One hundred thousand households in Somaliland in northwest Somalia have better access to water, protecting them not just from the ravages of climate change but also against the spread of COVID-19, thanks to a project supported by the UN Development Programme.
Explained: Should you book profits now?
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</span><span class="custom-caption"> <span class="ie-custom-caption">London starts a newly imposed lockdown. Given that fresh lockdown measures could impact economic recovery, investors can book some profits now. (Reuters)</span></span>As the haze around the outcome of US elections began to clear on Thursday morning, the benchmark Sensex at BSE and Nifty at NSE jumped by 1.8% and inched closer to their respective all-time high levels seen in January this year. The Sensex closed at 41,340, just 604 points or 1.4% lower than its higher ever closing of 41,945 on January 17, while the Nifty closed at 12,120, just 2% from its closing of 12,362 on January 14.
So, should you book some profits at this time?
Amid a fresh wave of Covid-19 infections across the world and a looming threat of lockdowns, investors would do well to book some profits on their investments when the market is on a high. With a vaccine still some time away, uncertainty remains over the global economy. Several countries in Europe have imposed new lockdown measures amid the rise in new cases and fatalities. Keeping in mind the fact that fresh lockdown measures may hurt economic recovery and stock market movement, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to book some profits on investments that have achieved their targeted growth.
Some profit booking also makes sense at this time because many feel that if the Covid-19 concerns remain for an extended period of time, then investors will get an opportunity to invest in the same assets at a cheaper valuation at a later date.
It must always be remembered that while investments should be made in a regular and disciplined manner, redemption or profit booking must be planned and executed when the markets are on a high or the expected gains have been achieved.
When the Sensex fell by over 35% from the highs of January to 25,981 on March 23, there was a sense of anxiety among investors. Many rued the fact that they had missed out on booking profits and reducing their equity exposure when the indices were trading at all-time high levels in January. No one knew that the market would regain its levels in 10 months and provide the same opportunity again. Now that this has happened, investors would be wise to book and keep some profits aside, to reinvest when there is a dip.
Where should you book profits from?
It is important to note that while direct investments in stocks of various companies may have generated good positive returns, a number of mutual fund SIP investments may not have generated significant enough positive returns for investors to book profits over the last 3-5 years. Therefore, experts say that it may be a better idea to book profits from individual stock investments rather than mutual funds. The decision to pull out of mutual funds may, however, depend upon the age of the investor, the period of investment and whether the investment objective has been met.
Some feel that investors should look for companies that are not performing too well during the pandemic period but have seen a significant jump in share prices, to book profits.
“As second-quarter results are coming out, investors can figure out companies that are strained on the business front but have seen a sharp jump in their share prices. I feel that investors should book profits in those companies, as they will get an opportunity to buy them at a later date and at cheaper valuation,” said C J George, MD, Geojit Financial Services. He added that one should remain invested in companies that have done well even amid the constraints of the last six months, as they would do well going forward.
What should mutual fund investors do?
The strategy should depend on the life-cycle of an investor. If the investor is young, say in their 30s or early 40s, they can stay invested for the long term and can let the near-term volatility play out. But for an investors who is in their late 50s and is approaching retirement, it is important to seek this opportunity and reduce their equity exposure and start deploying funds into safe asset classes where there is no risk of capital erosion.
“It is a good time for investors to rebalance their portfolio. Investors who think they have high exposure of equity can bring it down and move to debt,” said Surya Bhatia, founder of Asset Managers, a financial advisory firm.
Where should you put your money?
Even as one books profit, the more important aspect in these times is to figure out where to deploy that money. Investors can look at various options. The first is to keep the money in liquid form and put it in bank fixed deposits, G-Secs or a debt mutual fund scheme for a period of three months to six months, and deploy it into high-quality blue chip companies when there is a dip in the market.
The other option is to look for high-performing companies in sectors that are still trading significantly below their pre-Covid levels in January 2020. A fund manager with a leading fund house said that investors can look at strong private sector banks or a banking sector fund, and can also look to invest in dividend yield funds or special situations funds.
Will there be long-term capital gains tax?
