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5 Dance Moves Made Popular By Salman Khan Which Prove Sometimes Even ‘Pappu Can Dance Saala’




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Richard Madeley reveals the one thing wife Judy hates about being on camera

Fans are delighted to see Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan back on TV screens with their...




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Prince William and Kate Middleton just made a big change to their social media accounts

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made a sweet update to their social media accounts on...




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Covid 19 coronavirus: All the mistakes the United States has made in its response

The United States has suffered the largest coronavirus outbreak in the world by far, with five times as many reported cases as any other country and more than twice as many deaths.The numbers are astonishing. America has 1.3 million...




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Covid 19 coronavirus: Colombian-made hospital bed doubles as a coffin

A Colombian advertising company is pitching a novel if morbid solution to shortages of hospital beds and coffins during the coronavirus pandemic: combine them.ABC Displays has created a cardboard bed with metal railings that designers...




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Local Muslim community to break fast during Ramadan with virtual iftar Saturday

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA invites Americans across the country to unite together in interfaith virtual iftar celebrations during the pandemic.




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Van Dijk says football shutdown will have made players consider retirement

The Liverpool defender says the current absence of football will have forced players to think about what they'll do when they have to stop playing




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OncMadness: Meet the Blue Ribbon Panel

(MedPage Today) -- OncMadness 2020 is upon us. In this first-of-its-kind online education competition in oncology by oncologists, hosted by MedPage Today, 32 oncology hot topics will face off -- only one can be champion! Helping MedPage Today...




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The 'madness' and uncertainty of the coronavirus outbreak has floored grassroots sport

It is not just the major national sports leagues and events being stalled by coronavirus, with everyone from semi-professional all the way to junior athletes across the country caught up in the storm.




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Can I see my partner, and can I go for a drive? We've made sense of the latest coronavirus rules for you

We're living through unprecedented changes to the way we go about our everyday lives right now. If you're still not sure what you can and can't do, get some answers based on where you live here.




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Teenager Madison Prespakis named AFLW best-and-fairest for 2020

Madison Prespakis of Carlton is named the winner of the 2020 AFL Women's Best and Fairest award, and Isabell Huntington takes out the rising star award.



  • Australian Football League
  • Sport

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Five years of horrific pain made Monique question her own sanity, until she was finally diagnosed

This swimmer spent years battling endometriosis, an insidious enemy within her own body that consumed her with crippling pain. The fact that most coaches in women's sport are men also didn't help, she says.




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Drive-throughs and drive-ins were fading. Coronavirus made them a lifeline

The drive-through is derided; the drive-in, nearly extinct. But the coronavirus outbreak has made them essential for food, tests, a movie and church.




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'80s teen gem 'Valley Girl' unconvincingly remade as a jukebox musical

The new version of "Valley Girl" reconfigures the '80s teen classic as a flashback jukebox musical, but it lacks the spark and charm of the original without finding a new tune to call its own.




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U.S. spy officials say coronavirus isn't manmade but do not rule out lab accident

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the new coronavirus is "not manmade or genetically modified."




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Changes Made to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by the CARES Act

By: Daniel Logan and Justine Johnson The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or “CARES” Act (Pub. L. No. 116–136) makes numerous changes to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).  The CARES Act made substantial changes related to the regulation of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs (see KKB’s alert here dedicated to summarizing these

The post Changes Made to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by the CARES Act appeared first on Kleinfeld Kaplan & Becker LLP.




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Mike Pompeo says there is evidence COVID-19 was made in a lab, despite US intelligence saying it occurred naturally

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that there is evidence the COVID-19 coronavirus was created in a lab, despite US intelligence officials stating it probably occurred naturally.




