Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:
NEW YORK, United States of America, September 24, 2024/APO Group/ —
The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) has urged Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and other development partners to scale up innovative partnerships and initiatives to build peace and security in Africa, home to eleven of the world’s most conflict-affected states.
Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, African Development Bank Vice-President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery Complex led the charge during a session held September 21, on the sidelines of the 79th Assembly of the United Nations titled: Investing in Prevention: Scaling up Peace – A Call to Action for DFIs.
Over the last 20 years, the level of global conflict has escalated, with one-fifth of Africa’s population residing in conflict affected areas, affecting the future of the world’s fastest-growing continent.
“Our goal today is very clear. We would like to mobilise institutions to prioritise peace building and through innovative partnerships and new financial mechanisms. This is a call for action.” Akin-Olugbade said in opening remarks.
The New Agenda for Peace, which is at center stage of the UN’s Summit of the Future, highlights how different actors, including DFIs can serve as peace agents, and emphasises the role of partnerships, especially in the context of fragile and conflict affected countries, urging increased political and financial mobilisation to prevent conflicts.
The effect of three decades of a devastating civil war in Mozambique are still evident, Amilcar Tivane, Mozambique’s Vice-Minister of Economy and Finance told participants, stressing the need for prevention.
The Mozambique government has learned innovative solutions to deal with the root causes of conflict and to address lingering security challenges in northern Mozambique such as terrorism and insurgency. What has worked is a resilience building strategy together with partnerships, Tivane said. The country is also launching a new initiative for peace for the reconstruction of affected tourism areas
« We have learned that prevention is critical, » he said. « Sometimes its difficult (for governments) to acknowledge that the social dimensions could have a significant impact.»
Issa Faye, Director General of the Islamic Development Bank ( IsDB) said his institution’s blend of ordinary and concessional financing has been key to the successful financial support for 32 fragile African countries out of the 52 they support.
The IsDB have aided thousands of refugees through programmes to address skills gap, training and education, combining economic empowerment and food security.
Faye underlined Islamic financing as a concept framing a lot of the institution’s programmes and stressed the need to find alternative financing which is dedicated, responsive and resilient.
Risk perception, another major constraint to financing peace initiatives in Africa, was the subject of Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, the Executive Secretary of the UN Capital Development Fund (UN CDF), submission. He offered a concrete example of successful de-risking of a peace initiative in Burundi.
« UN DCRF works to de-risk so that larger streams of finance can flow from the larger and more established institutions, » he said.
Since 2021, UNCDF has been working in collaboration with the UN Peacebuilding Fund and the Government of Burundi to address interconnected and transnational root-causes of instability and nature loss in the Kibara National Park and surrounding buffer zones. The joint initiative with several partners including UNESCO, uses a unique blended finance approach.
Peace finance needs new a lens
Itonde Kakoma, President of Interpeace said a new paradigm approach, which moved away from the donor focus and instead sees development partners investing in peace investment hubs and creating a pipeline of peace positive projects, is much needed.
He said the need to connect development finance and peace building while leveraging the private sector to build peace, safety and social cohesion between communities living in complex environments, was more imperative than ever.
« We have a conviction that the Sustainable Development Goals can be unlocked by peace finance, » Kakoma said.
Other participants such as Elizabeth Spehar, Assistant Secretary General, United Nations Peacebuilding Support stressed the importance of inclusion and the role of DFI’s such as the African Development Bank.
“We need the economic might of the DFI’s. We have to work on this together,” she said.
Spehar paid tribute to the African Development Bank which emphasizes peace and security as public goods in its new Ten-year strategy (2024-2033). The Bank’s joint pilot project in Central African Republic with UNHCR has the UN “working with communities on the peace part and the African Development Bank working on the employment part,” Spehar said.
The Bank has been on the forefront of systematically addressing issues of fragility in Africa and has built up over 20 years of experience in building Africa’s resilience by providing intellectual leadership and dedicated financial instruments, such as the Transition Support Facility, which mobilizes additional resources for affected countries. The Bank’s Private Sector Credit Enhancement Facility allows it to do more private investments in these riskier markets.
The audience also heard from the g7+, Asian Development Bank, Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS), the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Aswan Forum, UNHCR, and the African Union Peace Fund whose Director Dagmawit Moges spoke of the institution’s reforms and the importance of governance.
“We’ve gone beyond theory and talk. We at the African Development Bank are interested in strengthening partnerships. We are not going to work in silos. We are looking forward to continuing this discussion at COP 29 and at the Africa Resilience Forum next year,” Akin-Olugbade said.
This post originally appeared on theTransform with Google Cloud blog. It was first published April 12, 2024; last updated with new use cases September 24, 2024.
Since generative AI first captured the world’s attention, there’s been a vigorous discussion about what, exactly, the new technology is best used for. While we all enjoyed those early funny chats and witty limericks, we’ve quickly discovered that many of the biggest AI opportunities are clearly in the enterprise, government, and with exciting new companies.
When we first published this post during Google Cloud Next ‘24, we showcased 101 of the best use cases out of the hundreds featured across the event. Now, we’re adding another 84 to the list as customers across the globe continue to put generative AI to work.
[If you’ve visited this post in the past, you can find the newest use cases listed at the top of each section.]
In a matter of months, organizations have gone from AI helping answer questions, to AI making predictions, to generative AI agents. What makes AI agents unique is that they can take actions to achieve specific goals, whether that’s guiding a shopper to the perfect pair of shoes, helping an employee looking for the right health benefits, or supporting nursing staff with smoother patient hand-offs during shifts changes.
In our work with customers, we keep hearing that their teams are increasingly focused on improving productivity, automating processes, and modernizing the customer experience. These aims are now being achieved through the AI agents they’re developing in six key areas: customer service; employee empowerment; code creation; data analysis; cybersecurity; and creative ideation and production.
Hundreds of Google Cloud customers have now put AI agents and gen-AI solutions into production throughout their businesses and the world — with many seeing a tangible return on investment. They have come to rely on Google Cloud technologies that include our AI infrastructure, Gemini models, Vertex AI platform, Google Workspace, and Google Distributed Cloud.
Here’s a snapshot of how 185 of these industry leaders are putting AI to use today, creating real-world use cases that will transform tomorrow.
Customer agents
Similar to great sales and service people, customer agents are able to listen carefully, understand your needs, and recommend the right products and services. They work seamlessly across channels including the web, mobile, and point of sale, and can be integrated into product experiences with voice and video.
1.Alaska Airlines is developing natural language search, providing travelers with a conversational experience powered by AI that’s akin to interacting with a knowledgeable travel agent. This chatbot aims to streamline travel booking, enhance customer experience, and reinforce brand identity.
2. Bennie Health uses Vertex AI to power its innovative employee health benefits platform, providing actionable insights and streamlining data management in order to enhance efficiency and decision-making for employees and HR teams.
3. Beyond 12, a tech-enabled nonprofit focused on student empowerment, has developed an AI-powered college coach to offer scalable coaching to first-generation students that’s available over text, app, and the web.
4. CareerVillage is building an app called Coach to empower job seekers, especially underrepresented youth, in their career preparedness; already featuring 35 career development activities, the aim is to have more than 100 by next year.
5. Character.ai built its realistic conversational chat platform using the full stack of Google Cloud AI services, including for model training and daily operations, allowing it to manage terabytes of conversations each day without interruption.
6. Click Therapeutics develops prescription digital therapeutics designed to treat disease. Its Clinical Operations team leverages Gemini for Google Workspace to transform complex operations data into actionable insights, so they can quickly pinpoint ways to streamline the patient experience in clinical trials.
7. Formula E can now summarize a two-hour long race commentary into a 2-minute podcast in any language, incorporating driver data and ongoing seasonal storylines.
8. General Motors’ OnStar has been augmented with new AI features, including a virtual assistant powered by Google Cloud’s conversational AI technologies that are better able to recognize the speaker’s intent.
9. Gojek, an Indonesia-based super app, launched “Dira by GoTo AI,” a Bahasa Indonesia AI-powered voice assistant integrated into their GoPay service, allowing customers to use voice command to eliminate typing and scrolling, and complete tasks like bill payments and money transfers with fewer steps.
10. GroupBy, an ecommerce service provider, developed an AI-first Search and Discovery Platform powered by Vertex AI Search for Retail. This solution is meticulously designed to optimize revenue, strengthen brand loyalty, and drive sales growth for B2C and B2B retailers.
11. Hotelplan Suisse built a chatbot trained on the business’s travel expertise to answer customer inquiries in real-time, and, following that success, it plans to use gen AI to create travel content.
12. Justicia Lab is developing an AI-powered assistant that will simplify legal processes for asylum seekers and immigrants; by uploading a picture from a legal letter or document, users can extract valuable information and then receive personalized guidance and next steps.
13. Mercado Libre has incorporated semantic search into its digital shopping platforms, using AI embeddings from the Vertex AI Agent Builder, which greatly improved product recommendations and discoverability for more than 200 million consumers across Latin America.
14. Motorola’s Moto AI leverages Gemini and Imagen to help smartphone users unlock new levels of productivity, creativity, and enjoyment with features such as conversation summaries, notification digests, image creation, and natural language search — all with reliable responses grounded in Google Search.
15. mRelief has built an SMS-accessible AI chatbot to simplify the application process for the SNAP food assistance program in the U.S., featuring easy-to-understand eligibility information and direct assistance within minutes rather than days.
16. Personal AI offers a “personal language model” using only the data of one individual or brand and allowing them to control and own how it is used. Built on your own data, facts, and opinions, it creates a responsive and interactive messaging experience that helps people be more productive and deepen relationships.
17. PODS worked with the advertising agency Tombras to create the “World’s Smartest Billboard” using Gemini — a campaign on its trucks that could adapt to each neighborhood in New York City, changing in real-time based on data. It hit all 299 neighborhoods in just 29 hours, creating more than 6,000 unique headlines.
18. Quora developed Poe, its own generative AI platform for people to discover and chat with AI-powered bots, including Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama, and Mistral’s Large 2 — many of which are hosted on Google Cloud’s purpose-built AI infrastructure.
19. ScottsMiracle-Gro built an AI agent on Vertex AI to provide tailored gardening advice and product recommendations for consumers.
20. Snap has deployed the multimodal capability of Gemini within its “My AI” chatbot and has since seen over 2.5-times as much engagement within Snapping to My AI in the United States.
