Tropical storm Eta hit the Florida Keys late on Sunday night, after wreaking devastation through parts of Central America over the weekend.
After having travelled and destroyed parts of Mexico, Cuba and Guatemala, authorities in Florida are asking that people “please take this very seriously”, and urging them to follow rules and protocol.
The National Hurricane Centre has warned that Storm Eta is likely to bring with it “strong winds, heavy rains and dangerous storm surge” over parts of South Florida and the Florida Keys.
In preparation, the closure of schools, public transport, and beaches has been ordered, and shelters have been opened for people living in mobile homes, parks and campgrounds in low-lying areas as they will be evacuated.
Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for all the victims of the storm in Central America. Eta, he said, has caused “many victims and considerable damage”, aggravating “the already difficult situation of the pandemic”.
After the recitation of the Angelus, the Pope prayed that the Lord might “welcome the dead, comfort their families and support those who are most affected, as well as all those who are working hard to help them”.
At least 20 people were killed in Mexico, around 17 in Panama and 10 in Honduras, where hundreds of people are reportedly waiting to be rescued from flooded areas.
In Guatemala, homes were buried by mudslides, leaving some 150 people either dead or missing. Luckily, ahead of the storm’s arrival, Cuba had already evacuated tens of thousands of people. State media reported that there had been “no loss of life or significant damage to homes”.
In August 2020, a new surge in locally transmitted cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was reported in Rakhine State and other regions of Myanmar. According to the Ministry of Health and Sports, as of 30 October, 50 403 confirmed cases have been reported in Myanmar, with 2 858 confirmed cases in Rakhine State.
Consequently, to control the spread of COVID-19, Myanmar’s government introduced measures such as stay at home orders, banning of public events and closure of schools, entertainment venues, restaurants, and religious institutions as well as well restriction of movement within the state/between townships.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), these measures, which were introduced on August 16, have affected the continuity of humanitarian operations. The measures introduced in Rakhine State have necessitated the introduction of new ways of working.
In response to the measures taken by the government of Myanmar, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has introduced stringent protocols to be used in its field operations for COVID-19 prevention and control such as the use of personal protective equipment, guidelines for physical distancing and hygiene, and basic awareness messages in its programming. These protocols will help ensure continued delivery of assistance.
In partnership with the European Union (EU), from 13 to 28 October 2020 the FAO has completed unconditional cash distributions to 1 513 pregnant and lactating mothers in Buthidaung, Kyauktaw, Maungdaw, and Rathedaung townships in Rakhine State. The cash transfer for pregnant and lactating women (PLW) is complementary (top up) to the Government Maternal and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT). This cash will cover the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating mothers and their infants. Along with these cash grants, face masks and bar soap were provided to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
The assistance was provided within the framework of a three-year project titled “Improving food security and nutrition security in Rakhine State.” The objective of this project is to increase the resilience of livelihoods to natural hazards and conflicts. Specifically, the EU-funded project aims to restore and protect agricultural livelihoods in the vulnerable communities of Buthidaung, Kyauktaw, Maungdaw, and Rathedaung townships in Rakhine State.
According to Reda Lebtahi, the emergency and rehabilitation coordinator of the FAO, several localized assessments have found that the impact of restrictions on movement has varied in different states and regions and across sectors. Measures against COVID-19 were found in the areas where research was conducted to have had a significant impact on food production, market access, the quality and prices of agricultural inputs, employment, and income generation.
“This unconditional, one-time cash grant specifically targeting women, particularly pregnant and lactating women with children under two years of age, ensures that mothers will continue to have the resources to access nutritious foods as well as improved incomes and knowledge of nutrition to improve their diets,” the FAO Emergency rehabilitation coordinator emphasized.
In July 2020, the FAO also supported 6 000 of the most vulnerable farming households in northern and central Rakhine State with multi-purpose cash amounting to USD 642 000 and with various farm inputs. Findings of FAO Post Distribution Monitoring in September 2020, show that a majority of the farmers used most of the cash during the monsoon planting season, including costs for land preparation and labor. Beneficiaries also utilized the cash support for food and medical expenses.
Christians in India observed Dalit Liberation Sunday in solidarity and closeness with Christians of Dalit origin or former untouchables, who continue to face discrimination and injustice. Since 2007, the Office for Scheduled Castes-Backward Classes of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), which comprises Protestant and Orthodox Churches, come together to mark the day on the second Sunday of November.
