UNITED NATIONS, Jun 05 (IPS) - COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt. Nations, businesses, and schools have closed, and billions are confined to their homes. Yet millions of care workers step out daily to keep the lights on and support those in need.

NEW YORK, Jun 04 (IPS) - Maliha Masud (25), was promised an affluent life and opportunities for higher education. A bright student studying Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she wanted to complete her studies and become someone her parents would be proud of. She was promised an opportunity to get her Master's degree from a good university in the United States but, two years later, was left battered and wounded at the doorstep of a shelter.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jun 04 (IPS) - Lockdowns have been the main measures to ‘flatten the curve' of COVID-19 infections. But lockdowns typically incur huge economic costs, distributed unevenly in economies and societies. In fact, some governments acknowledged that they were choosing ‘life over economy'.

ROME, Jun 04 (IPS) - Landless farmers who produce rice for the landlords of big "haciendas" can't get more than a little pocket money from their harsh work—not enough to provide diverse and healthy food for their families. Seasonal workers on sugar-cane plantations know that they can count on only six months of earnings. When summer arrives, those whose irrigation facilities have been destroyed by typhoons, or those who never had any, struggle while waiting for the rain.

GENEVA, Jun 04 (IPS) - In these difficult times for the Palestinian people and for justice, the Government of Israel is proposing to add further to the turmoil by unilaterally absorbing large swathes of the Palestinian West Bank of the Jordan River. It might therefore be fitting to remind the world of the chronology of the events leading up to the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948.

MILAN, Italy, Jun 04 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inherent fragility of food systems, Marta Antonelli told an international video conference organised by the Barilla Center for Food Nutrition (BCFN).

NEW YORK, Jun 04 (IPS) - The United States has been a story of broken dreams and broken glass this past week.

Once again, an unarmed black man died at the hands of a white police officer, with George Floyd being pinned to the ground under a lawman's knee in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as stunned passersby made cell-phone videos of the incident to post on social media.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 04 (IPS) - "Before there can be truth there must be a true man"-- Chuang-TzuIn the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, the much-anticipated 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) of the WHO concluded without any major controversies or disagreements.

BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 04 (IPS) - The world economic contraction so far this year is largely due to measures, especially at the national or local level, to contain or prevent Covid-19 contagion, particularly those restricting business operations, thus reducing economic activity, output, incomes and spending.

Jun 04 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic is crippling the economies of rich and poor countries alike. Yet for many low-income and fragile states, the economic shock will be magnified by the loss of remittances—money sent home by migrant and guest workers employed in foreign countries.