21. Tabiya has built a conversational interface, Compass, that helps young people find employment opportunities; the platform asks questions and requests information, drawing out skills and experiences and matching those to appropriate roles.
22. Telecom Italia (TIM) implemented a Google-powered voice agent to address many customer calls, increasing efficiency by 20%.
23. UPS Capital launched DeliveryDefense Address Confidence, which uses machine learning and UPS data to provide a confidence score for shippers to help them determine the likelihood of a successful delivery.
24. Volkswagen of America built a virtual assistant in the myVW app, where drivers can explore their owners’ manuals and ask questions, such as, “How do I change a flat tire?” or “What does this digital cockpit indicator light mean?” Users can also use Gemini’s multimodal capabilities to see helpful information and context on indicator lights simply by pointing their smartphone cameras at the dashboard.
25. ADT is building a customer agent to help its millions of customers select, order, and set up their home security.
26. Alaska Airlines is developing a personalized travel search experience using advanced AI techniques, creating hyper-personalized recommendations that engage customers early and foster loyalty through AI-generated content.
27. Best Buy is using Gemini to launch a generative AI-powered virtual assistant this summer that can troubleshoot product issues, reschedule order deliveries, manage Geek Squad subscriptions, and more; in-store and digital customer-service associates are also gaining gen-AI tools to better serve customers anywhere they need help.
28. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is using Vertex AI to modernize transportation operations for a smoother, more efficient journey.
29. Etsy uses Vertex AI training to optimize their search recommendations and ads models, delivering better listing suggestions to buyers and helping sellers grow their businesses.
30. IHG Hotels & Resorts is building a generative AI-powered chatbot to help guests easily plan their next vacation directly in the IHG One Rewards mobile app.
31. ING Bank aims to offer a superior customer experience and has developed a gen-AI chatbot for workers to enhance self-service capabilities and improve answer quality on customer queries.
32. Magalu, one of Brazil’s largest retailers, has put customer service at the center of its AI strategy, including using Vertex AI to create “Lu’s Brain” to power an interactive conversational agent for Lu, Magalu’s popular brand persona (the 3D bot has more than 14 million followers between TikTok and Instagram).
33. Mercedes Benz will infuse e-commerce capabilities into its online storefront with a gen AI-powered smart sales assistant. Mercedes also plans to expand its use of Google Cloud AI in its call centers and is using Vertex AI and Gemini to personalize marketing campaigns.
34. Oppo/OnePlus is incorporating Gemini models and Google Cloud AI into their phones to deliver innovative customer experiences, including news and audio recording summaries, AI toolbox, and more.
35. Samsung is deploying Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 to their Galaxy S24 smartphones so users can take advantage of amazing features like text summarization, organization, and magical image editing.
36. The Minnesota Division of Driver and Vehicle Services helps non-English speakers get licenses and other services with two-way real-time translation.
37. Pepperdine University has students and faculty who speak many languages, and with Gemini in Google Meet, they can benefit from real-time translated captioning and notes.
38. Sutherland, a leading digital transformation company, is focused on bringing together human expertise and AI, including boosting its client-facing teams by automatically surfacing suggested responses and automating insights in real time.
39. Target uses Google Cloud to power AI solutions on the Target app and Target.com, including personalized Target Circle offers and Starbucks at Drive Up, their curbside pickup solution.
40. Tokopedia, an Indonesian ecommerce leader, is using Vertex AI to improve data quality, increasing unique products being sold by 5%.
41. US News saw a double-digit impact in key metrics like click-through rate, time spent on page, and traffic volume to its pages after implementing Vertex AI Search.
42-45. IntesaSanpaolo, MacquarieBank, and Scotiabank are exploring the potential of gen AI to transform the way we live, work, bank, and invest — particularly how the new technology can boost productivity and operational efficiency in banking.
Employee agents
Employee agents help workers be more productive and collaborate better together. These agents can streamline processes, manage repetitive tasks, answer employee questions, as well as edit and translate critical communications.
46. 2bots offers technology solutions, such as chatbots and virtual agents, built with Google Cloud’s AI solutions; these intelligent chatbots and content generation tools are transforming the way companies interact with their customers.
47. Augment is building an AI personal assistant that offers enhanced note-taking and collects information across your apps, including calendar, email, texts, and social media, so users can more quickly and easily find personal information and keep their lives organized.
48. Bayes Impact builds AI products to support nonprofits, and its flagship product, CaseAI, is a digital case manager that integrates with an NGO’s current system to add smart features to draft action plans tailored to a beneficiary’s unique history; caseworkers have saved 25 hours of work per week on average.
49. Bell Canada has built customizable contact center solutions for its business customers that offer AI-powered agents to address callers, and Agent Assist, which listens when a human agent is on, offering suggestions and sentiment analysis. AI has contributed $20 million in savings across customer operations.
50. Best Buy can generate conversation summaries in real time using Contact Center AI, allowing live agents to give their full attention to understanding and supporting customers, resulting in a 30-to-90-second reduction in average call time and after-call work. Both customers and agents have cited improved satisfaction.
51. Camanchaca, a Chilean seafood company, took only six weeks to develop Elon, a virtual assistant that aims to provide more efficient customer service through digital channels, enhancing Camanchaca’s customer interactions.
52. Certify OS is automating credentialing, licensing, and monitoring of medical providers for healthcare networks, relieving the burden of time-consuming and often siloed information.
53. Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs widely uses Gemini for Google Workspace, estimating that employees are saving an average five hours per week just with AI capabilities in Gmail. Gemini is also streamlining time-consuming, manual processes through uses like AI-generated transcriptions and auto-formatting of pharmaceutical lab results or FDA compliance documentation.
54. Dun & Bradstreet built an email-generation tool with Gemini that helps sellers create tailored, personalized communications to prospects and customers for its research services. The company also developed intelligent search capabilities to help users with complex queries like, “Find me all the companies in this area with a high ESG rating.”
55. England’s Football Association is training Vertex AI on the FA’s historical and current scouting reports so they can be transformed into concise summaries, helping national teams discover future talent.
56. Fireflies.ai can transcribe, summarize, and analyze meetings, recordings, and other voice conversations to save time and improve collaboration and information sharing across teams.
57. Fluna, a Pan-African digital services company, has automated the analysis and drafting of legal agreements using Vertex AI, Document AI, and Gemini 1.5 Pro, achieving an accuracy of 92% in data extraction while ensuring security and reliability for sensitive information.
58. Hemominas, Brazil’s largest blood bank, partnered with Xertica to develop an omnichannel chatbot for donor search and scheduling, streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency. The AI solution has the potential to save half-a-million lives annually by attracting more donors and optimizing blood supply management.
59. Hiscox used BigQuery and Vertex AI to create the first AI-enhanced lead underwriting model for insurers, automating and accelerating the quoting for complex risks from three days down to a few minutes.
60. LiveX AI delivers AI Agents that swiftly enhance product education, boost customer conversion, reduce churn, and provide personalized customer support, with the goal of offering everyone a seamless VIP experience across their customer journey.
61. Opportunity@Work is applying gen AI to scale a suite of software tools and APIs that help employers identify “STAR” job candidates — “skilled through alternative routes” such as community college, military service, and on-the-job experience — helping fill roles in a tight market and expand opportunities.
62. QuantumMetric has introduced Felix AI, powered by Gemini Pro, to simplify digital analytics and decision making. Felix AI automatically summarizes a user’s web or mobile session and consolidates the moments that matter most into short, readable summaries for customer service workers.
63. Randstad, a large HR services and talent provider, is using Gemini for Workspace across its organization to transform its work culture, leading to a more culturally diverse and inclusive workplace that’s seen a double-digit reduction in sick days.
64. Sprinklr built Sprinklr AI+ into its unified customer experience management platform, giving brands gen-AI capabilities for customer service, insights, social media management, and marketing that has enterprise-grade governance, security, and data privacy built-in.
65. Thomson Reuters added Gemini Pro to its suite of large language models approved for employee use; with its 2-million-token context window, Gemini makes some tasks as much as 10-times faster to process and can process entire documents in context.
66. Warner Bros. Discovery built an AI captioning tool with Vertex AI and saw a 50% reduction in overall costs, and an 80% reduction in the time it takes to manually caption a file without the use of machine learning.
67. The U.S. Air Force built a new proof-of-concept portal for searching, browsing, and reading e-published PDFs — all within a 90-day deadline that leveraged the prebuilt tools and speed of Vertex AI Search and Conversation.
68. Avery Dennison empowered their employees with generative AI to enable secure, flexible, and borderless collaboration for enhanced productivity to drive growth.
69. Bank of New York Mellon built a virtual assistant to help employees find relevant information and answers to their questions.
70. Bayer is building a radiology platform that will assist radiologists with data analysis, intelligent search, and to create documents that meet healthcare requirements needed for regulatory approval. The bioscience company is also harnessing BigQuery and Vertex AI to develop additional digital medical solutions and drugs more efficiently.
71. Bristol Myers Squibb is transforming its document processes for clinical trials using Vertex AI and Google Workspace. Now, documentation that took scientists weeks now gets to a first draft in minutes.
72. BenchSci develops generative AI solutions empowering scientists to understand complex connections in biological research, saving them time and financial resources and ultimately bringing new medicine to patients faster.
73. Cintas is using Vertex AI Search to develop an internal knowledge center for customer service and sales teams to easily find key information.
74. Covered California, the state’s healthcare marketplace, is using Document AI to help improve the consumer and employee experience by automating parts of the documentation and verification process when residents apply for coverage.
75. Dasa, the largest medical diagnostics company in Brazil, is helping physicians detect relevant findings in test results more quickly.
76. DaVita leverages DocAI and Healthcare NLP to transform kidney care, including analyzing medical records, uncovering critical patient insights, and reducing errors. AI enables physicians to focus on personalized care, resulting in significant improvements in healthcare delivery.
77. Discover Financial helps their 10,000 contact center representatives to search and synthesize information across detailed policies and procedures during calls.
78. HCA Healthcare is testing Cati, a virtual AI caregiver assistant that helps to ensure continuity of care when one caregiver shift ends and another begins. They are also using gen AI to improve workflows on time-consuming tasks, such as clinical documentation, so physicians and nurses can focus more on patient care.
79. The Home Depot has built an application called Sidekick, which helps store associates manage inventory and keep shelves stocked; notably, vision models help associates prioritize which actions to take.
