As if his two sons’ sworn confessions in open court before a US federal judge in Brooklyn aren’t evidence. As if seizures of bank accounts by authorities in third countries which have not been overturned don’t create any sort of legal inference.

Let’s see Uncle Sam put some more cards on the table, even if THAT would verify what Edward Snowden alleges about the US National Security Agency and what many reports over many years from several countries suggest. The US government has the ability to intercept almost all electronic communications — bank transfers, credit card purchases, emails, telephone or video conversations, the traces of who is hacking whom. The problem with storage and retrieval prevents a universal Big Brother operations but the NSA does particularly spy on foreign heads of state and governments. ‘Oh, we can’t do that because it might reveal intelligence sources and methods,’ Washington spymasters might plead? The problem with that, a lesson unlearned after so many debacles, is that the US government’s credibility is also a major component of national security. Intelligence agencies that conduct Murder Incorporated operations that must be carefully denied are far less protective than intelligence agencies that collect the information, properly analyze it and know the score. Lay it on the table for Panamanians and the world to see.

That still doesn’t excuse Panamanians from solving this problem. One facet of which would be to refrain from electing predators to public office.

Another aspect would be to refuse to play transactional politics. Not with the Martinelistas, not with the likely Martinelli surrogates if he can’t run next year, not with the sticky fingers from other political parties. It would mean that capable people whose egos are not big enough to make them want to go into politics, ordinary people with solid morals yet with embarrassing personal flaws like we all have, would have to find the courage to run and a lot of people who aren’t so brave but just as upright in their thinking would have to rally behind them.

There are leaders like that in the political game right now. There are citizens of all walks of life in positions who ought to step forward. Whatever the United States says, it’s up to Panamanians to definitively slap down “He stole, but…” and “We’ll give you ____ for your vote” pitches.

 

Melting right down

it
About 200 supporters showed up. The Republican governor panned his candidacy.

 

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Riding high, with a new Republican US House of Representatives majority — an edge of just five votes — and Americans laughing at them, not with them. Shutterstock photo by Shawn Thew.

 

 

Desiderius Erasmus, Wikimedia of a Han Holbein the Younger portrait.

    Prevention is better than cure.

Erasmus    

Bear in mind…

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads.

Erica Jong

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.

Albert Einstein

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.

Chinese Proverb

 

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WHO: A year of advances in tropical medicine, more needed

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eeew!
Chagas disease is a parasitic infection caused by the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite. This parasite is found in the feces of an infected blood-sucking triatomine bug. Transmission is from insect-to-human. Photo of a triatoma species by the US Food and Drug Administration.

More countries eliminate neglected tropical diseases
but investments key to sustain progress

by the World Health Organization

Today, on World Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Day, WHO releases a new progress report, entitled “Global report on neglected tropical diseases 2023” highlighting the progress and challenges in delivering NTD care worldwide, against a backdrop of COVID-19-related disruptions.

NTDs continue to disproportionately affect the poorest members of the global community, primarily in areas where water safety, sanitation and access to health care are inadequate. Although as many as 179 countries and territories reported at least one case of NTDs in 2021, 16 countries accounted for 80% of the global NTD burden. Around 1.65 billion people were estimated to require treatment for at least one NTD, globally.

The new progress report shows that the number of people requiring NTD interventions fell by 80 million between 2020 and 2021, and eight countries were certified or validated as having eliminated one NTD in 2022 alone. As of December 2022, 47 countries had eliminated at least one NTD and more countries were in the process of achieving this target.

Accomplishments made in 2021-2022 build on a decade of significant progress. In 2021, 25% fewer people required interventions against NTDs than in 2010, and more than one billion people were treated for NTDs each year between 2016 and 2019 through mass treatment interventions.

“Around the world, millions of people have been liberated from the burden of neglected tropical diseases, which keep people trapped in cycles of poverty and stigma,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “But as this progress report shows, we still have a lot of work to do. The good news is, we have the tools and the know-how not just to save lives and prevent suffering, but to free entire communities and countries of these diseases. It’s time to act now, act together, and invest in NTDs.”

The report also notes the significant impact of COVID-19 had on community-based interventions and on access to health facilities, as well as on supply chains for healthcare products. This led to 34% fewer people receiving treatment for NTDs between 2019 and 2020, even if a general resumption of activities enabled a 11% increase in recovery in 2021, when approximately 900 million people were treated.

Act now. Act together. Invest in neglected tropical diseases

The new report emphasizes greater efforts and investments required to reverse delays and accelerate progress towards the NTD road map targets by 2030. Promoting country ownership and accountability, as well as the sustainability and predictability of financing, including more robust domestic funding, are key to achieving the NTD road map goals and enabling countries to deliver on their commitments to provide quality NTD services to affected populations.