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Madhatta Haipe Extradited to U.S. for 1995 Hostage Taking Involving U.S. and Philippine Citizens

Madhatta Haipe, a citizen of the Philippines, has been extradited from the Philippines to face trial in the District of Columbia for various crimes relating to the hostage taking of U.S. and Philippine citizens in 1995.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Arrests Made in Case Involving Conspiracy to Procure Weapons, Including Anti-Aircraft Missiles

A criminal complaint, unsealed today, charged Dani Nemr Tarraf with conspiring to acquire anti-aircraft missiles (FIM-92 Stingers) and conspiring to possess machine guns (approximately 10,000 Colt M4 Carbines).



  • OPA Press Releases

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U.S. Files Lawsuit Against Bollinger Shipyards for Material False Statements Made to the Coast Guard

“Companies which make false statements to win Coast Guard contracts do a disservice to the men and women securing our borders,” said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Man Pleads Guilty to Civil Rights Violations in Connection with Arson at Planned Parenthood and Vandalism of Mosque in Madera, California

Donny Eugene Mower of Madera, Calif., pleaded guilty in federal court today to one count of arson, one count of damaging religious property and one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Man Sentenced in Connection with Arson at Planned Parenthood and Vandalism of Mosque in Madera, California

Donny Eugene Mower, 38, of Madera, Calif., was sentenced in federal court today following his October 2011 guilty pleas to one count of arson, one count of damaging religious property and one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal crime to damage the property of a reproductive health services facility. These charges stem from Mower’s lighting a fire inside a Planned Parenthood clinic and throwing a brick at a mosque in Madera.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Several Retailers Agree to Resolve Allegations Concerning the Unlawful Advertising and Selling of Rayon Products as Being Made from Bamboo

Amazon.com; Leon Max Inc., d/b/a Max Studio; Macy’s Inc.; and Sears, Roebuck and Co., Kmart Corporation and Kmart.com (collectively, Sears) have agreed to settle civil lawsuits concerning alleged violations of the Textile Fiber Product Identification Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Federal Officials Close the Investigation into the Death of Carlos LaMadrid

The Justice Department will not pursue federal criminal civil rights or other federal criminal charges against the United States Border Patrol (USBP) agent involved in the shooting incident that resulted in the death of Carlos LaMadrid, the Department announced today.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Justice Department Concludes That Los Angeles County Jails System Has Made Progress, but Serious Deficiencies Continue

The Justice Department today released its latest compliance assessment of mental health services at the Los Angeles County Jails based on a memorandum of agreement designed to protect the constitutional rights of prisoners with serious mental illness at the jails.



  • OPA Press Releases

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Relmada Therapeutics (RLMD): Sending The Right Signals?

Shares of Relmada Therapeutics Inc. (RLMD) have gained 19 percent so far this year and trade around $37.




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She Made Every Effort to Avoid COVID-19 While Pregnant. Not a Single Thing Went According to Plan.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Last September, over pancakes at a diner in central Massachusetts, Molly Baldwin told her husband, Jonathan, they were going to have a baby. He cried into his coffee mug, elated and a little surprised. They had only been trying for about a week, and they had yearned for a summer baby, ideally in June, which would enable their parents to spend more time with their first grandchild.

“We thought we had the best timing,” she said.

But as the novel coronavirus began to spread through the country this year, Baldwin realized in early March that it was only a matter of time before the virus hit her town, Fitchburg, and the nursing home where she’s a social worker. Her patients would be among the most vulnerable: Some had battled addiction, many had experienced homelessness and most were elderly. Flu seasons were always hard on her patients, and she dreaded the havoc a more lethal disease would wreak.

Baldwin also worried about her baby. She spent hours looking up the prenatal effects of COVID-19, and the lack of evidence-based research concerned her. She called her obstetrician, who cautioned that because of the unknowns, she should consider working from home to limit her exposure to the virus.

So Baldwin made a plan for when COVID-19 arrived at her nursing home: She would swap shifts with a colleague to work fewer hours and request to work from home, as many of her duties are paperwork or computer-based.

She would work from the comfort of her kitchen table. She would avoid catching the virus. She would keep visiting her doctor until it was time to deliver, her belly swelling with a baby girl she knew was healthy and safe.