80. Los Angeles Rams are utilizing AI across the board from content analysis to player scouting.
81. McDonald’s will leverage data, AI, and edge technologies across its thousands of restaurants to implement innovation faster and to enhance employee and customer experiences.
82. Pennymac, a leading US-based national mortgage lender, is using Gemini across several teams including HR, where Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Gmail is helping them accelerate recruiting, hiring, and new employee onboarding.
83. Robert Bosch, the world’s largest automotive supplier, revolutionizes marketing through gen AI-powered solutions, streamlining processes, optimizing resource allocation, and maximizing efficiency across 100+ decentralized departments.
84. Symphony, the communications platform for the financial services industry, uses Vertex AI to help finance and trading teams collaborate across multiple asset classes.
85. Uber is using AI agents to help employees be more productive, save time, and be even more effective at work. For customer service representatives, they’ve launched new tools that summarize communications with users and can even surface context from previous interactions, so front-line staff can be more helpful and effective.
86. The U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs is using AI at the edge to improve cancer detection for service members and veterans. The Augmented Reality Microscope (ARM) is deployed at remote military treatment facilities around the world. The prototype device is helping pathologists find cancer faster and with better accuracy.
87. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has improved the quality and efficiency of their patent and trademark examination process by implementing AI-driven technologies.
88. Verizon is using generative AI to help teams in network operations and customer experience get the answers they need faster.
89. Victoria’s Secret is testing AI-powered agents to help their in-store associates find information about product availability, inventory, and fitting and sizing tips, so they can better tailor recommendations to customers.
90. Vodafone uses Vertex AI to search and understand specific commercial terms and conditions across more than 10,000 contracts with more than 800 communications operators
91. WellSky is integrating Google Cloud’s healthcare and Vertex AI capabilities to reduce the time spent completing documentation outside work hours.
92. Woolworths, the leading retailer in Australia, boosts employees’ confidence in communications with “Help me write” across Google Workspace products for more than 10,000 administrative employees. It’s also using Gemini to create next-generation promotions, as well as for quickly assisting customer service reps in summarizing all previous customer interactions in real time.
93-97. Box, Typeface, Glean, CitiBank, and Securiti AI discuss developing AI-powered apps across the enterprise, with measurable returns on investment for marketing, financial services, and HR use cases.
98-99. Highmark Health and Freenome join Bristol Myers Squibb to explore how AI can improve efficiency and innovation across care delivery, drug discovery, clinical trial planning, and bringing medicines to market.
Code agents
Code agents are helping developers and product teams to design, create, and operate applications faster and better, and to ramp up on new languages and code bases. Many organizations are already seeing double-digit gains in productivity, leading to faster deployment and cleaner, clearer code.
100. Labelbox has built a fully managed AI model evaluation solution directly integrated into the Vertex AI platform, allowing Google Cloud users to seamlessly launch human evaluation jobs and set specific criteria for evaluation, such as question-answering and summarization; this eases and accelerates the ability to deploy human-in-the-loop AI systems with higher levels of trust and authority.
101. Leroy Merlin, a global home improvement retailer, developed its Pull Request Analyzer using Vertex AI. This generative AI solution summarizes code changes, helping developers understand projects faster and improve code review efficiency.
102. Linear, a product development platform, built Similar Issues, a feature that uses AI to detect and prevent duplicate or overlapping tickets and ensures cleaner and more accurate data representation.
103. Magic is building a developer platform with a 100-million-token context window, so organizations can upload extremely large code bases and more easily query and build on them using gen AI assistance.
104. Pinecone provides infrastructure for developers to build accurate, secure, and scalable AI applications, allowing companies to easily ground gen AI apps in their proprietary data for use in AI search, retrieval-augmented generation, coding agents, and more.
105. Regnology built its Ticket-to-Code Writer tool with Gemini 1.5 Pro to automate the conversion of bug tickets into actionable code, significantly streamlining the software development process.
106. Weights & Biases, a creator of AI tools for developers, created W&B Weave, a lightweight toolkit to track, evaluate, and debug gen AI applications built with Gemini, so teams can confidently go from demo to production.
107. Capgemini has been using Code Assist to improve software engineering productivity, quality, security, and developer experience, with early results showing workload gains for coding and more stable code quality.
108. Commerzbank is enhancing developer efficiency through Code Assist’s robust security and compliance features.
109. Quantiphi saw developer productivity gains of more than 30% during their Code Assist pilot.
110. Replit developers will get access to Google Cloud infrastructure, services, and foundation models via Ghostwriter, Replit’s software development AI, while Google Cloud and Workspace developers will get access to Replit’s collaborative code editing platform.
111. Seattle Children’s hospital is using AI to boost data engineering productivity and accelerate development.
112. Turing is customizing Gemini Code Assist on their private codebase, empowering their developers with highly personalized and contextually relevant coding suggestions that have increased productivity around 30 percent and made day-to-day coding more enjoyable.
113. Wayfair piloted Code Assist, and those developers with the code agent were able to set up their environments 55 percent faster than before, there was a 48 percent increase in code performance during unit testing, and 60 percent of developers reported that they were able to focus on more satisfying work.
Data agents
Data agents are like having knowledgeable data analysts and researchers at your fingertips. They can help answer questions about internal and external sources, synthesize research, develop new models — and, best of all, help find the questions we haven’t even thought to ask yet, and then help get the answers.
114. 180Seguros is powering its data management platform for employees with Google Cloud AI and BigQuery to improve operational metric tracking, allowing for 3X faster query times.
115. Addy AI is helping mortgage lenders and banks automate their lending processes with custom AI models trained on Vertex AI. For example, the platform can extract loan opportunity details from lengthy email threads with numerous attachments.
116. Bayer Crop Science has developed Climate FieldView, a comprehensive agricultural platform with more than 250 layers of data and billions of data points; AI-powered recommendations allow farmers to design and monitor their fields for greater yields and efficient fertilization, with the added benefit of reduced carbon emissions.
117. CME Group is building a first-of-its-kind cloud-based commodities trading platform with AI tools built-in, offering CME’s trading customers access to deeper insights and smarter trades as well as rapid experimentation on new trading strategies that won’t interrupt existing trade flows.
118. Digits is developing next-gen accounting software for startups and small businesses; using AI-driven bookkeeping, expense management, and financial analysis, Digits enables business owners to achieve financial clarity and focus on growth.
119. Elanco, a leader in animal health, has implemented a gen AI framework supporting critical business processes, such as Pharmacovigilance, Customer Orders, and Clinical Insights. The framework, powered by Vertex AI and Gemini, has resulted in an estimated ROI of $1.9 million since launching last year.
120. Full Fact, a UK-based nonprofit working in 18 countries to combat misinformation, is now using gen AI to actively monitor stories so its 30 fact-checking partner organizations can focus on addressing specific claims and harmful information.
121. Fullstory, a digital behavioral data platform, is building the ability to analyze and summarize user behavior on a site to create more informed and enriching chatbot experiences; responses are more relevant and accurate, ultimately improving virtual agent performance and customer experience
122. GamudaBerhad, a Malaysian infrastructure and property management company, has integrated a Gemini-powered conversational agent into its cloud-based Tunnel Insight platform, providing faster information and insights during construction projects.
123. IntelligenciaAI is using AI models to research novel new drugs, relying on Google Cloud’s AI-optimized infrastructure to deliver scalable research that is accurate and transparent to meet the stringent needs of medicine.
124. IPRally built a custom machine-learning platform that uses natural language processing on the text of more than 120 million global patent documents, creating an accurate, easily searchable database that adds more than 200,000 new sources a week.
125. Ipsos built a data analysis tool for its teams of market researchers, eliminating the need for time-consuming requests to data analysts, which is powered by Gemini 1.5 Pro and Flash models as well as Grounding with Google Search to enhance real-world accuracy from contemporaneous Search information.
126. Materiom, a startup researching zero-waste, bio-based alternatives to fossil-fuel-made products like plastics, is creating a gen AI tool that enables entrepreneurs to develop novel compostable materials with broad applications; AI offers faster research and information gathering to speed up the development process.
127. Mendel has built a clinical AI system designed to break down the longstanding silos in medical data, boosting accuracy, accessibility, and ultimately patient health outcomes.
128. NeuroPace, a medical device company, built a solution to quickly identify effective epilepsy treatment options best suited to different patients; by analyzing brainwave patterns, it can find similar patients and apply successful therapies, streamlining personalized care.
129. NotCo, a Chilean food tech company, partnered with Eleven Solutions to develop a conversational AI chatbot powered by Gemini; the chatbot has revolutionized data access, allowing employees to instantly query their SAP system and gain real-time insights for faster, data-driven decision-making.
130. SURA Investments, the largest asset manager in Latin America, developed an AI-based analysis model for employees that allows them to better understand customer needs and improve customer experience and satisfaction.
131. AI21 Labs offers a BigQuery integration called Contextual Answers that allows users to query data conversationally and get high-quality answers quickly.
132. Anthropic has partnered with Google Cloud to offer its family of Claude 3 models on Vertex AI — providing organizations with more model options for intelligence, speed, cost-efficiency, and vision for enterprise use cases.
133. The Asteroid Institute is using AI to discover hidden asteroids in existing astronomical data. This is a major focus for astronomers researching the evolution of the Solar System, investors and businesses hoping to fly missions to asteroids, and for all of us who want to prevent future large asteroid impacts on Earth.
134. Contextual is working with Google Cloud to offer enterprises fully customizable, trustworthy, privacy-aware AI grounded in internal knowledge bases.
135. Cox 2M, the commercial IoT division of Cox Communications, is able to make smarter, faster business decisions using AI-powered analytics.
136. Essential AI, a developer of enterprise AI solutions, is using Google Cloud’s AI-optimized TPU v5p accelerator chips to train its own AI models.
137. Generali Italia, Italy’s largest insurance provider, used Vertex AI to build a model evaluation pipeline that helps ML teams quickly evaluate performance and deploy models.
138. Globo, one of Brazil’s largest media networks, is using Service Extensions and Media CDN to fight piracy during live events by blocking pirated streams in real time.
139. Golden State Warriors are using AI to improve the fan experience content in their Chase Center app.
140. Hugging Face is collaborating with Google across open science, open source, cloud, and hardware to enable companies to build their own AI with the latest open models from Hugging Face and Google Cloud hardware and software.