In his Budget announcement on February 1, 2018, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a proposal to impose long-term capital gains tax of 10% (without indexation) on gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh arising from sale of listed equity shares or units of equity-oriented mutual funds. The government, however, said that all gains up to January 31, 2018 will be grandfathered and not attract tax.
So, if investors book profits where the capital gains are over Rs 1 lakh (since February 1, 2018), they must be ready to pay LTCG tax at the rate of 10% on all gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh.
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Ahead of global health assembly, WHO stresses need for solidarity, preparation
The reminder comes ahead of next week’s World Health Assembly, the annual meeting of the UN agency’s decision-making body, which normally takes place in May but had to be cut short this year due to the pandemic.
There are more than 47 million COVID-19 cases, and over 1.2 million deaths, according to latest figures. The Assembly will chart the course for response and global health priorities.
Crisis unites the world
“Although this is a global crisis, many countries and cities have successfully prevented or controlled transmission with a comprehensive, evidence-based approach”, said WHO.
“For the first time, the world has rallied behind a plan to accelerate the development of the vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics we need, and to ensure they are available to all countries on the basis of equity. The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator is delivering real results.”
A second message WHO is highlighting now is the importance of not backsliding on critical health goals, including achieving the “triple billion” targets by 2023.
Don’t neglect health goals
The goal is to see one billion more people worldwide benefiting from universal health coverage, a further billion more better protected from health emergencies, and around a billion citizens enjoying better health and well-being.
The World Health Assembly is attended by representatives from more than 190 countries. Since May, nations have adopted several decisions, including on immunization, healthy ageing, cervical cancer, tuberculosis, eye care and food safety.
The resumed session will discuss a 10-year plan to address neglected tropical diseases, and other concerns such as meningitis, epilepsy and other neurological disorders, maternal infant and young child nutrition, as well as digital health.
Prepare for future pandemics
For its third message ahead of the virtual meeting, WHO stressed the need to prepare now for the next pandemic.
“We’ve seen this past year that countries with robust health emergency preparedness infrastructure have been able to act quickly to contain and control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus”, said the agency, referring to the virus that causes COVID-19.
The Assembly will consider a draft resolution that aims to strengthen countries’ preparedness, and to ensure they are better equipped to detect and respond to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.
UN boosts efforts
Relatedly, UN leaders working on sustainable development met virtually on Thursday to assess preliminary results and challenges of joint work supporting more than 160 countries and territories during the pandemic.
So far, UN teams have repurposed around $3 billion of existing funding, while also mobilizing nearly $2 billion for these efforts, aimed at helping countries to both overcome the crisis and recover better.
The UN Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG) also outlined some of its actions over recent months.
‘A development emergency of global proportions’
These included supporting authorities with delivering nutrition programmes to nearly five million people, with seven million women receiving maternal health services.
“For the first time, we all recognize this is a development emergency of global proportions. Governments, communities, and citizens have mobilized accordingly – and our UN teams too have stepped up, together, from the onset of the pandemic to address the health, humanitarian and socioeconomic needs. In many ways this is an expression of global solidarity and response to the most vulnerable. But much more needs to be done, even faster,” said Amina J. Mohammed, the UN Deputy Secretary-General and the UNSDG Chair.
UN chiefs have pledged to do more, including to boost data collection as a means to address those most in need
United States awaits result of presidential election – Vatican News
By Vatican News staff writer
The outcome of Tuesday’s elections in the United States remained in doubt Thursday, with the closely watched presidential race still undecided.
Under the American system, the president is not chosen by direct vote; rather, voters in each of the fifty states, plus the District of Columbia, choose electors who cast their ballots after the popular vote. 270 electoral votes are necessary to win.
As of Thursday morning, Democrat Joe Biden had a lead in electoral votes, but the incumbent president, Donald Trump, held out hopes for victory in states where counting was ongoing.
Results disputed
Trump supporters were also circulating rumors of irregularities and even voter fraud, and the president’s campaign has launched legal action in several states to verify the legitimacy of the election results. Claims of malfeasance have been vigorously denied by election officials, and media outlets have noted that Trump has provided no evidence of large-scale fraud.