None of it, not a single thing, would go according to plan.

Baldwin said her supervisor and the human resources representative from the facility verbally agreed in mid-March to let her work from home. (Baldwin spoke with ProPublica on the condition that her workplace not be named; ProPublica contacted her employers with questions for this story.)

Then, on April 16, one of the residents at her facility tested positive for the virus. Baldwin sought testing at a walk-in clinic, and the results came back negative. But when she called her obstetrician’s office, she got a warning: If she continued to work at the facility, potentially exposing herself to the virus, they would not allow her to enter their office for prenatal appointments unless she could prove with a test, before each visit, that she was negative for COVID-19.

She understood their caution; her job was beginning to feel at odds with her pregnancy. It was time for her work-from-home plan to go into action.

She called her employer and asked to start the accommodations she had requested the month before. But they told her that now the plan would not be feasible, she said. Other pregnant employees were continuing to work at the facilities, and she would have to as well, she said she was told.

“The services provided at a nursing home do not typically allow for remote working,” a company spokesperson told ProPublica. “However, we have made changes to accommodate our staff whenever possible, provided there is no impact on patient care.”

After finding out her request to work from home would not be granted, Baldwin panicked. “I’m not even a mom yet,” she said. “This is my first baby, and I already feel like I’m doing everything wrong.”


Baldwin is one of dozens of pregnant workers who ProPublica has heard from who are navigating the risks of COVID-19 while in the field of health care.

“There are plenty of pregnant women across the country who are trying to figure out what to do to protect themselves, given the uncertainty,” said Emily Martin, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center. “If you feel like you can’t do your job because there aren’t certain accommodations and you feel like you’re at risk, it’s difficult to see where to go next.”

About half of the states have laws that allow pregnant women to request reasonable accommodations, including Massachusetts, Martin said.

According to the Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, signed into state law in July 2017, employers must grant reasonable accommodations to their pregnant employees that allow them to continue to do their job, “unless doing so would impose an ’undue hardship’ on the employer.” An employer also “cannot make an employee accept a particular accommodation if another reasonable accommodation would allow the employee to perform the essential functions of the job.”

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have stated that based on the data available, pregnant women do not face a higher risk of infection or severe morbidity related to COVID-19. That said, both the CDC and ACOG have suggested that health care facilities may want to consider reducing the exposure of pregnant health care workers to patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, if staffing permits.

“In the overwhelming majority of pregnancies, the person who is pregnant recovered well with mild illness,” said Dr. Neel Shah, an obstetrician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, echoing the current guidance. But, he cautioned, there is a lot we still don’t know about how the virus impacts bodies, let alone those that are pregnant. “We can’t say that it’s completely safe — we don’t know.”


Baldwin and her husband went through their options.

She couldn’t quit because they needed her paycheck. They had a mortgage, student loans and a new baby on the way. She also loved her job and cared deeply for her patients, whom she wanted to continue to serve. Her employer, trying to manage understaffing, had discouraged employees from taking time off, she said. She didn’t want to take any additional sick days, because she needed to save them for her maternity leave.

They decided that she would have to return to work.

Her employer told her to wear a mask and gloves, use hand sanitizer and remain in her small, boxy office, which has three desks for four people. Though she didn’t have contact with the residents, her office mates still did.

Baldwin’s job began to feel at odds with her pregnancy. (Kayana Szymczak for ProPublica)

Even though she was scared, she tried to stay optimistic. “I was grateful for what I had because I have friends that are out of work right now,” she said. But she remained perplexed about why her requests had been denied. “I was sitting in my office doing work that would have easily been done from a laptop on my kitchen table.”

The company spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether it had originally given Baldwin verbal approval to work from home. When asked why she couldn’t have done the same work remotely, he said, “Based on your questions, our HR and Risk Management are anticipating action and would prefer to not comment at all.”

The next day, the Massachusetts National Guard delivered testing kits to the nursing home, and every resident was checked for the virus. When the results came back, at least 22 residents and 20 other staff members tested positive.