141. Kakao Brain, part of Korean technology company Kakao Group, has built a large-scale AI language model that is the largest Korean language-specific LLM in the market, with 66 billion parameters. They’ve also developed a text-to-image generator called Karlo.
142. Mayo Clinic has given thousands of its scientific researchers access to 50 petabytes worth of clinical data through Vertex AI search, accelerating information retrieval across multiple languages.
143. McLaren Racing is using Google AI to get up-to-the-millisecond insights during races and training to gain a competitive edge.
144. Mercado Libre is testing BigQuery and Looker to optimize capacity planning and reservations with delivery carriers and airlines to fulfill shipments faster.
145. Mistral AI will use Google Cloud’s AI-optimized infrastructure, to further test, build, and scale up its LLMs, all while benefiting from Google Cloud’s security and privacy standards.
146. MSCI uses machine learning with Vertex AI, BigQuery and Cloud Run to enrich its datasets to help our clients gain insight into around 1 million asset locations to help manage climate-related risks.
147. NewsCorp is using Vertex AI to help search data across 30,000 sources and 2.5 billion news articles updated daily.
148. Orange operates in 26 countries where local data must be kept in each country. They are using AI on Google Distributed Cloud to improve network performance and deliver super-responsive translation capabilities.
149. Spotify leveraged Dataflow for large-scale generation of ML podcast previews, and they plan to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with data engineering and data science to build better experiences for their customers and creators.
150. UPS is building a digital twin of its entire distribution network, so both workers and customers can see where their packages are at any time.
151. Workday is using natural language processing in Vertex Search and Conversation to make data insights more accessible for technical and non-technical users alike.
152. Woven — Toyota‘s investment in the future of mobility — is partnering with Google to leverage vast amounts of data and AI to enable autonomous driving, supported by thousands of ML workloads on Google Cloud’s AI Hypercomputer. This has resulted in resulting in 50% total-cost-of-ownership savings to support automated driving.
152-153. Broward County, Florida, and Southern California Edison are using geospatial capabilities and AI to improve infrastructure planning and monitoring, generate new insights, and create regional resilience for communities facing climate challenges today and tomorrow.
154-155. Kinaxis and Dematic are building data-driven supply chains to address logistics use cases including scenario modeling, planning, operations management, and automation.
156-157. NOAA and USAID are among the U.S. government agencies using Google Cloud AI to unlock critical data insights to streamline operations and improve mission outcomes — all with an emphasis on responsible AI.
Security agents
Security agents assist security operations by radically increasing the speed of investigations, automating monitoring and response for greater vigilance and compliance controls. They can also help guard data and models from cyberattacks, such as malicious prompt injection.
158. Apex Fintech is using Gemini in Security to accelerate the writing of complex threat detections from hours to a matter of seconds.
159. Exabeam has built a generative AI copilot for security analysts into its New-Scale Security Operations Platform.
160. Fiserv, a developer of financial services technology, can now summarize threats, find answers, and detect, validate, and respond to security events faster with the Gemini in Security Operations platform.
161. NetRise developed Trace to provide software supply chain security by introducing AI-powered intent-driven searches; these allow users to search their assets based on the underlying motives or purposes behind the code and configurations, rather than solely relying on signature-based methods.
162. Palo Alto Networks is using Gemini to create a grounded AI assistant for 24/7 security platform support in order to improve agent efficiency and response time; grounding the assistant in organizational data and security protocols has greatly improved the accuracy of responses.
163. BBVA uses AI in Google SecOps to detect, investigate, and respond to security threats with more accuracy, speed, and scale. The platform now surfaces critical security data in seconds, when it previously took minutes or even hours, and delivers highly automated responses.
164. Behavox is using Google Cloud technology and LLMs to provide industry leading regulatory compliance and front office solutions for financial institutions globally.
165. Charles Schwab has integrated their own intelligence into the AI-powered Google SecOps, so analysts can better prioritize work and respond to threats.
166. Fiserv’s security operations engineers create detections and playbooks with much less effort, while analysts get answers more quickly.
167. Grupo Boticário, one of the largest beauty retail and cosmetics companies in Brazil, employs real-time security models to prevent fraud and to detect and respond to issues.
168. Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex XSIAM, the AI-driven security operations platform, is built on more than a decade of expertise in machine-learning models and the most comprehensive, rich, and diverse data store in the industry. Backed by Google’s advanced cloud infrastructure and advanced AI services, including BigQuery and Gemini models, the combination delivers global scale and near real-time protection across all cybersecurity offerings.
169. Pfizer can now aggregate cybersecurity data sources, cutting analysis times from days to seconds.
Creative agents
Creative agents can expand your organization with the best design and production skills, working across images, slides, and exploring concepts with workers. Many organizations are building agents for their marketing teams, audio and video production teams, and all the creative people that can use a hand. With creative agents, anyone can become a designer, artist, or producer.
170. AdoreMe marketers write differentiated product descriptions in one hour, a tedious task which used to take 30-40 hours a month thanks to Gemini for Google Workspace.
171. Globo, the largest media group in Latin America, is using Google Cloud’s AI to hyper-personalize content for its streaming users, and create a better experience for spectators.
172. Higgsfield.ai built a number of text-to-video apps for consumers, including Diffuse 2.0, which can combine users photos, videos, and texts through AI models to create more realistic avatars.
173. Jasper trains its suite of creativity-, writing-, and marketing-focused AI models on Google’s AI infrastructure, delivering on-brand, data-optimized assets faster and at scale to teams large and small.
174. Puma is using Imagen to customize product photos on its website, saving time and ensuring they are locally relevant across markets; PUMA India has already seen a 10% increase in click through rate.
175. RadissonHotel Group personalized its advertising at scale in collaboration with Accenture and using Vertex AI and Gemini models, training them on extensive datasets stored in BigQuery; ad teams saw productivity rise around 50% while revenue increased from AI-powered campaigns by more than 20%
176. SquareEnix is using customer data to develop AI-optimized marketing assets to keep its gamers engaged, sharing personalized emails suited to each player’s preferences, leading to a 20% increase in email opens and a 10% increased retention rate.
177. Urmobo, a mobile-device management platform, created a virtual agent, Odin, that significantly improved user experience and reduced support tickets by enabling clients to interact with the platform using natural language.
178. The World Bank is developing a tool to extract key information from research literature on the causal impact of development interventions, with the ultimate goal to empower decision-makers to allocate the $220B in annual aid and trillions in annual impact investing more effectively.
179. Belk ECommerce is using generative AI to craft better product descriptions, a necessary yet time-consuming task for digital retails that has often been done manually.
180. Canva is using Vertex AI to power its Magic Design for Video, helping users skip tedious editing steps while creating shareable and engaging videos in a matter of seconds.
181. Carrefour used Vertex AI to deploy Carrefour Marketing Studio in just five weeks — an innovative solution to streamline the creation of dynamic campaigns across various social networks. In just a few clicks, marketers can build ultra-personalized campaigns to deliver customers advertising that they care about.
182. Major League Baseball continues to innovate its Statcast platform, so teams, broadcasters, and fans have access to live in-game insights.
183. Paramount currently relies on manual processes to create the essential metadata and video summaries used across its Paramount+ platform for showcasing content and creating personalized experiences for viewers. VertexAI Text Bison is now helping to streamline this process.
184. Procter & Gamble used Imagen to develop an internal gen AI platform to accelerate the creation of photo-realistic images and creative assets, giving marketing teams more time to focus on high-level planning and delivering superior experiences for its consumers.
185. WPP will integrate Google Cloud’s gen AI capabilities into its intelligent marketing operating system, called WPP Open, which empowers its people and clients to deliver new levels of personalization, creativity, and efficiency. This includes the use of Gemini 1.5 Pro models to supercharge both the accuracy and speed of content performance predictions.
To find even more customers using our AI tools to build agents and solutions for their most important enterprise projects, visit the Google Cloud customer hub.
Sri Lanka has sworn in 55-year-old leftist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake as its new president. There was no clear winner after the first round of votes from Saturday’s election had been counted. But Dissanayake, who is commonly known by his initials AKD, emerged victorious after a count of the second-choice votes.
His election is something of a watershed. It was the first time since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 that the presidential race was decided by a second round of counting after either of the top two candidates failed to win the mandatory 50% of the vote. And it was also the only time that voters have elected a candidate who does not belong to the country’s traditional ruling elite.
Sri Lanka has long been held in the tight grip of a handful of powerful political families. The Rajapaksa dynasty, for example, had dominated Sri Lankan politics for well over two decades before mass protests over a severe economic crisis unseated the country’s leader, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in 2022.
AKD’s campaign rhetoric centred largely around corruption as the key culprit in the economic woes facing the country. Previous governments have been linked not only to corruption, but also to human rights abuses and the military’s encroachment on the civilian space. Persuaded by his logic of openness and transformation, voters saw AKD as an opportunity to change Sri Lanka’s stale political system.
Following his election, AKD declared in characteristic Marxian mode: “This victory belongs to all of us.” Assuaging the demands of the masses for change will be a priority.
Voters have chosen a new president for the first time since mass protests unseated Sri Lanka’s leader in 2022. Color Collector / Shutterstock
AKD comes from a strong leftwing ideological background. He leads a political outfit called the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), which is by no means a heavyweight party. It has only three members in the country’s 225-member parliament, and does not come with an attractive pedigree.
The JVP is seen in Sri Lanka as a fringe reactionary party due to its involvement in violent insurrections and targeted assassinations that left thousands dead in the 1980s. Given Sri Lanka’s fractious ethno-nationalist politics, how the JVP and its new national leader carry the masses forward on a national regeneration project would be anybody’s guess.
But AKD has shown himself to be aware of the underlying tensions in the country and, since becoming the JVP’s leader in 2008, has apologised for the party’s past violence. In his swearing-in speech, AKD declared: “We need to establish a new clean political culture … We will do the utmost to win back the people’s respect and trust in the political system.”
The road ahead
There are several critical challenges that AKD needs to face head on – the most important of which concerns the country’s failing economy. After all, it was acute economic hardship that drove the citizenry to vote for political change.
In the past, a substantial portion of whatever Sri Lanka managed to procure through its two main sources of income, tourism and remittances sent home by citizens living abroad, went towards settling its external debts. However, these earnings were hit badly by the pandemic and the country’s economic woes spiralled out of control.
The rate of inflation soared and dwindling reserves of foreign currency resulted in acute shortages of essential goods and services. Then, in May 2022, Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time in its history.
