Coronavirus passes proposed by European Union to allow its 450 million residents to travel freely across the bloc by summer
The European Commission foresees the creation of certificates aimed at facilitating travel between the 27 EU member nations. The plan is set to be discussed during a summit of EU leaders next week.
The topic of vaccine certificates has been under discussion for weeks in the EU, where it proved to be divisive. The travel industry and southern European countries with tourism-dependent economies like Greece and Spain have pushed for the quick introduction of a program that would help eliminate quarantines and testing requirements for tourists.
But several other EU members, including France, argued that it would be premature and discriminatory to introduce such passes since a large majority of EU citizens haven’t had access to vaccines so far.
To secure the participation of all member countries, the commission proposed delivering free “Digital Green Certificates” to EU residents who can prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, but also to those who have tested negative for the virus or can prove they recovered from it.
The European Parliament believes that the challenges faced by EU and Africa should be seized as opportunities.
Africa and the EU must establish a new partnership as equals, focusing on people’s needs and adjusting to the needs of a post-Covid world.
African and European societies face common issues and shared challenges, such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, creating the need for closer and more equitable collaboration.
On 25 March, MEPs will vote on Parliament’s proposals for a new EU-Africa strategy laying the foundation for a partnership that reflects the interests of both sides and gives African countries the means to achieve sustainable development.
Africa is home to the youngest population in the world, with about one million Africans entering the job market every month. However, more than 390 million people are living below the poverty line, while less than 10% of 18-24 year olds are enrolled in some form of post secondary education or training.
Investing in people is therefore seen as a key pillar of the upcoming EU-Africa strategy, announced by the European Commission in March, with priority given to the fight against inequality, young people and the empowerment of women.
Chrysoula Zacharopoulou (Renew Europe, France), who wrote the Parliament’s proposals, emphasises the need to ensure access to quality education and provide young people, especially women and girls, with the necessary skills to access the job market.
Decent working conditions are seen as key to providing prospects to the rapidly growing population. This goes hand in hand with inclusive social protection systems, measures against child and forced labour and a transition from the informal to the formal economy. The informal sector makes up nearly 86% of all employment in Africa.
The new strategy should also improve health care and strengthen national health systems, making them more resilient to future crises. MEPs want to step up EU-Africa collaboration on health research and innovation to boost local production of equipment and medicine.
The EU-Africa relationship “must move beyond the donor-recipient relationship”, according to the Parliament report, emphasising the importance of supporting Africa’s domestic production through sustainable investment.
It also proposes boosting intra-African trade through the continental free trade area, investment in transport infrastructure and better access to global markets.
Public-private partnerships and funding small and medium enterprises are considered essential, as these smaller firms represent 95% of businesses in Africa and the private sector is expected to be decisive in the post-Covid recovery.
All agreements should be compatible with human rights, labour and environmental standards and in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals, said the report.
The report also calls on international lenders, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to do more to relieve the debt burdens of African countries, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Partners for a green and digital transition
Africa bears the least responsibility for climate change, but it is bearing the brunt of its impact: in 2019, nearly 16.6 million Africans were affected by extreme weather events, 195% more than in 2018.
The report urges a transition to a clean and circular economy through investment in sustainable transport, green infrastructure and renewable energy. It also stresses the need to protect Africa’s unique biodiversity and indigenous communities, as well as ensuring fair and sustainable exploitation of raw materials, which account for 49% of EU imports from Africa.
A partnership on sustainable agriculture should be at the centre of EU-Africa relations, say MEPs, in order to develop environment-friendly farming practices, strengthen the resilience of farmers and address food system failures, aggravated by the closure of borders due to the Covid crisis.
The digital transformation will play a key role in the modernisation of the farm sector, but also education, employment, health and people’s participation in political decision-making.