The word “Dalit”, derived from Sanskrit, meaning “broken” or “downtrodden”, and refers to former “untouchables,” who are so low in social status that they are considered outcasts or outside the rigid 4-tier caste system of Hindu society. As a result, through centuries, Dalits have been subjected to extreme exploitation, inhuman treatment, atrocities and poverty.
Government data shows 201 million of India’s 1.2 billion people belong to this socially deprived community. Some 60 percent of India’s 25 million Christians are of Dalit or indigenous origin. Most of the Dalit Christians are in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Focus on Dalit Women
The theme of the November 8 observance was “Challenging Caste: Affirming the Dignity of Dalit Women.”
“This land, where female deities are worshipped as power, knowledge and wealth, has become the most unsafe place for women. Facts show that Dalit women suffer the horrors more than Dalit men,” Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur, chairman of the CBCI Office for SC/BC, said in his message.
He said that in recent months, many Dalit women have been targeted, attacked and brutally killed. “We bewail the fact that justice often eludes the Dalit survivors, while the perpetrators, backed by their political patrons, manipulate the law and move around scot-free.”
Change of mentality and heart
Violence against Dalits, Bishop Nayak pointed out, is often based on caste prejudice. The perpetrators consider Dalit women as mere objects to be used and thrown away. Unless there is a change in mentality in the heart, discrimination and crimes against the marginalized will continue. A change is possible only when “every family consciously and practically promotes at home the equal dignity and right of every child,” said the 63-year old bishop from the eastern state of Odisha.
He lamented that in India, intellectuals, human rights activists, civil society members and the unprejudiced media are “strategically silenced, while others become the mouthpiece of the power of the day and slaves of the privileged class”.
Dalit Liberation Sunday is an occasion for the whole Christian community to renew its responsibility toward sisters and brothers of Dalit origin, especially Christians.
1950 Presidential Order
To help the socio-economic uplift of Dalits, the Indian Constitution reserves for them special privileges and benefits such as quota in government jobs and educational institutions. However, the Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order (Paragraph 3) that India’s first President Rajendra Prasad signed on August 10, 1950, initially stated that “…no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.”
When Sikhs demanded these privileges, the Order was modified in 1956 to include them. Buddhists, too, were granted the benefits in 1990. But Muslims and Christians of low caste origin continue to be excluded despite their demands.
Dalit Christians and Muslims continue to demand the status of scheduled castes and observe the “Black Day” protest on August 10 each year against the Presidential Order of August 10, 1950. Christians separately observe Dalit Liberation Sunday Day on the second Sunday of November, demanding justice and the rights and dignity of Dalit Christians.
Thrice discriminated
According to the CBCI Office for SC/BC, Dalit Christians are thrice discriminated, namely within the Church, within society and by the State. It notes that Dalits embraced Christianity seeking a better life with dignity, but unchristian and discriminatory practices continue within the Church.
The NCCI has for decades announced zero tolerance for caste discrimination in any form. “No one can serve Christ and caste — the practice of caste is a sin and untouchability a crime,” said a November 8 statement by the NCCI. “Practice of caste in its many manifestations despite it being rendered illegal is a blot on Indian social life and polity.” It denounced the practice, either tacitly or openly, in social institutions, including in Churches and in politics. (Source: UCANEWS)
Sikyong congratulates US President-elect Joe Biden and first woman Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
The democratically elected leader of Tibetan people Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay congratulated United States President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris on their victory in the 2020 US presidential election. Dr Sangay said he looked forward to a renewed policy and support on Tibet under Biden’s leadership.
“On behalf of the Central Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan people, I would like to congratulate you on your election as the 46th President of the United States of America,” the Sikyong said in congratulatory message to Joe Biden.
“For decades now, the US has supported the Tibet cause on various fronts, and we are always grateful to the US and its people. However, today the concern no longer remains only for the Tibetan people; instead, today the concern is for the global democracy and the universal ideals that have come under threat from authoritarian regime such as China.”
Sikyong welcomed Biden’s recent statement avowing to meet Tibetan spiritual leader and global peace icon, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, continuing a decades-old tradition followed by US presidents since George Bush Sr, and most prominently during the presidency of Barack Obama, who hosted His Holiness four times in the White House and publicly pronounced strong support for Middle Way Policy of the Central Tibetan Administration.
Sikyong also welcomed Biden’s commitment to sanction Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses in Tibet and said he particularly looked forward to a renewed US policy and support on the Tibet issue under his leadership.
“I genuinely admire your decades of service to the nation, and your victory is an affirmation of the trust people of the United States places in you and the values that you stand for… My sincerest congratulations and wishes on a successful term.”
Congratulating the first woman Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, he said her ascension to America’s second-highest office as first woman and the first woman of color is pathbreaking and her becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of American government marks a new era for women in global politics and leadership.