“We are conducting cleanings and infection control measures multiple times per day, with extra focus on high touch areas,” the company spokesperson said. “We screen and take the temperature of anyone entering our building, and we have increased monitoring of our residents.”

Public data shows the facility has more than 30 cases among residents and staff, the maximum number that the state reports publicly.

“I thought if I just keep working, stay in my office, use hand sanitizer, wear my mask, go home and shower right away, disinfect my clothes, then I will be fine, and I can keep my baby safe, and I can shed all this guilt,” she said.

Then on April 24, two of her office mates texted to tell her they had the virus.

And that morning, she’d felt a tickle in her throat.


“I know I’m positive,” she thought to herself, as she left work midday and drove to a CVS drugstore testing site an hour away that was offering free rapid tests for front-line and health care workers. Hundreds of cars were already lined up.

She waited alone in her Jeep Wrangler for three hours, wearing her mask as required, which muffled her nagging cough. She shifted around constantly, to keep blood from pooling in her swelling feet. At the front of the line, she received a 6-inch cotton swab, wedged it deep in her nasal cavity, and returned it to the technicians. They directed her into a side parking lot, and 30 minutes later, she got a phone call with her results.

“We’re sorry to tell you that you’re positive,” the voice on the line told her. Baldwin’s mind stalled, engulfed in a wave of anxiety, which gave way to seething frustration.

“This was so preventable,” she said. “Now here I am, 33 weeks pregnant and positive. My most important job is to keep the baby safe, and my actual job wasn’t making that happen.”

When she called her co-workers and supervisor to tell them she tested positive, she said they were “all very caring and compassionate.” They told her to stay home for at least a week, or until her symptoms subsided. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires most employers to provide their workers with two weeks of paid leave if the employee is quarantined or experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. Baldwin said she would have to exhaust her sick days first; she’d been saving them for her maternity leave. Her husband, who works as a correctional officer at a county jail, was allowed to take 14 days of paid leave to tend to his wife, without using his own sick days.

She could no longer go to her normal obstetrician for in-person appointments, and instead, she would have to rely on telemedicine. Her doctor connected her with an obstetrician specializing in COVID-19 cases, with whom she planned to meet this week.


Last Saturday, Baldwin’s mother had planned to throw her daughter a baby shower. She had invited 50 of their closest friends to celebrate at a new restaurant and had ordered dozens of pink favors from Etsy.

Because of the stay-at-home order, her shower morphed into a drive-by celebration, where her friends and family passed by her house, honking their horns and holding celebratory signs, balloons and streamers. They dropped gifts in front of her house, including first aid kits and a handsewn pink mask for an infant.

Her symptoms have, so far, been relatively mild, similar to a normal flu: headaches, a stuffy nose, a sore throat and muscle pains. She’s spent most of the past week resting in bed and taking baths to soothe her body aches. While taking care of Baldwin, her husband has also contracted the virus and is experiencing severe body aches as well.

In addition to her disappointment that the hypnobirthing and breastfeeding classes she had signed up for are canceled, her time in quarantine is now filled with anxious questions about how the disease may impact her baby.

Will the stress of this experience damage her baby neurologically? Will her baby be born early? Will she have to deliver by cesarean section to relieve pressure on her body and lungs, like so many stories she had read? Will she have to be secluded from her baby for days or weeks after birth? And what if her own symptoms worsen?

“This is our first baby, and it was so planned and wanted,” she said. “But had we known this awful thing would happen, would we have tried when we did?”





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Supporting Biotech Development in Madison

As part of our follow up to our recent Biotech in Wisconsin Meetup about professional development skills, we are asking folks to fill out this poll.




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Was the coronavirus made in a Wuhan lab? Here's what the genetic evidence shows

Despite President Trump's statements that the coronavirus was released from a laboratory in Wuhan, scientist say the evidence points to a natural origin.