For his part, challenger Joe Biden, the former vice-president under Barack Obama, said he remains confident that at the final tally, he will emerge victorious.
Control of the United States Congress is also up for grabs, although it appears the Democrats will retain control of the House of Representatives, while the Republicans will continue to hold the Senate.
A lengthy process
Experts warn that it could be days before final results are reported, and even longer for legal issues to be resolved. It could be some time yet before the world knows for certain who will be president of the United States.
European Union warns no return to pre-Covid pandemic economy before 2023
BRUSSELS: A second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has stalled a nascent recovery in Europe, the European Union (EU) said today, warning that the economy would not return to pre-virus normality before 2023.
“The rebound has been interrupted,” the EU’s economic affairs commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told reporters as he announced new forecasts.
The soured outlook dashed hopes for a quick turnaround of the European economy and raised questions whether more stimulus would be needed to avert more lasting damage.
“We never counted on a V-shaped recovery. Now we know for sure that we won’t have one,” Gentiloni said.
In its forecast, Brussels pointed to a whole series of danger signs, including higher unemployment and soaring debt levels for countries that will need to keep spending to revive their economies.
The European Commission said the eurozone economy would expand by just 4.2% next year, much lower than the 6.1% it predicted in July.
In effect, renewed disruptions across the continent will “put the recovery on hold in the short term”, Gentiloni said, but added that the outlook was subject to “extremely high uncertainty”.
The loss of steam came despite a better-than-expected recovery in the middle of 2020 which limited the depth of this year’s historic recession.
The economy in the 19 countries that use the single currency would crash by minus 7.8 percent in 2020, instead of the minus 8.7 predicted earlier, the EU said.
But, unlike earlier hopes, EU economic output “will not return to pre-pandemic levels by 2022,” warned commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis.
All 19 eurozone countries are mired in recession this year, but three are particularly hard hit – Spain with a dive of 12.4%, Italy at minus 9.9% and France at minus 9.4%.
Germany, the bloc’s leading economy, has limited the damage, with GDP expected to fall 5.6% in 2020.
The downturn has led member states to open the purse strings in the hopes of saving their economies and public deficits have widened to more than 10% in the case of France, Italy, Spain and Belgium.
As a clear consequence, the debt of the member states is expected to soar in 2020 and will exceed 100% of GDP in the eurozone as a whole.
The commission called on the European Central Bank to keep doing all it can to offset the negative consequences of this heavy debt.
So far, thanks to the ECB’s action, the financial markets have shrugged off the extra public spending with borrowing costs currently near record lows despite the high debt.
The EU also underlined the uncertainty of stalled post-Brexit talks, which “clearly weighs on the EU’s economic outlook,” Dombrovskis said.
In another development, the recovery in German industrial orders from the shock of pandemic restrictions slowed in September, official data showed on Thursday, as new measures to tackle a resurgence in cases clouds the outlook again.
“After the first strong recovery following the lockdown in April, industry is continuing to fight its way out of the crisis,” the economics ministry said in a statement.
Industrial orders grew 0.5% month-on-month, compared with a rise of 4.9% in August, as curbs tightened and quarantines became more widespread across Europe to fight a second wave of the pandemic.
The data was below expectations for a 1.5% rise, according to financial services provider FactSet.
The small rise was sustained by domestic demand which went up 2.3% in September, while orders from abroad dipped 0.8%.
Compared with the same month in 2019, industrial orders were down 1.9%.
Manufacturing has benefited from Germany’s economic recovery from May onwards, enabling orders to return close to levels in the fourth quarter of 2019 before the outbreak of the pandemic, the ministry said, “driven by domestic and foreign demand”.
The automotive industry, the engine of the German economy, saw orders rebound strongly at 5.1%, reaching levels 5.8% above February 2020.
Germany’s economy expanded by a record 8.2% in the third quarter as restrictions were lifted and shops and factories reopened.