A migration policy based on solidarity and shared responsibility
Since 2015, the EU and African countries have developed a joint approach to managing migration flows, which has led to a reduction in irregular migration and improved cooperation on the fight against migrant smuggling. Yet significant challenges remain. Sub-Saharan Africa hosts more than a quarter of the world’s refugees and Mediterranean crossings continue to cause loss of life and fuel criminal networks.
MEPs stress that the new EU-Africa partnership must put the dignity of refugees and migrants at its heart, addressing migration as a shared responsibility between European countries of destination and the African countries of origin. They also emphasise the need to tackle the root causes of displacement, guarantee fair asylum procedures and establish a migration policy that would create opportunities for skilled and unskilled workers.
Disruptions in health services due to COVID-19 “may have contributed to an additional 239,000 child and maternal deaths in South Asia” – UN report
In a new report, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said that the impact also included sharp drops in the number of young children treated for severe acute malnutrition as well as in childhood immunizations.
According to George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia, the fall-off of these critical services has had a devastating impact on the health and nutrition of the poorest and most vulnerable families.
“It is absolutely vital that these services are fully restored for children and mothers who are in desperate need of them, and that everything possible is done to ensure that people feel safe to use them”, he stressed.
The region also suffered increased levels of unemployment, poverty and food insecurity due to the pandemic, further undermining public health, the report said
Millions of girls unlikely to ever return to school
The report – which covered Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – also found that about 420 million children were out of school due to the pandemic and its related control measures.
It warned that 4.5 million girls are likely to never return to school, and are at particular risk due to deteriorating access to sexual and reproductive health and information services.
“Given the cultural and social context of South Asia, the suspension of these services is deepening inequalities and is likely to lead to an increase in the number of maternal and neonatal deaths”, Bjorn Andersson, UNFPA Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific said.
“There are also likely to be an additional 3.5 million unintended pregnancies in this region”, Mr. Andersson warned.
Wider impact of COVID-19 also included increased risk of child marriage and stunting – impaired growth and development due to poor nutrition and health.
UNICEF-WHO-UNFPA report
Wider impact of COVID-19 on children and mothers in South Asia.
Prioritize essential health services
The UN agencies called for prioritizing essential health services for pregnant women, adolescents and young infants, as well as strengthening supply chains for the delivery of vaccines and other essential childhood medicines.
Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, underlined that maintaining essential health services is vital for the region’s COVID-19 response strategy “as disruption would only increase the risk of deaths from preventable causes”.
The report also called for ensuring uninterrupted and improved health services for all, helping vulnerable populations address health needs, and stepping up of key COVID-19 prevention measures.
It also urged cash transfer programmes to support the poorest families.
The BSocial Impact Fund, which already reached EUR 38 million in its second closing, is supported by Ship2B Ventures, the European Union and the EIF under the EFSI Equity social impact pilot as well as by Banco Sabadell.
The objective of the fund is to invest in social enterprises that aim to improve the life of vulnerable groups, improve access to education and mitigate the effects of climate change.
The fund is also supported by AXIS, Repsol Impacto Social, Fundación Anesvad, and leading families in the business environment such as Puig, Elias, Castelló, Knuth, Pont and Ângela Impact Economy, and by leading entrepreneurs such as the founders of Holaluz, Privalia, Socialpoint, SocialCar, Trovit, Cooltra and Glovo.
Ship2B Ventures, a venture capital management firm specialized in impact investing based in Barcelona, together with the European Union and European Investment Fund (EIF), under the EFSI Equity social impact pilot, and Banco Sabadell back the launch of the BSocial Impact Fund, an impact venture capital fund that already reached EUR 38 million in its second closing and aims to exceed EUR 45 million.
The new fund will be the largest impact venture capital fund for startups in Spain and it will focus on seed and early-stage social enterprises, targeting startups that aim to tackle three major challenges: improve the quality of life of vulnerable groups (e.g. the elderly, people with disabilities or with chronic illness), fight climate change and eradicate education skill gaps. With this transaction, the European Union and the EIF support social entrepreneurship and social impact investors, aiming to develop and scale up the European social impact ecosystem.