Kamala Devi Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, is set to become the highest-ranking woman in the nation’s 244-year existence, as well as a high-profile representation of the country’s increasingly diverse composition.
“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities,” Harris said. “And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction. And see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before, but know that we will applaud you every step of the way.”
Black women helped propel Harris and President-elect Joe Biden to victory by elevating turnout in places like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. Those women will finally see themselves represented in the White House as Biden and Harris replace President Trump, who started his political career by perpetuating a racist birther lie about President Barack Obama and has a long track record of making misogynistic comments.
Born in Oakland, Harris spent years as a prosecutor in the Bay Area. She was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003 and attorney general of California in 2010, high-profile jobs in the nation’s most-populous state — but not enough to build widespread name recognition.
She easily won a Senate seat in 2016 and soon made waves in Washington. A week after being sworn into office, she subjected John F. Kelly, Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, to forceful interrogation. She established herself as an uncompromising critic of Trump appointees, particularly during confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and Attorney General William P. Barr.
Although Harris did not emerge as a legislative force, she signed on to or introduced several bills that had little chance of passing but were nevertheless symbolic, including Medicare-for-all and other health-care reform plans. She introduced bills aimed at reducing racial disparities in health care, the economy and the criminal justice system.
Sikyong also referenced Harris’ Indian heritage, adding that it was a matter of immense pride and inspiration for Indians across the world.
‘As you work towards the imminent challenges of restoring human rights, equality and climate change around the world, we hope that you will lend your pivotal voice to the just cause of Tibet and further strengthen decades-long US-Tibet ties.’
S4 Capital’s share price hit a record high this morning after Sir Martin Sorrell’s “new age/new data” business reported a 23% growth in organic revenue for the third quarter of 2020.
The company’s valuation rose to almost £2.4bn after S4’s share price opened at £4.60 this morning, up 4.5%, following the announcement of its latest earnings.
Its organic revenue (reported as gross profit) was £75.3m for July to September, while year-to-date billings are up 12% year on year to £424m. Gross profit was up 18% in July, 24% in August and 25% in September.
It also announced several client wins over the quarter, including two “whoppers”: S4’s programmatic media agency Mightyhive has won T-Mobile’s in-house digital media account and MediaMonks has won BMW and Mini’s pan-European account. It also signed deals in Q3 with Shopify and Beyond Meat.
The company is benefitting from a client base that is heavily weighted towards technology companies, with 55% of its overall revenue coming from the sector, compared with 8% for FMCG companies and 8% for agencies.
Tech companies’ growth has been boosted even further this year as consumers and business accelerate digital transformation due to people working, shopping and being entertained more from home.
S4 expanded its revenue last quarter with Facebook, Google, Netflix, and Procter & Gamble, it reported today. Peter Kim, Mightyhive’s chief executive, cited S4’s partner relationships with the likes of Facebook and Google as being a determining factor behind recent business successes.
Its organic growth does not include the three mergers it carried out over the quarter: Orca Pacific, the full-service Amazon account management agency; BrightBlue, the data measurement company; and Dare Win, the Paris-based digital agency that gives Sorrell’s business a presence in France.
The business employed 2,870 people (as of the end of September), which is up 26% compared with the same time last year on a like-for-like basis, and S4 told investors today it would “continue to hire aggressively around strong gross profit growth and significant new business wins”.
Sorrell, S4’s executive chairman, admitted that the company had more to do when it comes to hiring more black people in the organisation. S4 is made up of 40% of people of colour and has a gender balance in the US and the UK.
Of S4’s overall business performance, he said: “Our consistent, very strong organic gross profit growth of almost 16% so far this year, and almost 23% in the third quarter, indicates that we are well positioned in the digital sweetspot of an otherwise stagnant advertising and marketing industry and that clients are responding very well to our new age/new era, purely digital, ‘holy trinity’ model of first-party data fuelling digital content, data and digital media.”
He added: “Covid-19 has acted as an accelerator for search, social and ecommerce. Our very significant client wins in 2020, which include the BMW/Mini ‘Engine’ in Europe, signal that we are achieving client conversion at scale, after achieving brand awareness in 2018 and brand trial in 2019.
“Our mantra of ‘faster, better, cheaper’ or ‘speed, quality, value’ and our unitary, one P&L structure, are clearly resonating with clients and differentiating our offer.”