However, lockdowns announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel to curb the second wave in the country for the month of November will likely hit the economy again. – AFP
There’s No Good Evidence that Psychedelics Can Change Your Politics or Religion
<div class="mura-region-local"><p>Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that historically have attracted exaggerations of benefits as well as alarmism. As with most subjects that bring out extreme views, the scientific data provide a more grounded perspective. Sometimes, the scientific data require further clarification. We are responding to a thought-provoking opinion piece by Eddie Jacobs published on October 11, 2020 entitled <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-if-a-pill-can-change-your-politics-or-religious-beliefs/" rel="nofollow">“What if a Pill Can Change Your Politics or Religious Beliefs?</a> Some could mistakenly take away from the piece an unrealistic impression that is not supported by the scientific data. We worry that this may lead to alarmist reactions.</p>
Jacobs’ piece raises ethical questions regarding emerging research suggesting psychedelics may be effective psychiatric treatments. Specifically, the concern is that psychedelic therapy could shift patients’ political beliefs “in one direction along the political spectrum” or “change [their] religious beliefs.” We agree that as with any emerging medical treatment, psychedelic therapy prompts important ethical considerations; however, we believe that the possibility implied in the headline––that psychedelics prompt substantial change in political and religious beliefs or affiliations––is not supported by the current scientific data.
To be clear, Jacobs did not mention affiliations, but we believe readers might reasonably take away this interpretation. We suggest that there is no evidence that people change political or religious affiliations from psychedelic treatments, and current evidence for other kinds of belief changes is weak. Below, we address the three major studies mentioned in the original article.
The concern about political beliefs largely rests on evidence from a small pilot study of psilocybin for treating depression. The study showed an average reduction on a measure of “authoritarianism” from baseline to one week after psilocybin in seven people. Authoritarianism, as it is operationalized here using five questions that were reduced from the original version of the scale, likely does not fit neatly into a particular political party. Many people, for example, would likely disagree with the scale item “The law should always be obeyed, even if a particular law is wrong,” regardless of political affiliation.
It is also not clear that a reduction in authoritarianism (or increase in libertarianism or social/moral liberalism, the other end of the scale spectrum) holds a relation to present political affiliations. There are abundant historical examples of both left-wing and right-wing authoritarian governments (for example, communism and fascism, respectively). Moreover, in a country such as the United States, the major left-and right-leaning parties have generally had no universal leaning toward either individual freedom or state control. The position taken along this continuum is highly dependent on the subject (for example, business regulation, abortion, gun control, social constraints on sexual behavior). In fact, the developers of the scale in question preferred not to use the term “liberal” in reference to the scale because that term had a political meaning in the United States that went beyond what the scale measures.
Beyond the theoretical issues with mapping authoritarianism onto present political parties, there are also statistical concerns with this study. The finding about reduced authoritarianism barely met the threshold of significance –– and with a one-tailed t-test. A one-tailed test provides a lower standard for achieving significance compared to the much more common two-tailed test. It is unclear if the reduction would have been significant with a two-tailed test. In any case, the effect did not last. At the 7–12 month follow-up the decrease was not significant, even according to the lower standards of the one-tailed test.
Jacobs’ piece alluded to another study about political beliefs, a 1971 study exploring the association between LSD increased liberalism. This study compared three groups: 1) people who had taken LSD as a medical treatment, 2) people who had taken LSD on their own, and 3) people who had not used LSD. Only those who had taken LSD on their own indicated more support for policies like “individual freedom” and “foreign policy liberalism” compared to those who had not taken LSD.
It is possible that those who were willing to take LSD outside of medical treatment may have already been more influenced by the liberal hippie movement that encouraged these beliefs at that time (Jacobs notes that this is correlational and not causal data). Importantly, no differences were found in this study between the political beliefs of those who received LSD under medical treatment compared to those who did not take LSD. Therefore, this study actually suggests that medical psychedelic treatments do not alter political beliefs!
In terms of religious beliefs, Jacobs’ piece points to a concern about belief change on the basis of a survey study by our group at Johns Hopkins. This survey specifically recruited individuals who had a “God encounter experience” after taking a psychedelic outside of a research context. Before having such an experience during their psychedelic session, 21 percent retrospectively identified as atheist, whereas only 8 percent did after the experience. This decrease was accompanied by a decrease in identification with major religions, alongside increases in spiritual types of self-identification.