The fund is also supported by other institutional investors such as AXIS-venture capital subsidiary of Grupo ICO-, Repsol Impacto Social and Fundación Anesvad, by leading families such as Puig, Elias, Castelló, Knuth, Pont, Ângela Impact Economy as well as by successful entrepreneurs such as the founders of Holaluz, Privalia, Socialpoint, SocialCar, Trovit, Cooltra and Glovo.
Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, said: “Thanks to the support of the Investment Plan and of the European Investment Fund, the Spanish BSocial impact fund will invest in early-stage social businesses. The new fund will be the largest impact venture capital fund for startups in Spain and address some of the main challenges of our times: increasing the quality of life for vulnerable people, mitigating the effects of climate change, and improving access to education for all.”
Maite Fibla y Xavier Pont, co-founders and managing partners of Ship2B Ventures, stated: “The attractiveness of the fund’s investment thesis among investors and institutions has pushed us near the EUR 40 million in our second closing. Looking at our commitments pipeline, we estimate a final closing above EUR 45 million”. “In the coming years we will invest in 20 highly innovative startups with extraordinary teams that respond to our challenges while providing strong financial returns for our investors.”
Alain Godard, EIF Chief Executive, also added: “We are proud to continue supporting one of the most recognised impact actors in the Spanish ecosystem to consolidate their social impact activity and continue playing a key role in developing the market. EIF´s collaboration since 2016 has proven fundamental for the General Partners to develop their investing activities; which together with the Foundation’s accelerator programmes, provide a value-added proposition for social entrepreneurs in the first stages of development. The fund´s three main challenges address three key priorities for the EIF.”
Raúl Rodríguez, director of BS Capital, added “impact investing is key for the future. Sabadell and its Foundation have a close relationship with Ship2B, so we were eager to be part of the BSocial Impact Fund and seek a social return through its investments. We decided to become an anchor investor and sponsor it from the very beginning.”
Leading investors, entrepreneurs and experts join Ship2B Ventures
Ship2B Ventures was founded by Maite Fibla and Xavier Pont and has a team of five professionals with expertise in investments, social and environmental impact, and health. Daniel Sánchez, partner of Nauta Capital, will be the non-executive chairperson of Ship2B Ventures. Further support will be provided by renowned experts from the venture capital industry such as Lluís Seguí (Miura Private Equity), Carles Florensa (Business Angel), and Cristina Marsal (Sandman Capital); leading entrepreneurs such as José Manuel Villanueva and Lucas Carné (Privalia), Carlota Pi, Oriol Vila and Ferran Nogué (Holaluz), Iñaki Ecenarro (Trovit), Horacio Martos and Andrés Bou (Social Point), Oscar Pierre (Glovo), Mar Alarcon and Francesc Queralt (Social Car), and Timo Buetefisch (Cooltra); and leading sectorial experts such as Jaime del Barrio (EY and Asociación de Salud Digital), Consuelo Crespo (UNICEF España y Oxfam), Concha Oliu (BStartup), and Ainhoa Grandes and Clara Navarro (Ship2B Foundation).
The team has been investing in social and environmental impact startups for more than eight years through the Ship2B Foundation. It manages two investment vehicles, Impact Equity BF, and Equity4Good, which are co-invested by the European Investment Fund with Impact Equity BF. The total AUM of these investment vehicles is 4.5 million euros, invested across 23 impact startups such as Qida, Psious, ADmit Therapeutics and Fiction Express. The firm has already executed its first exit (Koiki).
About Ship2B Ventures
Ship2B Ventures a venture capital firm that invests in the best impact startups. As impact investors they seek to generate triple profitability: economic, social and environmental. Ship2B Ventures combine the best of the venture capital world with the impact world, maximizing the financial profitability of their investments with a clear intention to generate, manage and measure their impact.
About European Investment Fund
The European Investment Fund (EIF) is part of the European Investment Bank Group. Its central mission is to support Europe‘s micro, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by helping them to access finance. EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment.