This scenario quickly led to a national emergency. Faced with the most devastating economic crisis since independence, a countrywide uprising (colloquially known as the aragalaya) ousted Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office.
The removal of Rajapaksa secured an uneasy peace, and things have since tentatively improved on the economic front. Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as the interim president in 2022 and his administration managed to secure a loan worth US$3 billion (£2.2 billion) from the International Monetary Fund.
The economy now appears to be on a slow path of recovery. It is expected to grow in 2024 for the first time in three years, supported by a narrower trade deficit and growing remittances.
Sri Lanka’s interim president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has congratulated Dissanayake on winning the election. Ruwan Walpola / Shutterstock
AKD is aware of the enormity of the burden he carries. As he admitted while accepting the role of president: “I have said before that I am not a magician – I am an ordinary citizen. There are things I know and don’t know. My aim is to gather those with the knowledge and skills to help lift this country.”
His pro-working class and anti-political elite campaigning without doubt made AKD popular among youth, and helped him secure victory. But his ideology may well be at odds with the foreign lenders who have kept the economy afloat for past two decades.
Sri Lanka’s new president faces a precarious balancing act to satisfy both a population high on hopes of populist subsidies and the demands of external lenders to tighten the country’s belts.
Amalendu Misra is a recipient of British Academy and Nuffield Foundation Fellowships.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Orlaith Darling, PhD Candidate, Contemporary English Literature and Critical Theory, Trinity College Dublin
On the level of theme, the Irish writer Sally Rooney is firmly in her wheelhouse in her new novel Intermezzo. We find Peter and Ivan Koubek having just lost their father and trying to forge a life through and past this bereavement by way of intimate relationships.
Peter, a barrister in his early 30s, is embroiled in a semi-secret situation-ship with a much younger college student and former sex worker, Naomi. He balances this with his longstanding and largely chaste relationship with a former long-term girlfriend, Sylvia.
Ivan, a decade younger and aeons less suave than his older brother, has meanwhile taken up with Margaret, a 36-year-old woman he meets while playing chess in Leitrim, a county in the north-west of Ireland.
So far, so familiar. Anyone seeking plot-driven fiction without a romantic bent from Rooney should know better by now.
The minor stylistic differences between Intermezzo and her other books reviewers have noted are all moderated by the manifest continuities in Rooney’s authorly concerns.
We read Rooney because she is that unusual writer whose characters raise serious and abiding questions about the particular historical, social and economic moments they inhabit. Her characters manage to do so without ever feeling like anything less than fully developed, psychologically complex individuals.
In Conversations with Friends and Normal People, the faltering of young relationships and first love tested the characters’ ideologies against their behaviours, their politics against their morals. In Beautiful World, emails allowed Alice and Eileen the space to describe what it feels like to live in a moment of historical crisis even as life (in the alternating chapters) carries on unchanged.
This very Rooney-esque tension is, in Intermezzo, parlayed as a struggle between brothers, where Peter castigates various beliefs of Ivan’s and Ivan accuses Peter of privileging principle over conduct.
Ivan thinks that “Peter is the kind of person who goes along the surface of life very smoothly.” This, for the record, is not at all reflected in Peter’s inner monologue, which proceeds via truncated sentence fragments and is peppered by wishes that he was dead.
Life, for Peter, seems to be closing in, and is all the more claustrophobic given the seemingly total clarity with which he remembers “When life was perfect.” He at once envies and feels a great depth of compassion for those whose lives are constantly buffeted by the material forces from which his well-paying job shields him.
Ivan has, at various times, felt himself existing outside of life. He can explain eloquently his opinions on the late capitalist economy (fake), he has a physics degree, a formidable reputation in competitive chess and a history of subscribing to questionable YouTube channels of a distinctly incel flavour. Yet, in Ivan, we see Rooney’s great optimism for people and how they might be redeemed.
Ivan frequently confronts the difficulty of paying rent, of living in a world where a person cannot do something as prosaic as have a dog. But these problems are tempered by a feeling that the world is nevertheless beginning to open up for him. As he muses, it is surely better to face down these “never-ending struggle[s]” with optimism than be worn down by them. When he meets Margaret, he feels increasingly assured that the world does “make room for goodness and decency.”
This newest book is perhaps Rooney’s most mature reflection on how relationships operate as exercises in optimism, both in each other and in the world itself. Intermezzo is remarkable and bracing on the exchange of promises that happens in relationships, on the currency of hope they run on, and mutual, voluntary emotional debts they create. These debts, of course, are not always repaid, and that is part of the point: the stakes of love are high, and we run the risk of defaulting and being defaulted on.
And yet, for Rooney, this risk is always worth taking. It must be, because it is all there is. Rooney’s is a world in which relationships sustain us and in which small daily miracles make life seem more bearable than is proportionate. This might be as simple as the unthinking care enacted by such an everyday chore as “making up [a] packed lunch, Nutella sandwiches, an apple wrapped in kitchen roll” for someone else, or the unrationed totality of love a dog shows its owner after an absence.
As with each of her novels before this, Rooney’s power as a writer is to focus attention on the crazy hope we place in other people’s ability to sustain us and the anxiety we feel about what we could possibly offer in return. And, against all suggestions of departure, this is the main point of continuity across Rooney’s oeuvre.
Rooney appears to share the views of many of her characters. Like Frances in Conversations with Friends who says “[y]ou live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position”. Like Marianne in Normal People who believes that “people can really change one another”. Like Eileen in Beautiful World who hopes that “the most ordinary thing about human beings is not violence or greed but love and care.” And, like Ivan in Intermezzo, she is an optimist.
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Orlaith Darling receives funding from the Irish Research Council.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louise Arseneault, Professor in Developmental Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London
When was the last time that you felt lonely? It’s an uncomfortable question, but for 3.83 million people in the UK, 7.1% of the population, the answer is probably “right now”.
Loneliness has become a worrying public health matter because it is common and is often associated with people experiencing physical and mental health problems. There is now taxpayers’ money being spent at the local, national and international levels on initiatives to minimise loneliness and the harmful effect it can have on people’s health. But are those investments misjudged?
New research from Guangzhou Medical University in China has challenged the notion that loneliness can cause ill health. Instead, the findings suggest that loneliness might be considered an associated feature for many diseases (a so-called “surrogate marker”) as it was shown to not be a root cause for poor physical and mental health.
The researchers used data from the UK Biobank in which over half a million people aged 37 to 73 were asked to report how often they felt lonely. They conducted analyses based on the distribution of genetic variants in the population (known as “Mendelian randomisation”) to test the causal effect of loneliness on a wide range of diseases, including physical and mental health problems.
This is certainly an interesting study; however, there are several points we must consider when reflecting on the findings. It is important to note that UK Biobank data isn’t the best for testing the causal effects of loneliness on health.
Although many participants have taken part in UK Biobank, they are volunteers who tend to be white, older and have higher levels of education than the general population in the UK. Many of the participants also follow a healthier lifestyle than the population as a whole.
Although loneliness doesn’t discriminate and can affect anyone, at all ages, and from all walks of life, this participation bias can influence the findings as it may conceal important associations.
The study also captured a snapshot of loneliness from a single time in adulthood. We all experience loneliness from time to time, but its effect on health depends at what age a person feels lonely, why they feel lonely and for how long. This detail isn’t captured in this data.
Some of our own research in this area shows that mental health difficulties and poor general functioning are often experienced alongside feelings of loneliness. However, our findings also show that loneliness in early adolescence can have long-lasting effects, especially related to education and employment prospects –– so-called “socioeconomic outcomes”.
This study also measured loneliness in participants in their late 30s and older. Again, previous research has shown that loneliness can start early in life and is associated with later depression and poor socioeconomic outcomes, both of which are shown in this paper to be important factors associated with health.
The ideal is to conduct analyses with data from studies that observe people from childhood to old age, and which have measured loneliness earlier in life and health in later life to best understand the links between loneliness and health.
Also, this study used hospitalisation data to determine health outcomes. While this type of data is valuable, it captures information only from participants who seek treatment and represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to diseases. Loneliness may affect health in more subtle ways that won’t be caught here.
This is not to be over-critical of the study, however. The importance of depression and socioeconomic status as mechanisms through which loneliness translates into poor health is an essential message from this study. For example, loneliness may result in difficulties at work or worsening mental health, which could in turn increase a person’s risk of physical disease.
Identifying surrogate markers of poor health is also valuable as it opens the door to better and earlier ways to support vulnerable people. For example, someone may not feel comfortable revealing that they experience symptoms of depression, but they are fine with talking about their feelings of loneliness. Loneliness may act as a red flag in some circumstances. This is especially important when diseases are accompanied by stigma, such as many mental health conditions.
Loneliness is intertwined with a range of health conditions throughout life and is considered both a contributing factor to and an outcome of poor health. This study acknowledges that.
Loneliness has a complex relationship with health
To measure the importance of loneliness for public health relevance solely as a causal factor oversimplifies its complex and intricate relationships with health. This is where further research using data that is representative of the general population is needed. It would allow researchers to unpick the pervasive role of loneliness in shaping health and wealth for all people.
What this study cannot answer is an important question: should we continue to invest in initiatives designed to tackle loneliness as a means of improving population health? As ever, the answer is not a binary one.
While this study may not report a causal relationship between loneliness and diseases, ample evidence indicates that it precedes, accompanies and results from poor health. Current strategies have proven to be limited in their effectiveness, particularly for people with lower incomes and less education.
If we consider the occurrence of loneliness alongside mental health difficulties and low socioeconomic status, and a better understanding of the mechanisms that underpin loneliness, we might find these initiatives become more effective.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Following the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly, the following statement was made by Chair Antonio Tajani.
1. Introduction
In today’s meeting in New York, in the wake of the Summit of the Future, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the High Representative of the European Union reiterated their commitment to upholding the rule of law, humanitarian principles and international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, and to protecting human rights and dignity for all individuals.
They re-emphasized their determination to foster collective action in order to preserve peace and stability to address global challenges, such as the climate crisis and to advance the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In doing so, the G7 members renewed their commitment to the promotion of free societies and democratic principles, where all persons can freely exercise their rights and freedoms.