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First plant-made biologic approved




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The β-catenin/TCF-4-LINC01278-miR-1258-Smad2/3 axis promotes hepatocellular carcinoma metastasis




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AI papers in ophthalmology made simple




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Accesibilidad informacional y diversidad funcional en el contexto universitario: el caso de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Cuevas-Cerveró, Aurora and Razquín-Zazpe, Pedro and Parra-Valero, Pablo and Barrios-Martínez, Cristina and Gómez-Hernández, José-Antonio . Accesibilidad informacional y diversidad funcional en el contexto universitario: el caso de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid., 2020 In: Competencia en Información y Políticas para Educación Superior: Estudos Hispano-Brasileiros. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, pp. 132-146. [Book chapter]




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Educar para la transparencia y una ciudadanía informada: diseño, aplicación y evaluación del programa IRIS para alumnado de Bachillerato de la Región de Murcia (España)

Campillo-Meseguer, María-José and Galiano-Martínez, Antonio and Gómez-Hernández, José-Antonio and Hidalgo-Pérez, Antonio and López Aniorte, María-del-Carmen and Martínez-Navarro, Emilio and Molina-Molina, José and Mayor-Balsas, José-Manuel and Ros-Media, José Luis and Oliva-Palazón, Elena and Reverte-Martínez, Francisco-Manuel and Baeza-Hernández, María-José . Educar para la transparencia y una ciudadanía informada: diseño, aplicación y evaluación del programa IRIS para alumnado de Bachillerato de la Región de Murcia (España)., 2020 In: Competencias en Información y Políticas para Educación Superior: Estudios Hispano-Brasileños, volumen 1. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, pp. 123-138. [Book chapter]




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Send us your questions to former ISRO chief Madhavan Nair guest at Idea Exchange

The father of India's moon mission will be our guest at the Idea Exchange on February 6, Monday. Grounded by the government for his alleged role in a scandal-tainted sale of rare radio frequency, former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair surely has an arduous fight ahead. And his story to tell. We request our readers to send in questions they would like to ask Madhavan Nair. Is there anything in the probe reports of the Antrix-Devas deal? Will he be exonerated? Is he a victim? Controversy a slap on my face: G Madhavan Nair




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Using Parse.com with PhoneGap – Part 1: A marriage made in Awesome

Learn how to store data using the Parse JavaScript API and the PhoneGap mobile framework.




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The Madrid Climate Conference’s Real Failure was Not Getting a Broad Deal on Global Carbon Markets

Robert N. Stavins writes that the negotiations failed to reach one of their key stated goals: writing meaningful rules to help facilitate global carbon markets. As an economist, he sees this as a real disappointment — although not the fatal failure some portray it to be.




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Harvard Project Engages with Policymakers, Issue Advocates, and Others at COP-25 in Madrid

With representatives from nearly 200 countries gathering in December in Madrid, Spain for the 25th annual UN climate change conference (COP-25), the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements played a very active role by engaging with policymakers, issue advocates, academics, and journalists to help inform the discussions.






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20200417 NPR Madiha Afzal

       




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20200506 Al Jazeera Madiha Afzal

       




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On December 10, 2019, Tanvi Madan discussed the policy implications of the Silk Road Diplomacy with AIDDATA in New Delhi, India.

On December 10, 2019, Tanvi Madan discussed the policy implications of the Silk Road Diplomacy with AIDDATA in New Delhi, India.

       




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Nine Priority Commitments to be made at the United Nations July 2015 Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia


The United Nations will convene a major international conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 13 to 16, 2015, to discuss financing for the post-2015 agenda on sustainable development. This conference, the third of its kind, will hope to replicate the success of the Monterrey conference in 2002 that has been credited with providing the glue to bind countries to the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The analogy is pertinent but should not be taken too far. The most visible part of the Monterrey Consensus was the commitment by rich countries to “make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product” as official development assistance (ODA). This was anchored in a clear premise that “each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development,” which includes support for market-oriented policies that encourage the private sector. While not all of the Monterrey targets have been met, there has been a considerable increase in resources flowing to developing countries, as a central plank of efforts to achieve the MDGs.