Multi-sectoral collaboration and partnerships are vital to make this happen. Last week, WHO and Gilead Sciences signed a new agreement for the donation of 304 700 vials of AmBisome (liposomal amphotericin B for injection) for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis in countries most impacted by the disease, extending their previous agreement to 2025. The new three-year collaboration is estimated at US$ 11.3 million and also makes provision for financial support to WHO.

WHO urges more partners and donors to come forward and fill existing gaps that hinder the full-scale implementation of NTD activities at global and local levels. Later this week, the 152nd session of the WHO Executive Board will consider admitting The Carter Center into official relations with WHO.

WHO’s NTD work in 2021 and 2022 resulted in over 100 scientific guidelines, tools and other information products, to assist the global NTD community including countries in need. The Open WHO platform started an NTD channel offering 36 training courses for health workers on 19 separate subjects. WHO continues to evaluate and approve new medicines to treat neglected tropical diseases and works steadfastly to ensure equity and human rights in all NTD service delivery.

On World NTD Day under the theme “Act now. Act together. Invest in neglected tropical diseases”, WHO is calling on everybody, including leaders and communities, to confront the inequalities that drive NTDs and to make bold, sustainable investments to free the world’s most vulnerable communities affected by NTDs from a vicious cycle of disease and poverty.

Editor’s note: The WHO’s list of neglected tropical diseases includes Buruli ulcer, Chagas disease, dengue and chikungunya, dracunculiasis, echinococcosis, foodborne trematodiases, human African trypanosomiasis leishmaniasis, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, mycetoma, chromoblastomycosis and other deep mycoses, onchocerciasis, rabies, scabies and other ectoparasitoses, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiases, snakebite envenoming, taeniasis/cysticercosis, trachoma, and yaws. Probably the grossest of those to get is yaws.

 

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Declaración de Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal

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them
Antes de aislarse: el ex presidente Martinelli con el ex embajador estadounidense Phyllis Powers y ex compañero de fórmula de Martinelli y actual coacusado Juan Carlos Varela. Foto de la embajada estadounidense.

Dice el expresidente en su cuenta de Twitter

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US coup plot wheels turn slowly but they do turn: Eastman disbarment move

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thugs in coats and ties

MAGA: Making Attorneys Get Attorneys

To read the California Bar charges against Trump lawyer John Eastman, click here. The document is in PDF format.

 

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Looters add to a fire-damaged Colon Free Zone’s woes

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Strippers
Yes, there are other place in Colon where you can see another sort of strippers. But those who strip the valuable parts of damaged buildings — and undamaged ones — are a major urban policy nuisance all over Panama, including in one of its main commercial assets, the Colon Free Zone. Photo by Milton Heriberto Roldan.

Predation, not salvage

by Milton Heriberto Roldan

In the building of the local Nevada company where the fire that shook the ZL and left the firefighters breathless started, another story is now being written. That place — and more than a dozen companies that were not damaged by the fire — has been stripped of high voltage electrical installations. Today the businesses have to invest in renting or buying electrical generators to be able to work.

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Photo by Milton Heriberto Roldan.
 

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¿Wappin? La lista de reproducción del viernes / The Friday playlist

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Daniel
The late Daniel José Bulgin Yau Salvatierra. Photo from his Facebook page and adapted by The Panama News.

Friday Mix from The Crossroads of The World
Mezcla de viernes desde la encrucijada del mundo

Susana Baca – Hasta La Raíz
https://youtu.be/VM72i0OyWV4

Wynton Marsalis & Rubén Blades – El Cantante
https://youtu.be/TLYcpQF_USQ

Carlos Santana & Gato Barbieri – Europa
https://youtu.be/h4Mrp6wuSwk

Erika Ender – Así Eres Tú
https://youtu.be/oVEP8nkcANs

Donovan – Universal Soldier
https://youtu.be/gWhCtsaKIAw

Haydée Milanés & Carlos Varela – Los Días de Gloria
https://youtu.be/RywmZKM0YEg

Curtis Mayfield – People Get Ready
https://youtu.be/bj7W37ZG-nY

Margarita Luna – Perfidia
https://youtu.be/APwyBVU8qLI

The Corrs – Little Wing
https://youtu.be/hVq8TtPHYaw

Víctor Jara – Te Recuerdo Amanda
https://youtu.be/tkYvpjYCGZg

Valeria Ovando – Tu Fuerza de Mujer
https://youtu.be/XCJBN2JskDA

Mark Knopfler – Brothers In Arms
https://youtu.be/hlq4mhgB7cs

Angela Aguilar, Aida Cuevas & Natalia Lafourcade – La Llorona
https://youtu.be/KdWgysitPgU

Daniel Bulgin – Mosaico de Baladas
https://youtu.be/ifEjHkFVCUU

Mon Laferte – Festival del Huaso de Olmue 2023
https://youtu.be/-hGqyeg3Dbo

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.  

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