News headlines in 2020, page 72

May 25 (IPS) - Many well meaning education benefactorsand commentators in South Africa have expressed that in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic online self-guided learning could solve some of the current teaching problems and address the educational backlog. What learners need, the reasoning goes, is to get free internet access to educational support materials on offer online.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 25 (IPS) - When I was a little girl, my mother told us the story of a woman who escaped from a monster by cooking stones: when the monster fell asleep waiting for his dinner, the woman ran for her life.

MEXICO CITY, May 22 (IPS) - While it attempts to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Latin American and Caribbean region also faces concerns about the future of the energy transition and state-owned oil companies.

BONN, May 22 (IPS) - Restoring damaged ecosystems is vital to avoid the collapse of nature's most valuable contributions to people, but International Day for Biological Diversity 2020 should also be a wake-up call about the importance of addressing our social, economic and systemic values, because it is these that are driving the destruction of nature.

UNITED NATIONS, May 22 (IPS) - Today, May 22, marks the International Day of Biological Diversity. Experts say that conservation efforts have actually strengthened under the COVID-19 pandemic. This year's International Day of Biological Diversity falls amid the coronavirus pandemic and the slow easing, in some nations, of a global lockdown. While the lockdown has forced most people to stay at home, there have been reports of more wildlife being spotted - even in once-busy city centres. 

STOCKHOLM / ROME, May 22 (IPS) - It is easy to generalize about migration. Populist politicians often portray migrants as strangers and "our" homeland as a stable entity, rooted in an old agricultural society. When they do so they tend to forget that most of us are in fact migrants who have left that traditional farming community far behind and if it was not we who did so, it was our ancestors.

LONDON, May 22 (IPS) - Ruth Romer is Senior Private Sector Advisor, WaterAidAs COVID-19 lockdown restrictions across the globe start to be relaxed, the collective conversation has shifted towards plans for a ‘new normal.'

May 21 (IPS) - Fake and bogus cure claims are a longstanding, but neglected public health problem. Throughout recorded history, plagues have inspired anxiety and desperation. Time and again, this public nervousness has proved a fertile ground for false cures and claimants to thrive. In this sense, recent claims of COVID-19 cures and antidotes are no exception.

CANBERRA, Australia, May 21 (IPS) - As of 11 AM (AEST) on 20th May 2020 the incidence of COVID-19 virus (henceforth virus) on the Pacific Islands was limited. Active cases (deaths) in some of the Pacific Islands were Australia 7,072 (100), New Zealand 1,503 (21), PNG 8(0), Guam 154 (5), Fiji 18 (0), Timor-Leste 24 (0), French Polynesia 60(0), and New Caledonia 18(0).¹

BANGKOK, May 21 (IPS) - While most of the world self-isolates at home and skies are emptier than they have been for decades, humanitarian flights transporting life-saving aid are revving up around Asia and the Pacific.