2. Summit for the Future
In the spirit of the renewed determination to strengthen the multilateral system based on the UN Charter’s principles, as reflected in the Pact for the Future adopted at the Summit of the Future by world Leaders, the G7 members committed to continue working with countries and all relevant stakeholders within the UN system through dialogue, mutual understanding and respect in the pursuit of common solutions, with the aim of upholding and reforming the multilateral system so that it better reflects today’s world and is fit to respond to the complex global challenges of the future. They reaffirmed their commitment to work with all UN member states to strengthen the roles of the UNSG as well as the UNGA. They also recommitted to the reform of the UNSC.
3. Steadfast Support to Ukraine
The G7 members reaffirmed their unwavering support to Ukraine as it defends its freedom, sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, against Russia’s brutal and unjustifiable war of aggression. The G7 members strongly condemned Russia’s blatant breach of international law, including the UN Charter, and of the basic principles that underpin the international order. They strongly condemned the serious violations of international humanitarian law perpetrated by Russia’s forces in Ukraine, which have caused a devastating impact on the civilian population. Violence against civilians, including women, children, and prisoners of war is unacceptable.
They expressed their outrage at Russia’s repeated attacks against critical infrastructure and they condemned in the strongest possible terms any targeting of civilian buildings and even hospitals. Ensuring the protection and resilience of Ukraine’s energy grid and its power generation capacity remains a fundamental and urgent priority as winter approaches. They welcomed the international conference on energy security held on August 22. .as well as the ongoing coordination of the G7 energy group. They reiterated their commitment to help Ukraine meet its urgent short-term financing needs, as well as support its long-term recovery and reconstruction priorities.
Russia must end its war of aggression and pay for the damage it has caused to Ukraine. The G7 members reiterated their commitment to explore and use all possible lawful avenues by which Russia is made to meet those obligations.
The launch of the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) Loans for Ukraine, as mandated by G7 leaders, will make available approximately USD 50 billion in additional funding to Ukraine that will be serviced and repaid by future flows of extraordinary revenues stemming from the immobilization of Russian sovereign assets held in the European Union and other relevant jurisdictions.
The G7 Foreign Ministers and the High Representative are working, together with Finance Ministers, to operationalize the G7 Leaders’ commitment by the end of the year. They will maintain solidarity in this commitment to providing this support to Ukraine. The G7 members confirmed that, consistent with all applicable laws and their respective legal systems, Russia’s sovereign assets in their jurisdictions will remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggression and pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine.
They also committed to strengthening the Ukraine Donor Platform to help coordinate the disbursal of funds and ensure they align with Ukraine’s highest priority needs at a pace it can effectively absorb. This will play a key role in advancing Ukraine’s reforms in line with its European path and in contributing to a successful Ukraine Recovery Conference to be held in Italy in 2025.
Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia in the context of its war of aggression against Ukraine would be inadmissible. They therefore condemned in the strongest possible terms Russia’s irresponsible and threatening nuclear rhetoric, as well as its posture of strategic intimidation. They also expressed their deepest concern about the reported use of chemical weapons as well as riot control agents as a method of warfare by Russia in Ukraine.
The G7 members remained committed to holding those responsible accountable for atrocities in Ukraine, in line with international law. They also condemned the seizures of foreign companies and called on Russia to reverse these measures and seek acceptable solutions with the companies targeted by them.
They condemned Russia’s seizure and continued control and militarization of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which poses severe risks for nuclear safety and security, potentially affecting the entire international community. They reiterated their support to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s efforts directed at mitigating such risks.
They underlined once again their support for Ukraine’s right of self-defense and reiterated their commitment to Ukraine’s long-term security, recalling the launch of the Ukraine Compact in Washington on 11 July 2024. They re-affirmed the intention to increasing industrial production and delivery capabilities to assist Ukraine’s self-defense. They highlighted their support to Ukraine in its efforts to modernize its armed forces and strengthen its own defense industry. They expressed their resolve to bolster Ukraine’s air defense capabilities to save lives and protect critical infrastructure.
They remained committed to raising the costs of Russia’s war of aggression by building on the comprehensive package of sanctions and economic measures already in place. Though existing measures have had a significant impact on Russia’s war machine and ability to fund its invasion, its military is still posing a threat not just to Ukraine but also to international security.
The G7 members expressed the intention to continue taking appropriate measures, consistent with their legal systems, against actors in China and in third countries that materially support Russia’s war machine, including financial institutions, and other entities that facilitate Russia’s acquisition of items for its defense industrial base.
They expressed their intention to continue to apply significant pressure on Russian revenues from energy and other commodities. This will include improving the efficacy of the oil price cap policy by taking further steps to tighten compliance and enforcement, including against Russia’s shadow fleet, while working to maintain market stability.
They especially emphasized the urgency to support Ukraine’s energy security, including by coordinating international assistance through the G7+Ukraine Energy Coordination Group. They underscored the importance to continue working with the Ukrainian authorities and International Financial Institutions through the Ukraine Donor Platform, and by mobilizing private investments and fostering participation of civil society.
They highlighted the reality of millions of internally displaced Ukrainians and the importance of an inclusive rights-based, gender-responsive recovery, including the reintegration of veterans and civilians with disabilities, and to address the needs of women, children as well as other population groups who have been disproportionately affected by Russia’s war of aggression. They reiterated their condemnation of Russia’s unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children and welcomed coordinated efforts to secure their safe return. They called on Russia to release all persons it has unjustly detained and safely return all civilians it has illegally transferred or deported, starting with children. They welcomed the Ministerial Conference on the Human Dimension of Ukraine’s 10 point peace formula that will be hosted by Canada on October 30-31.
They reiterated the need to support Ukraine’s agriculture sector, which is critical for global food supply, particularly for the most vulnerable nations, and called for unimpeded exports of grain, foodstuffs, fertilizers and inputs from Ukraine.
They acknowledged the importance to involve the private sector in the sustainable economic recovery of Ukraine. They welcomed and underscored the significance of Ukraine itself continuing to implement domestic reform efforts, especially in the fields of anti-corruption, justice system reform, decentralization, and promotion of the rule of law. These endeavors are in line with the Euro-Atlantic path Ukraine has embraced. The G7 members were unanimous on the need to continue to support efforts of the Ukrainian government and people in these endeavors.
They resolutely condemned Russia’s holding of illegitimate ‘elections’ in the occupied Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. Russia’s actions once again demonstrate its blatant disregard for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence, and the UN Charter. They called on all members of the international community to refrain from recognizing Russia’s illegitimate actions.
They welcomed the Summit on Peace in Ukraine that took place in Switzerland on June 15-16 and its focus on the key priorities needed to achieve a framework for peace based on international law, including the UN Charter and its principles, and respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They remained committed to follow up on the Conference through constructive engagement with all international partners to reach a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.
The G7 members acknowledged that Russia continues to expand its campaigns of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). They condemned Russia’s use of FIMI to support its war of aggression against Ukraine. They reiterated their determination to bolster the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism by developing a collective response framework to counter foreign threats to democracies.
4. Situation in the Middle East
The G7 members reiterated their condemnation of Hamas’ horrendous attacks on October 7, 2023. 101 hostages are still in the hands of Hamas. They noted with deep concern the trend of escalatory violence in the Middle East and its repercussions on regional stability and on the lives of civilians shattered by this conflict, from the Gaza Strip to the Israeli-Lebanese Blue Line. Actions and counter-reactions risk magnifying this dangerous spiral of violence and dragging the entire Middle East into a broader regional conflict with unimaginable consequences. They called for a stop to the current destructive cycle, while emphasizing that no country stands to gain from a further escalation in the Middle East.
They expressed their deep concern about the situation along the Blue Line. They recognized the essential stabilizing role played by the Lebanese Armed Forces and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon in mitigating that risk. They demanded the full implementation of UNSCR 1701 (2006) and urged that all relevant actors implement immediate measures towards de-escalation.
The G7 members reaffirmed their strong support for the ongoing mediation efforts undertaken by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to reach a resolution between the parties to the conflict in Gaza. They reiterated their full commitment for the implementation of the UNSC Resolution 2735 (2024) and the comprehensive deal outlined by President Biden in May that would lead to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, a significant and sustained increase in the flow of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza, and an enduring end to the crisis, to secure a pathway to a two-state solution with a safe Israel alongside a sovereign Palestinian state. They urged the parties to the conflict to unequivocally accept the ceasefire proposal, stressing the need for countries in a position to directly influence the parties to cooperate in strengthening mediation efforts. They called for the full implementation of the terms of the ceasefire proposal without delay and without conditions.
They called on all parties to fully comply with international law, including international humanitarian law. They expressed their deep alarm for the heavy toll this conflict has taken on civilians, deploring all losses of civilian lives equally and noting with great concern that, after nearly a year of hostilities and regional instability, it is mostly civilians, including women and children, who are paying the highest price. Protection of civilians must be an absolute priority for all parties at all times.
The G7 members expressed concern at the unprecedented level of food insecurity affecting most of the population in the Gaza Strip. Securing full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access in all its forms and through all relevant crossing points remains an absolute priority. They urged all parties to allow the unimpeded delivery of aid and ensure protection of humanitarian workers by properly implementing de-confliction measures. They recognized the crucial role played by UN agencies and other humanitarian actors in delivering assistance especially health care for the most vulnerable persons, including the polio vaccination campaign. They expressed their support for UNRWA to effectively uphold its mandate, emphasizing the vital role that the UN Agency plays.
The G7 members reaffirmed their unwavering commitment, through reinvigorated efforts in the Middle East Peace Process, to the vision of a two-state solution where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions, and in this regard stress the importance of unifying the Gaza strip with the West Bank under Palestinian Authority. We note that mutual recognition, to include the recognition of a Palestinian state, at the appropriate time, would be a crucial component of that political process. They expressed their concern about the risk of weakening the Palestinian Authority and underlined the importance of maintaining economic stability in the West Bank. They welcomed the EU’s 400 million Euro emergency package for the Palestinian Authority. All parties must refrain from unilateral actions and from divisive statements that may undermine the prospect of a two-state solution, including the Israeli expansion of settlements and the “legalization” of settlement outposts. They condemned the rise in extremist settler violence committed against Palestinians, which undermines security and stability in the West Bank and threatens prospects for a lasting peace. They expressed their deep concern regarding the deteriorating security situation in the West Bank.