About the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) Equity social impact pilot
EFSI Equity is a facility managed by the European Investment Fund (EIF) that provides equity investments to or alongside financial intermediaries focusing on the areas of early stage, growth stage and expansion financing. Through the EFSI Equity social impact pilot, the European Union and EIF support social entrepreneurship and social impact investors, aiming to develop and scale up the European social impact ecosystem.
About Banco Sabadell
With a history stretching back 139 years, Banco Sabadell is Spain’s fourth largest banking group and one of the best capitalised Spanish financial institutions. Banco Sabadell has assets in excess of 230 billion euros, a network of more than 2,000 branches and has earned the trust of 12 million customers. Banco Sabadell has gone through a historic period of growth in the last decade, demonstrating its strength and its international footprint, as well as expanding into Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean said Tuesday that she’s been blackballed from appearing on “The View” — and suggested it was due to her outspoken criticism of embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Dean — who has blamed Cuomo’s coronavirus policies for the nursing home deaths of her in-laws — tweeted that her publicist has tried “several times” to schedule an appearance for her on the daytime talk show, to no avail.
Dean said she wanted to promote her recently published book, “Make Your Own Sunshine,” and also “talk about @NYGovCuomo and what I’ve been doing for 10 months to raise awareness and accountability for my husband’s parents’ deaths.”
“Guess what they said?” Dean said.
Dean also ripped into “The View” co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin, tweeting that “seeing [them] yesterday saying they’d basically rather have criminal @NYGovCuomo than a Republican governor in office makes me sick.”
Hosts of “The View” (from left) Whoopi Goldberg, Candace Cameron Bure, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Paula Faris on the popular talk show.ABC
She added: “I must say that @MeghanMcCain has been trying to shout for months about Cuomo, but when you have all the other women drowning her out and saying NO to her good friend who has been screaming for 10 months, it’s kinda telling where their loyalties are.”
In 2019, Dean previously appeared on “The View” to promote her memoir “Mostly Sunny,” which was a New York Times bestseller.
She’s also written a series of children’s books featuring the cartoon character “Freddy the Frogcaster.”
A publicist for ABC, which produces “The View,” declined to comment.
In other words, some highly vocal and visible religious people are inadvertently pushing other people who don’t share their political views out of religion.
“This is a stunning change in the American social landscape,” Campbell, said in a Zoom interview. “To put it in context, prior to 1990, virtually no Americans identified in public opinion surveys as nonreligious. It was as low as 5%, which is close to the margin of error. And by the time we get to the year 2000, at that point you’re talking about 14% to 15% of the population. And now, that is a huge change. We do not typically see change of anything on that scale in a relatively short period of time.”
What’s responsible for this rapid change? Various studies have argued that one reason for the rapid rise of the nones is a backlash against the actions of the religious right, since so many people who leave religion also seem to be politically liberal. Campbell and his colleagues designed a series of experiments that could test that hypothesis: Was it a coincidence? A correlation? Or was religious people’s political activism actually causing increasing numbers of Americans to vote with their feet?
The first phase of each experiment asked people to choose their religious affiliation from a list and also asked other questions about their behavior and beliefs. The second phase, given to the same respondents a week later, had them read a news story that looked realistic but was actually fictionalized. The news stories were all about examples where people had mixed religion with politics, like a clergy member who was active in politics, or a politician who repeatedly referred to his faith on the campaign trail. Then, at the end of the survey, they were given the same demographic questions as before, including the one about their religious identity.
The researchers compared how people responded to the religious affiliation question to the baseline they had established a week earlier. For respondents who had already identified themselves as Republicans, being presented with these examples of the mixing of God talk and politics had no effect on how they characterized their religious identity the second time around.
Democrats, however, showed a clear aversion after reading the reports about mixing religion and politics. When surveyed the second time, their rate of religious affiliation had dropped by 13 points.