Crucially though, this study was in no way representative of the general public, as only people who reported encountering “God” or a similar phenomenon were included in the study. This was a very specific sample of people reporting a special kind of experience or interpretation of experience. The study cannot provide an estimate of population rates. Belief changes of a religious type would, of course, be massively inflated in this sample, and it is therefore not appropriate to draw generalized conclusions about belief change from psychedelic treatments based on these data.
Lastly, the piece cites the observation that under clinical conditions psychedelics increase, on average, a personality trait called openness to experience, a finding first reported by our group at Johns Hopkins and now replicated by others. Unlike the political and religious effects, this phenomenon appears more robust. However, while psychedelics might be unique in their ability to prompt a change in a personality trait with a short-term clinical procedure, they are not the only clinical intervention that can cause changes in personality traits. A large meta-analysis of over 200 published studies examining the effect of psychiatric treatments on personality traits found that personality was indeed changed.
Regardless of whether the intervention was a psychotherapy or a medication such as a traditional antidepressant drug, these changes reached a moderate effect size for increases in the trait of emotional stability, similar to the effect size observed for the increase in personality openness to experience from psilocybin. Lastly, the correlation between openness to experience and liberal political views is small, accounting for only around 2 percent of the relationship between the two variables. In other words, the pathway from psychedelics through openness to experience to political belief change is, for all practical purposes, negligible.
While data from studies are always paramount, we note that in the first author’s experience interacting with hundreds of psilocybin study participants, he does not recall any spontaneous claims of changed political or religious affiliation in either direction.
Our primary point here is that that existing data do not suggest that meaningful changes in religious or political beliefs are likely from psychedelic therapy––and certainly not changes in political or religious affiliation. There is some evidence that psychedelic therapy can prompt changes in one’s sense of spirituality, but this term is so broadly and variously defined that it does not even necessarily relate to supernatural beliefs, and it can refer to things like one’s values or sense of connection.
As with many interventions, there are cases in which individuals change in their values, attitudes and/or beliefs after a psychedelic experience. The frequency and magnitude of these occurrences are empirical questions for future research to address, but the current data simply do not support the idea that psychedelic treatments result in meaningful changes in political or religious beliefs or affiliation.
Psychedelic medicine, like any new treatment, no doubt raises important and challenging ethical issues. Consent procedures in psychedelic trials by our research group (and by other groups to our knowledge) already warn that personality and attitude changes are a possibility. Of course, this should also be done with patients if psychedelics are approved as medicine. Psychedelic experiences are sometimes held as among the most meaningful in one’s life, and may be interpreted to have philosophical or spiritual import, likely depending on the orientation of the participant. Such effects present the opportunity for ethical pitfalls by clinicians.
These and other challenges will call for important contributions from ethicists. However, we must also be careful to keep any given concern in perspective and convey realistic risks to the public and patients. From this perspective, we believe, based on the data, that major shifts in political or religious orientation or beliefs are not among the likely risks associated with this treatment. As psychedelic researchers, we believe it is important to remain vigilant against excesses in enthusiasm as well as alarmism.
EU telecoms firms slam proposed tweaks to EU privacy rules on WhatsApp, Skype
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s telecoms industry on Thursday slammed proposed tweaks to planned EU rules governing Facebook’s WhatsApp and Microsoft unit Skype that would tighten the rules faced by telecoms providers to use electronic communications metadata.
The planned EU rules subject WhatsApp and Skype to the same rules as telecoms providers.
The bloc’s 27 countries have struggled to find common ground on the ePrivacy regulation drafted by the European Commission in 2017 because of disagreement on rules for cookies tracking users’ online activities crucial for targeted advertising, and consent requirements.
Germany, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, shared its proposed tweaks with other EU countries on Wednesday evening.
The document seen by Reuters reduces the legal grounds for telecoms providers to use electronic communications metadata for other purposes or to further process the data, in a blow to the telecoms industry looking to use network location data for smart transport services as a potential money-spinner.
Lobbying group ETNO, whose members include Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefonica, and mobile operators group GSMA were scathing about the German proposal.