Today, aid issues remain pivotal for a significant number of countries, but they are less relevant for an even larger number of countries. The core principles of Monterrey need to be reaffirmed again in 2015, but if the world is to follow-through on a universal sustainable development agenda, it must address the multi-layered financing priorities spanning all countries. A simple “30-30-130” mnemonic helps to illustrate the point. There are 193 U.N. member states. Of these, only around 30 are still low-income countries (33 at the latest count). These are the economies that are, and will continue to be, the most heavily dependent on aid as the world looks to how it should implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Conversely, there are only around 30 “donor” countries (including 28 members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, or DAC) that have made international commitments to provide more aid. For the remaining 130 or so emerging middle-income economies that have achieved higher levels of average prosperity, aid discussions risk forming a sideshow to the real issues that constrain their pursuit of sustainable development. The bottom line is that for most countries, the Financing for Development conference should unlock finance from many different sources, including but not exclusively aid, to implement the SDGs.

Addis will take place in the context of sluggish global growth, an upsurge in conflict, considerable strains in multilateral 2 political cooperation, and challenging ODA prospects in many countries.

There are other differences between Addis and Monterrey. Monterrey took place after agreement had been reached on the MDGs, while Addis will precede formal agreement on the SDGs by a few months. Monterrey was focused on a government-to-government agreement, while Addis should be relevant to a far larger number of stakeholders—including businesses, academics, civil society, scientists, and local authorities. Monterrey was held against a backdrop of general optimism about the global economy and widespread desire for intensified international collaboration following the terrorist events of September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, Addis will take place in the context of sluggish global growth, an upsurge in conflict, considerable strains in multilateral political cooperation, and challenging ODA prospects in many countries. In addition, regulators are working to reduce risk-taking by large financial institutions, increasing the costs of providing long-term capital to developing countries.

Against this backdrop, an Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Finance (ICESDF) crafted a report for the United Nations on financing options for sustainable development. The report provides an excellent overview of issues and the current state of global financing, and presents over 100 recommendations. But it falls short on prescribing the most important priorities and action steps on which leaders should focus at Addis.

This paper seeks to identify such a priority list of actions, with emphasis on the near-term deliverables that could instigate critical changes in trajectories towards 2030. At the same time, the paper does not aim to describe the full range of outcomes that need to be in place by roughly 2025 in order to achieve the SDGs by their likely deadline of 2030. Addis will be a critical forum to provide political momentum to a few of the many useful efforts already underway on improving global development finance. Time is short, so there is limited ability to introduce new topics or ideas or to build consensus where none already exists.

We identify three criteria for identifying top priorities for agreement in Addis:

  • Priorities should draw from, and build on, on-going work—including the ICESDF report and the outputs „„of several other international workstreams on finance that are underway.
  • Agreements should have significant consequences for successful implementation of the SDGs at the coun„„try, regional or global level.
  • Recommendations should be clearly actionable, with next steps in implementation that are easy to under„„stand and easy to confirm when completed.

It is not necessary (or desirable) that every important topic be resolved in Addis. In practical terms, negotiators face two groups of issues. First are those on which solutions can be negotiated in time for the July conference. Second are those for which the problems are too complex to be solved by July, but which are still crucial to be resolved over the coming year or two if the SDGs are to be achieved. For this second group of issues, the intergovernmental agreement can set specific timetables for resolving each problem at hand. There is some precedent for this, including in the 2005 U.N. World Summit, which included timetables for some commitments. What is most critical is that the moment be used to anchor and advance processes that will shift toward creating a global financing system for achieving sustainable development across all countries. Committing to timetables for action and building on reforms already undertaken could be important ways of enhancing the credibility of new agreements.