“A house divided against itself cannot stand”. On June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a Senatorial candidate at the time, pronounced this sentence, inspired by the Gospel of Mark (3:25), in a speech aimed at emphasizing how the young American democracy could not endure with half of the States allowing slavery. That speech of the future president of the United States, cited countless times in the last century and a half, remains an ever-present injunction to the American people, inscribed even on its seal with the words chosen by the Founding Fathers recalling the principle of unity: E pluribus unum.
It is precisely unity, which “is greater than conflict” as Evangelii Gaudium puts it, that is strongly evoked at this moment after the most divisive and polarizing American presidential elections in the country’s recent history. “Now is the time for our leaders to come together in a spirit of national unity”, said the president of the U.S. bishops, the Archbishop of Los Angeles José H. Gomez, in a message of congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris. Moreover, the American media, almost unanimously, put the theme of national reconciliation as the most urgent challenge (together with Covid-19 and the consequent economic crisis) that, as of next January 20, the next resident of the White House will face.
Significantly, last June 30, Pope Francis focused on the issue of unity in a message to the Catholic Press Association, to which Catholic communications organizations in North America belong. “E pluribus unum, the ideal of unity amid diversity, reflected in the motto of the United States”, observed the Pontiff, “must also inspire the service you offer to the common good. How urgently is this needed today, in an age marked by conflicts and polarization from which the Catholic community itself is not immune. We need media capable of building bridges, defending life and breaking down the walls, visible and invisible, that prevent sincere dialogue and truthful communication between individuals and communities”. Words addressed to the media, but also applicable to other areas of American society.
Certainly, unity for the Pope does not mean uniformity. Even in this particular context, we are aided by the image of the polyhedron which, in Francis’ vision, “reflects the convergence of all its parts, each of which preserves its distinctiveness”. This model is all the more valid for a nation that from its birth presents itself as plural: multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious. This search for unity – corroborated by social friendship to echo Fratelli tutti – is not, however, an end in itself, but tends toward the promotion of the good of the person and the community. The two were at the heart of Francis’ speech before the United States Congress (a first for a Pope on Capitol Hill), which took place on September 24, 2015.
“If politics must truly be at the service of the human person,” was his exhortation on that occasion, “it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life”. Addressing himself directly to the members of U.S. congress, the Pope said: “I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort”. An exhortation that today, in such a delicate moment in the history of the United States, echoes even more strongly.
Ethiopian Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed is pressing ahead with a military campaign he announced on Wednesday against the northern region of Tigray. The International community is calling for dialogue between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
On Friday the Prime Minister vowed air strikes in Tigray would continue. The initial strikes targeted arms depots and military sites.
About 600,000 people in Tigray depend on food aid to survive, while another 1 million receive other forms of support, all of which have been disrupted, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report released Saturday.
Clashes between federal troops and Tigrayan forces had broken out in eight locations in the region, according to the report.
Six combatants were killed and more than 60 wounded in fighting near the border between the Tigray and Amhara regions, a humanitarian source told Reuters on Sunday. Both sides suffered casualties and some of the wounded were brought to hospitals in and near the town of Gondar, the source said.
Efforts to combat a locust infestation also jeopardised
A desert locust infestation in East Africa has hit Tigray particularly hard and efforts to combat the insect swarms are feared to have stopped because of the conflict, risking further damage to crops, the U.N. report read.
Abiy said on Twitter on Saturday that his military campaign “aims to end the impunity that has prevailed for far too long,” he said.
Animosity between Abiy and his former allies has grown steadily since 2018. Tigrayans complain of persecution under Abiy, an ethnic Oromo, who ordered the arrest of dozens of former senior military and political officials from the TPLF in a crackdown on corruption. Last year, Abiy reorganised the ruling coalition into a single party that the TPLF refused to join.
Mediation offers
Experts and diplomats are sounding alarms of a potential civil war that could destabilise the country of 110 million people in the strategic Horn of Africa region.
The federal military’s biggest command, and the majority of its heavy weapons, are stationed in Tigray. One of the biggest risks is that the army could plit along ethnic lines, with Tigrayans defecting to their region’s own force.
Tigrayan forces number up to 250,000 men and have their own significant stocks of military hardware, experts say.
“The fragmentation of Ethiopia would be the largest state collapse in modern history,” a group of former United States diplomats said in a statement published by the U.S. Institute of Peace on Thursday. The escalation of the conflict would also kill remaining hope for the democratic reforms Abiy has promised, the statement read.
Abiy spoke on Saturday with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who “offered his good offices.” The U.N. chief also spoke on Saturday to the African Union’s Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat and to Sudanese Primes Minster Abdalla Hamdok in his capacity as chair of the regional Africa group IGAD,.