“Germany’s proposed text fails to bridge the gap between protecting privacy and confidentiality and stimulating innovation in European service providers,” they said in a joint statement.
They urged other EU countries not to back the proposal unless it allows them more freedom to use metadata for legitimate purposes and for further compatible processing.
The bloc will have to agree on a common stand before thrashing out details of the rules with the Commission and European Parliament.
Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall
International concern for military operations in Ethiopia – Vatican News
By Nathan Morley
The Prime Minister of Ethiopia ordered the military to respond to an attack on an army camp in the regional capital of Mekele by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, known as the TPLF.
On Wednesday, the Ethiopian government also declared a state of emergency in the Tigray district.
Abiy Ahmed cited months of ‘provocation and incitement’ and insisted a red line had been crossed.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for immediate measures to de-escalate tensions.
He also renewed the commitment of the UN to support the government of Ethiopia in its reform efforts aimed at building a peaceful and secure future for all its peoples.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said it is becoming increasing alarmed at the escalation of violence in the country.
“Rising hostilities in the Tigray region threaten the immediate safety of hundreds of thousands of people,’ the NRC said in a statement. ‘Any increase in violence would foreshadow further regional destabilization and humanitarian disaster. We call upon all parties to resolve tensions through dialogue and to take all appropriate measures to end military action’.
The most recent figures from NRC suggest there are currently 1.80 million people internally displaced across Ethiopia and a further 790,000 refugees seeking protection from other conflicts in the East Africa region.
5 November 1943: the bombing of Vatican City State – Vatican News
By Francesca Merlo
It was 5 November 1943, World War II was raging and Vatican City was, and remained, a neutral state. This is partly why the attack came as such a surprise: five bombs (one of which did not detonate) were dropped into the Vatican gardens from an unidentified aircraft. Luckily no one was hurt, but many of the buildings suffered huge damage, and guards were left dazed and confused after the explosions knocked them to the ground.
One gendarme, Luigi Turchetto, wrote a note to the Vatican’s Noble Guards, in which he recounted what happened that night. He was on duty at the Vatican train station:
“I distinctly heard the continuous noise of an aircraft flying at low altitude. I could not see it, prevented by the darkness. From the noise of the engine it seemed to me that the aircraft was coming from the northeast. It flew over the Vatican Railway Station and then went a little further away and immediately turned back. I almost immediately heard a hiss and a prolonged burst that gave me the impression of the almost simultaneous explosion of several bombs. The first of them fell on the escarpment near the boundary wall of the Vatican City State on the side of St. Peter’s Station; the second one fell on the terrace of the Mosaic Studio; a third one behind the Governorate Palace and a fourth one in the Vatican Gardens in a location that I could not identify at the moment.”
Pope’s reaction
Pope Pius XII commented, in private, that “there was more respect in Cairo, as the religious center of Islam, than in Rome. And more concretely, we are struck by the need to recognise… that there no longer exists, I do not say Christian conscience, but even the minimum of human understanding and a sense of loyalty in acting that should be enough to leave the successor of St. Peter in the narrow strip of land that still remains.”
Who dropped the bombs?
Nobody took responsibility for the bombs. The Allies and Axis powers accused each other. One of the theories, following certain clues, was published in the 2010 Italian book “1943: Bombe in Vaticano” by Augusto Ferrari. It describes the possibility that the attack had been orchestrated by the Germans and coordinated by the Fascist Roberto Farinacci, whose aim was to bomb Vatican Radio, that was suspected of transmitting valuable military information to the Anglo-Americans. It is believed that the pilot was “a certain Parmeggiani”, and that the plane had been flown from Viterbo, some 50km from Rome.
This claim was contested one year later, in 2011, by subsequent research (such as that of Gregory Alegi and that of Pietro Cappellari). Ferrari claimed that the plane used was a Savoia Marchetti S.M. 79; yet Alegi and Cappellari claim that the Italian Aeronautica only possessed one of these planes and that it could not, at that time, have been geographically located in Viterbo under German control. Ferrari also claimed that the only two pilots with the name Parmeggiani were elsewhere, and working with the Allies.