They reiterated their commitment to working together – and with other international partners – to closely coordinate and institutionalize their support for civil society peacebuilding efforts, ensuring that they are part of a larger strategy to build the foundation necessary for a negotiated and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. The G7 members called on Iran to contribute to de-escalation of tensions in the region. They demanded that Iran cease its destabilizing actions in the Middle East. They underlined that they stand ready to adopt further sanctions or take other measures in response to further destabilizing initiatives.
They reiterated their determination that Iran must never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon and that the G7 will continue working together, and with other international partners, to address Iran’s nuclear escalation. A diplomatic solution remains the best way to resolve this issue. As the IAEA remains unable to verify that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, they urged Iran’s leadership to cease and reverse nuclear activities that have no credible civilian justification and to cooperate with the IAEA without further delay to fully implement their legally binding safeguards agreement and their commitments under UNSCR 2231(2015).
They condemned in the strongest possible terms Iran’s export and Russia’s procurement of Iranian ballistic missiles. Evidence that Iran has continued to transfer weaponry to Russia despite repeated international calls to stop represents a further escalation of Iran’s military support to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Russia has used Iranian weaponry such as UAVs to kill Ukrainian civilians and strike their critical infrastructure.
They reiterated that Iran must immediately cease all support to Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war against Ukraine and halt such transfers of ballistic missiles, UAVs and related technology, which constitute a direct threat to the Ukrainian people as well as European and international security more broadly.
They reaffirmed their steadfast commitment to hold Iran to account for its unacceptable support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine that further undermines global security. In line with their previous statements on the matter, they underscored that they are already responding with new and significant measures.
They also reiterated their deep concern about Iran’s human rights violations, especially against women and minority groups. They reiterated their call on Iran to allow access to the country to relevant UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures mandate holders.
De-escalation efforts in the region must also include the immediate and unconditional termination of any attack by the Houthis against international and commercial vessels transiting the Gulf of Aden, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. The G7 members reiterated their strong condemnation of these attacks and the right of countries to defend their vessels from attacks. They called for the immediate release by the Houthis of the Galaxy Leader and its crew. They expressed their strong concern about the August 21 attack on the merchant vessel Sounion and the ongoing risk of an environmental catastrophe as salvage operations continue. They welcomed the efforts by the EU maritime operation Aspides and by the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect vital sea lanes. They appreciated the efforts of those countries that are committed to protect freedom of navigation and trade, as well as maritime security, in line with UNSCR 2722 (2024) and in accordance with international law.
5. Fostering partnerships with African Countries
The G7 members reaffirmed their commitment to support African nations in the pursuit of sustainable development as well as the creation of jobs and growth. The focus remains on fostering fair partnerships, built on shared principles, democratic values, local leadership, and practical initiatives.
They reiterated their intention to align actions with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the specific needs of African countries, including plans to improve local and regional food security, infrastructure, trade, and agricultural productivity. They expressed their support for the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, a crucial factor for Africa’s growth in the next decade.
The G7 members emphasized the need to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with African countries and regional organizations. In addition to maintaining financial support for African nations, they expressed their determination to improve the coordination and effectiveness of G7 resources, mobilizing domestic resources and encouraging increased private investments.
They welcomed the African Union’s permanent membership in the G20, and the creation of an additional Chair for Sub-Saharan Africa on the IMF Executive Board in November.
They reaffirmed their commitment to the G20 Compact with Africa, a tool aimed at enhancing private investment, driving structural reforms, supporting local entrepreneurship, and fostering cooperation, particularly in the energy sector. The G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), and initiatives like the EU’s Global Gateway can contribute to promote sustainable, resilient, and economically viable infrastructure in Africa, ensuring transparency in project selection, procurement, and financing. In this framework, they welcomed Italy’s Mattei Plan for Africa.
They recognized that sustainable development, peace and security and democracy go hand in hand, reaffirming their commitment to help African governments in strengthening democratic governance and respect for human rights, while addressing conditions conducive to terrorism, violent extremism, and instability.
They expressed their deep concern about the destabilizing activities of the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group and other Russia-supported entities. They called for accountability for all those responsible for human rights violations and abuses.
6. Indo-Pacific
The G7 members reiterated their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, based on the rule of law, which is inclusive, prosperous and secure, grounded on sovereignty, territorial integrity, peaceful resolution of disputes, fundamental freedoms and human rights. They reaffirmed the importance of working together with regional partners and organizations, notably the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). They reaffirmed their thorough support for ASEAN centrality and unity. They reaffirmed their intention to work to support Pacific Island Countries’ priorities, as articulated through the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.
As they seek constructive and stable relations with China, they recognized the importance of direct and candid engagement to express concerns and manage differences. They reaffirmed their readiness to cooperate with China to address global challenges. They expressed their deep concern at the China’s support to Russia. They called on China to step up efforts to promote international peace and security, and to press Russia to stop its military aggression and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine. They encouraged China to support a comprehensive, just and lasting peace based on territorial integrity and the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, including through its direct dialogue with Ukraine. They also expressed their deep concern at China’s ongoing support for Russia’s defense industrial base, which is enabling Russia to maintain its illegal war in Ukraine and has significant and broad-based security implications. They called on China to cease the transfer of dual-use materials, including weapons components and equipment, that are inputs for Russia’s defense sector.
They recognized the importance of China in global trade. However, they expressed their concerns about China’s persistent industrial targeting and comprehensive non-market policies and practices that are leading to global spillovers, market distortions and harmful overcapacity in a growing range of sectors, undermining our workers, industries and economic resilience and security, as well as impacting on currencies. The G7 members are not decoupling or turning inwards. They are de-risking and diversifying supply chains where necessary and appropriate and fostering resilience to economic coercion. They called on China to refrain from adopting export control measures, particularly on critical minerals, that could lead to significant supply chain disruptions. Together with partners, the G7 members will invest in building their respective industrial capacities, promote diversified and resilient supply chains, and reduce critical dependencies and vulnerabilities.
They remained seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas and reiterated their strong opposition to any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force or coercion. They reaffirmed that there is no legal basis for China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea, and they reiterated their opposition to China’s militarization and coercive and intimidation activities in the South China Sea. They re-emphasized the universal and unified character of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and reaffirmed UNCLOS’s important role in setting out the legal framework that governs all activities in the oceans and the seas. They reiterated that the award rendered by the Arbitral Tribunal on 12 July 2016 is a significant milestone, which is legally binding upon the parties to those proceedings and a useful basis for peacefully resolving disputes between the parties. They reiterated their strong opposition to China’s dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia in the South China Sea and its repeated obstruction of countries’ high seas freedom of navigation. They expressed deep concern about the dangerous and obstructive maneuvers, including water cannons and ramming, by the China Coast Guard and maritime militia against Philippines vessels.
The G7 members reaffirmed that maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to international security and prosperity, and called for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues. There is no change in the basic position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including stated One-China policies. They supported Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations as a member where statehood is not a prerequisite and as an observer or guest where it is.
They remained concerned by the human rights situation in China, including in Xinjiang and Tibet. They are also worried about the crackdown on Hong Kong’s autonomy and independent institutions, and ongoing erosion of rights and freedoms. They urged China and the Hong Kong authorities to act in accordance with their international commitments and applicable legal obligations.
The G7 members strongly condemned North Korea’s continuing expansion of its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile programs in violation of multiple UNSC resolutions and its continuous destabilizing activities. They reiterated their call for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and demanded that North Korea abandons all its nuclear weapons, existing nuclear programs, and any other WMD and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, in accordance with all relevant UNSC resolutions. They called on North Korea to return to dialogue to promote peace and stability in the Korean peninsula. They urged all UN Member States to fully implement all relevant UN Security Council resolutions. They reiterated their deep disappointment with Russia’s veto last March on the mandate renewal of the UNSC 1718 Committee Panel of Experts.
They condemned in the strongest possible terms the increasing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, including North Korea’s export and Russia’s procurement of North Korean ballistic missiles and munitions in direct violation of relevant UNSCRs, as well as Russia’s use of these missiles and munitions against Ukraine. They are also deeply concerned about the potential for any transfer of nuclear or ballistic missiles-related technology to North Korea, in violation of the relevant UNSCRs. They urged Russia and North Korea to immediately cease all such activities and abide by relevant UNSCRs. They urged North Korea to respect human rights, facilitate access for international humanitarian organizations, and resolve the abductions issue immediately.
They called on China not to conduct or condone activities aimed at undermining the security and safety of our communities and the integrity of our democratic institutions, and to act in strict accordance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
7. Regional Issues
Venezuela
The G7 members reiterated their deep concern about the situation in Venezuela, following the vote on July 28.
They emphasized that the announced victory of Maduro lacks credibility and democratic legitimacy, as indicated by reports of the UN Panel of Experts and independent international observers as well as data published by the opposition. They underscored that it is essential for electoral results to be complete and independently verified to ensure respect for the will of the Venezuelan people.
They expressed their outrage for the arrest warrant and constant threats to the security of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who decided to seek refuge in Spain. According to the above-mentioned independent reports, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia appears to have won the most votes.
They urged Venezuelan representatives to cease all human rights violations and abuses, arbitrary detentions and widespread restrictions on fundamental freedoms, particularly affecting the political opposition, human rights defenders, and representatives of independent media and civil society. They called for the release of all political prisoners and for a path to freedom and democracy for the people of Venezuela.
They urged the international community to keep Venezuela high on the diplomatic agenda and they expressed their support for efforts by regional partners to facilitate the Venezuelan-led democratic and peaceful transition that the people of Venezuela have clearly chosen in the polls.
Haiti
The G7 members expressed their determination to continue supporting Haitian institutions – including the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT) and the Government of Prime Minister Conille – in their commitment to create the necessary conditions of general security and stability for the convening, by February 2026, of free and fair elections. The expression of popular will would set the foundation for the full restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Haiti.
They also expressed full support to the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, which is providing critical support to the Haitian National Police as they counter criminal gangs engaged in illicit trafficking and inflicting brutal violence upon the population.
The G7 members emphasized the importance of continued support to the MSS mission through financial contributions to the UN Trust Fund as well as contributions in kind. They expressed their strong appreciation for the commitment of the Government of Kenya – which has already deployed 380 personnel on the ground – to support the Haitian National Police in restoring peace and security.
They called on all countries that have committed to deploy their contingents to the MSS mission to do so as soon as possible, to consolidate the mission and its fundamental role in the Country. They called on Haiti’s partners to continue their humanitarian assistance to the Haitian people and to expedite their financial and in-kind contributions to the MSS mission to help ensure that the mission is resourced for success.