In this paper, we lay out nine areas where we believe important progress can be made. In each area, we start from identifying a gap or issue that could present an obstacle to the successful implementation of the SDGs if left unattended. In some cases the gaps will affect all countries, in other cases only a subset of countries. But we believe that the package of actions, taken as a whole, reflects a balance of opportunities, responsibilities and benefits for all countries. We also believe that by making the discussion issue-focused, the needs for financing can be balanced with policy actions that will be required to make sure financing is effectively and efficiently deployed.

In addition to the nine areas listed below, there are other commitments already made which have not yet been met. We urge renewed efforts to meet these commitments, but also recognize that political and financial realities must be managed to make progress. Such commitments include meeting the Monterrey Consensus target to provide 0.7 percent of GNI in official development assistance (ODA), the May 2005 agreement of all EC-15 countries to reach that target by 2015, and bringing the Doha Development Round of trade talks to a successful conclusion. These remain important and relevant, but in this paper we choose to focus on new areas and fresh ideas so as to avoid treading over well-worn territory again.

      
 
 




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20200417 NPR Madiha Afzal

       




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To fast or not to fast—that is the coronavirus question for Ramadan

       




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20200506 Al Jazeera Madiha Afzal

       




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March Madness and college basketball’s racial bias problem

The NCAA basketball tournament is one of the most-viewed sporting events in the United States. In 2019, nearly 20 million viewers watched the championship game, and each tournament game (67 total) averaged about 10 million viewers. Over 17 million people completed a March Madness tournament bracket for the 68-team tournament. Among youth, basketball is one…

       




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Beyond Madrasas: Assessing the Links Between Education and Militancy in Pakistan

Overview

Increasing educational attainment is likely to reduce conflict risk, especially in countries like Pakistan that have very low levels of primary and secondary school enrollment. Education quality, relevance and content also have a role to play in mitigating violence. Education reform must therefore be a higher priority for all stakeholders interested in a more peaceful and stable Pakistan. Debate within the country about education reform should not be left only to education policymakers and experts, but ought to figure front and center in national dialogues about how to foster security. The price of ignoring Pakistan’s education challenges is simply too great in a country where half the population is under the age of 17.

There has been much debate concerning the roots of militancy in Pakistan, and multiple factors clearly come into play. One risk factor that has attracted much attention both inside Pakistan and abroad is the dismal state of the national education sector. Despite recent progress, current school attainment and literacy levels remain strikingly low, as does education spending. The Pakistani education sector, like much of the country’s public infrastructure, has been in decline over recent decades. The question of how limited access to quality education may contribute to militancy in Pakistan is more salient now than ever, given the rising national and international security implications of continued violence.

The second half of 2009 witnessed not only the Pakistani government stepping up action against insurgents but also the release of a new Pakistan National Education Policy that aspires to far-reaching and important reforms, including a commitment to increase investment in education—from 2 to 7 percent of gross domestic product. Hundreds of millions of dollars in international education aid have been newly pledged by donor countries. This renewed emphasis on education represents a substantial opportunity to seek to improve security in Pakistan and potentially also globally over the medium to long term. Policymakers both inside and outside Pakistan should give careful consideration to whether and how education investments can promote peace and stability, taking into account what we now know about the state of the education sector and the roots of militancy.

This report takes a fresh look at the connection between schools, including but not limited to Pakistan’s religious seminaries, known as “madrasas,” and the rising militancy across the country. Poor school performance across Pakistan would seem an obvious area of inquiry as a risk factor for conflict. Yet to date, the focus has been almost exclusively on madrasas and their role in the mounting violence. Outside Pakistan, relatively little attention has been given to whether and how the education sector as a whole may be fueling violence, over and above the role of the minority of militant madrasas.

Downloads

      
 
 




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The prince of counterterrorism: The story of Washington’s favorite Saudi, Muhammad bin Nayef

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, America’s oldest ally in the Middle East, is on the verge of a historic generational change in leadership. King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, 79, who ascended to the throne in January, following the death of King Abdullah, will be the last of the generation of leaders who built the…