In America, a new theory was developed soon after. Again, soon after that.. clues led to ideas and ideas to theories: from the idea that the bombs had been manufactured in the UK to an intercepted phone call between two priests. But each theory, still remains just a theory…
Protection through neutrality
Upon learning of the possible motivation behind the attack, Pope Pius XII asked that the reasons for the attack not be spread by the media, in an attempt to maintain the neutrality of the State.
Throught the war the Pope and the Vatican helped many members of the Italian resistance. It was not easy to hide in Rome, and the Vatican offered protection and exile to those who needed it most. The intermediary position of the Church allowed it to move better to defend and help those in need.
It still remains unclear as to who dropped those first bombs on the Vatican.
Bombs were dropped again on Vatican City State on 1 March 1944, killing one person and injuring another.
Pope’s November prayer intention: that progress in robotics and AI “be human” – Vatican News
By Vatican News staff writer
During the month of November, Pope Francis draws our attention to the epochal change that humanity is experiencing thanks to advances in artificial intelligence. He, therefore, invites us to pray that this progress always “serve humankind,” respecting human dignity and taking care of Creation.
True progress
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made exponential advances, as evidenced by its many applications in different fields of knowledge. Today, 37% of organizations in the world have implemented AI in some way (which represents a 270% increase in the past four years).
In “The Pope Video” this month, Pope Francis clarifies that this progress in robotics and AI “can make a better world possible if it is joined to the common good.” In this sense, he hopes for technological progress that does not increase the inequalities in society. If it does, the Pope says, it will not be “true progress”. Such progress does not take into account the dignity of the human person and care for Creation.
Benefits
AI is capable of addressing many problems facing humanity, such as in evaluating the learning capacity of students, in order to detect opportunities for improvement. It can help people with visual or hearing impairments by developing better communication tools (such as converting text to speech or speech to text). AI can also speed up the collection, processing and diffusion of health data to improve the diagnosis and treatment of patients, especially those living in remote areas.
The same applies to the field of ecology. Through AI, it is possible to analyze data on climate change and create models that can help predict natural disasters. It can also be used to create intelligent and sustainable cities by reducing urban spending, improving the resilience of highways and increasing energy efficiency. There are vast possibilities for using this technological progress for the common good, and “The Pope Video” uses images from the Italian Institute of Technology and the Italian multinational energy company, Enel, to show some of these benefits.
Serving humanity
“Innovation,” says Enel’s CEO, Francesco Starace, “has placed at our disposition extraordinary tools that we need to be capable of using in the best possible way.”
He continues, “As Pope Francis reaffirms, it is our task to ensure that the resulting benefits are distributed fairly and create opportunities and wellbeing.” Starace says, “In order to give a positive orientation to our actions and choices regarding the present and the future, we must put respect for people and for the environment at the centre, adopting a vision based on sustainability. Only in this way can technological evolution be an ally of humanity and create opportunities which, up until a few years ago, we couldn’t even imagine.”
The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is responsible for the diffusion of the Pope’s monthly prayer intentions. In comments on the Holy Father’s prayer intention for November, the network’s international director, Jesuit Father Frédéric Fornos also speaks of the need to channel these rapid technological changes for the “good of all.”
“This month’s prayer intention,” he says, “reinforces the idea that the benefit that humanity has obtained (and will continue to obtain) from technological progress must always take into account as well, and in parallel, ‘adequate development of responsibility and values’.” This, Fr Fornos says, has been underscored by the Pope in his encyclical Laudato si’ and now in his third encyclical, Fratelli tutti, where he says, “How wonderful it would be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation could come with more equality and social inclusion!”
AI, robotics, and other applications of technology, says Fr Fornos, open great challenges for ethics and social justice. “This is why the Pope’s most recent petition is important: to pray that this progress will always ‘be human.’”
The text of the November 2020 prayer intention:
Artificial intelligence is at the heart of the epochal change we are experiencing. Robotics can make a better world possible if it is joined to the common good. Indeed, if technological progress increases inequalities, it is not true progress. Future advances should be oriented towards respecting the dignity of the person and of Creation.
Let us pray that the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence may always serve humankind… we could say, may it “be human.”