Campbell said the findings were dramatic. Just reading the news story, he said, is apparently “enough to push a sizable number of people away from holding a religious affiliation. That’s one story at one point in time, and we can get that effect. Imagine what happens when people are exposed to hundreds of stories over many, many years. It would only reinforce that idea that religion and the Republican Party go together, and that if you’re not sympathetic to the Republican Party, you don’t want anything to do with religion.”
While most of the attention has been given to the way nones are leaving religion because of the religious right’s political stances on issues like LGBTQ rights or anti-Muslim immigration policies, the left doesn’t have a pass to mix religion and politics, either, Campbell said.
“I would say to churches, on both the left and the right, that if you want to bring people back to the pews, you want to stay out of politics. And that’s true of mainline Protestant churches, Catholic parishes, Jewish synagogues — any religious community. While most of the allergic reaction is against the right, there is a general sentiment among people that they really don’t like the mixture of the two.”
“Secular Surge” does a deep dive into what the rise of the nones — and their demonstrated allergy to mixing religion and politics — might mean for politics in America going forward. In addition to the massive religious-secular divide in America as a whole, in which Republicans remain highly religious and most nonreligious people gravitate toward the Democratic Party, there’s also an intraparty fault line that could become a problem in the near future.
“In the Democratic Party, this is a brewing storm,” Campbell said. “The secular activists are a large number of the grassroots volunteers for the Democratic Party.” But the Democratic Party has traditionally been the home of African American and Latino voters, who are often highly religious. Will the party be able to hold together in its aims, given that religious and secular voters often have very different priorities?
“Frankly, the Biden administration will be the test. Can Joe Biden manage to keep these two wings of the party together? Thus far, they have managed to tamp down any potential tensions between the religious and secular wings of the party. But I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next four years, you do see more of those tensions arising.”
Biden, he noted, has been unusual in being so public about his Catholic faith, both on the campaign and in his presidency. “Here you have a candidate who is very open about his religion, but he’s heading up a party that has this strong secular wing.”
A rupture is not inevitable, he said. But preventing it will take sensitivity to divergent points of view within the party.
CNN host Don Lemon said that Christians need to re-examine their beliefs and claimed that God doesn't judge people when responding to a statement from the Vatican on same-sex unions.
Lemon, 55, made the theologically questionable comments as a guest on "The View" on Monday
Co-host Meghan McCain quoted a comment from the Vatican saying that the church could not bless same-sex unions because "God cannot bless sin," and asked Lemon, who is openly gay, to respond.
"Do you think this sends a damaging message? How do you feel about that given that obviously you're now engaged and going to get married?" McCain asked.
'Well I think there are, listen, I respect people's right to believe in whatever they want to believe in their God," Lemon claimed.
"But if you believe something that hurts another person, or does not give someone the same rights or freedoms, not necessarily under the Constitution because this is under God," he continued. "I think that this is wrong, and I think that the Catholic Church and many other churches really need to re-examine themselves and their teachings. Because that is not what God is about. God is not about hindering people or even judging people."
Lemon went on to put the issue in the “context of race” by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who decried segregation in churches.
“So I think that religion and the pew keeps us from actually, they are barriers from people actually getting to know each other,” Lemon continued.
“So I would say to the Pope and the Vatican, and all Christians or Catholics, or whomever, whatever religion you believe out, you have to belong to out there, go out and meet people and try to understand people and do what the Bible and what Jesus actually says, if you believe in Jesus, and that is to love your fellow man and judge not lest ye be not judged,” he misquoted.
“Instead of having the pew hinder you, having the church hinder you, instead of being segregated in the church and among yourselves, go out and have a barbecue,” he concluded. “And meet people and start breaking bread with people and getting to know them.”
Some Christians on social media objected to Lemon’s watered down version of historical Christian teaching.
Here’s the video of Don Lemon’s advice to Christians:
<
p class=”shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube”>
Don Lemon Addresses Trump, Voter Suppression, Racism in Book “This Is the Fire” | The View