They called also on the United Nations Security Council to consider a UN Peace Operation to maintain the security gains of the Haiti National Police and the MSS mission for holding free and fair elections and called on the Secretary-General accordingly to provide support.
The G7 members welcomed the work of the G7 Working Group on Haiti in monitoring institutional, political, social and security developments in Haiti, with a view to supporting the stabilization of the country and the restoration of full democratic governance.
Libya
The G7 members reiterated their unwavering commitment to Libyan stability, sovereignty, independence and unity. They expressed deep concern about recent developments in the country, in particular those involving the leadership of the Central Bank of Libya and the High Council of State, which show the fragility and unsustainability of the present status quo. They urged relevant Libyan parties to rapidly reach the necessary compromises to begin to restore the institutional integrity of the Central Bank of Libya and its standing with the international financial community. They called on Libyan political actors to refrain from taking harmful unilateral actions that create further political tension and fragmentation and make the country vulnerable to harmful foreign interference.
They noted advances made in the organization of local elections and they called for a free, fair and inclusive participation of all Libyans. It is now imperative to relaunch a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned political process facilitated by the UN towards free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections.
They expressed their support and commended the efforts made by UNSMIL officer in charge Stephanie Koury in support of the stabilization of Libya. They called on the Secretary General to appoint a new Special Representative without delay.
Sudan
The G7 members reiterated their grave concern over the ongoing fighting, mass-displacement and famine in Sudan.
They condemned the serious human rights violations and abuses against the civilian population, including widespread sexual and gender-based violence, as well as international humanitarian law violations by both sides to the conflict. They called for an immediate end to the escalating violence, which is creating further displacement, and urged the warring parties to ensure the protection of civilians. They reiterated their commitment to holding accountable all those responsible for violations of international law in Sudan.
They condemned the emergence of famine in Sudan as a direct consequence of efforts to restrict access of humanitarian actors. They noted recent progress in relation to the re-opening of the Chad-Sudan Adre border crossing, in the wake of the Paris Conference and of the Geneva talks. They called for full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access both into Sudan and across lines of conflict so aid can reach all those in need.
They urged all parties to cease hostilities immediately and to engage in serious negotiations aimed at achieving a lasting ceasefire, humanitarian access and protection of civilians without pre-conditions.
They called on external actors to refrain from fueling the conflict, to respect the UN arms embargo on Darfur, and to play a responsible role in resolving the crisis.
They welcomed mediation efforts by regional and international actors and organizations to facilitate a durable peace for the country.
Inclusive, national dialogue, aimed at restoring democracy, re-establishing and strengthening the civilian and representative institutions after the end of the conflict, is a prerequisite for lasting peace. The G7 Members emphasized that it is necessary for representatives of Sudanese civil society, including women, to be fully engaged in the reflection on the political future of the country.
Coventry City Council has received an award for the way it works to support the Armed Forces.
The Council received the Silver Award from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme.
Cllr Linda Bigham, the Council’s Armed Forces Champion, received the award at the National Memorial Arboretum from Air Vice Marshall Adam Sansom.
Cllr Bigham said: “The Council and the city of Coventry are proud supporters of our Armed Forces.
“They have done so much for us over the years, and we owe them a debt of gratitude. We are honoured to receive the Silver Award and we promise we will continue our work to help those who wear, or have worn their uniforms with such pride and courage.
“This award will help us to show them we are there for them and we care, and it will help us to inspire others to offer their support to the Forces, families, their veterans and cadets.
“Coventry is a city of peace and reconciliation and that work is supported so well by the Armed Forces. We look forward to building closer links in the years ahead.”
The Employer Recognition Scheme works to encourage employers to support the Armed Forces and their personnel and inspire others through their work. The award is open to all companies and businesses, as well as public organisations such as the emergency services, local authorities, and NHS trusts.
To earn the Silver Award, employers must have pledged to support the Armed Forces, including existing or prospective employees who are members of the community, and they must have signed the Armed Forces Covenant.
They have to promote being Armed Forces-friendly and be open to employing reservists, veterans (including the wounded, injured and sick), cadet instructors and military spouses/partners.
They have to proactively demonstrate that service personnel and the Armed Forces community are not unfairly disadvantaged as part of their recruiting and selection processes; and ensure that the workforce is aware of their positive policies towards defence people issues. They must also show support to training by providing at least five days’ additional unpaid/paid leave and demonstrate support to the Cadet movement.
The Council has been a long-time supporter of the Armed Forces and is proud to be signed up to the Armed Forces Covenant.
The Covenant is a promise to acknowledge and understand that those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, and their families, should be treated with fairness and respect in the communities, economy, and society they serve with their lives.
Pipeline meetings between our regulatory authorities and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are an opportunity to exchange information on new developments and collaborate on new possibilities.
The meetings will also help Access regulators plan and prepare for future work-share applications.
Intervention of Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell
Intervention of Archbishop Peter Soon-Taick Chung, O.C.D
Intervention of Bishop Paul Kyung Sang Lee
Intervention of Miss Gabriela Su-Ji Kim
At 11.30 this morning, a press conference, “Towards World Youth Day Seoul 2027” was livestreamed from the Holy See Press Office.
The speakers were: His Eminence Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, Archbishop Peter Soon-Taick Chung, O.C.D., of Seoul, president of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for Seoul 2027, Bishop Paul Kyung Sang Lee, general coordinator of World Youth Day Seoul 2027, and Miss Gabriela Su-Ji Kim, a young Korean.
The following were also present in the hall and available to the press: Dr. Gleison De Paula Souza, secretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, the Reverend Fr. Franco Galdino, coordinator of the Youth Office of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, and the Reverend Fr. Peter Yang, executive secretary of the Local Organizing Committee of Seoul 2027.
The following are their interventions:
Intervention of Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell
Good morning everyone and thank you for being here today!
The Holy Father has chosen the city of Seoul, Korea, as the venue for the next World Youth Day in 2027. For the latest WYD which was held in Lisbon, Portugal, young people went on pilgrimage to the western border of Europe, and now they are being asked to set out for the Far East as ‘a marvellous sign of the universality of the Church and our dream of unity’, in the words of the Holy Father.[1]
The Church in Asia and Korea
After World Youth Day in Manila in 1995, it is coming to Asia again, the ‘cradle of the world’s major religions’, with its ‘intricate mosaic of its many cultures, languages, beliefs and traditions, which comprise such a substantial part of the history and heritage of the human family’ as St John Paul II said in his Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia.[2]
Every World Youth Day is a golden opportunity for the local Church hosting it to celebrate its distinct culture and faith together with other Churches. In Korea, Catholics make up 11% of the population. Although a minority, the Church is full of vitality and initiatives of all kinds. It is enriched by the heroic witness of so many martyrs, and it continues to radiate, very strongly, a light of faith and hope that reaches all believers in every part of the world.
So what are the opportunities presented by World Youth Day in Seoul? First of all, like every WYD, it is an opportunity for all young people to rediscover the beauty of Christian life, and to bring to the ordinary circumstances of daily life a renewed desire to be disciples of Jesus and faithful to his Gospel. The rediscovery of Christian life, then, can be fertile ground for the blossoming of many vocations, to marriage or to the priesthood and consecrated life. All of this will have great benefits for the Church in Korea, for the Asian continent, and for the Church globally.
Secondly, Asia is very receptive to the coexistence of cultures, to dialogue and to complementarity. This will be of great help to young pilgrims on their path of learning to become messengers of peace in a world so torn by conflict and confrontation.
Thirdly, the dynamic Asian context will help young people to think about the dialogue between faith and modernity. They live in a world where they are confronted by challenges of global scope. These include a loss of meaning and purpose felt in some societies, the digital revolution, the climate crisis, economic inequalities, etc. The big questions that these challenges raise will stimulate young people to make their personal contribution so that contemporary culture may be permeated and transformed by the Gospel, with its power, light and freshness.
The theme of the journey from Lisbon to Seoul: 2023-2027
As you know, every year young people are invited to celebrate World Youth Day in their local Churches on the Solemnity of Christ the King. Last week, the Holy Father’s Message for the 39th WYD to be celebrated on 24 November was published, ‘Those who hope in the Lord will run and not be weary’ (cf. Is 40:31). This theme marks the stages of an inner pilgrimage that began with the invitation made in Lisbon to arise and set out (cf. WYD Lisbon 2023).
For the Jubilee Year of 2025, young people are called to be pilgrims of hope in Rome and, over the next two years, they will be guided along a path that will culminate in World Youth Day in Seoul 2027. The two themes for this path are included in the documentation you have received that has just been published. The theme chosen by the Holy Father for the 40th WYD is: ‘You also are my witnesses, because you have been with me’ (John 15:27); the theme chosen by the Holy Father for the 41st WYD is: ‘Take courage! I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33).
That last theme — I will repeat it, ‘Take courage! I have overcome the world!’ (John 16:33) — will therefore be the theme of the 41stWYD in Seoul in 2027.
Both themes are taken from the Gospel of John. They belong to what is known as Jesus’ ‘farewell discourse’ (cf. John 13-17), when he prepares his disciples to experience the mystery of his passion and death, in the certainty of his resurrection. The two themes focus, therefore, on witnessing and on the courage that stems from Jesus’ paschal victory.
The traditional handing over of the WYD Cross and Icon: 24 November 2024
As is customary after every international WYD, the young people of Lisbon will hand over the symbols of WYD to the young people of Seoul: the Youth Cross and the icon of Mary Salus populi romani. This is an evocative ‘passing of the baton’ that will mark the beginning of the Korean Church’s spiritual preparation for World Youth Day. I am announcing that this handover will take place on 24 November, the Solemnity of Christ King of the Universe, during Holy Mass in St Peter’s Basilica.
The Youth Cross, also known as the WYD Cross, is always a pilgrim cross. Young Koreans will carry it everywhere — in the cities, in the countryside, among the suffering, the imprisoned and the poor — to bring closeness and consolation to all. However, it is also a jubilee cross because it was entrusted by St John Paul II to young people at the end of the Holy Year of Redemption in 1984. This aspect takes on special significance this year because of the approaching Jubilee. St John Paul II entrusted it to young people with these words: ‘Carry it throughout the world as a symbol of Christ’s love for humanity, and announce to everyone that only in the death and resurrection of Christ can we find salvation and redemption.’[3]
The Cross will be taken by young people to Asia, accompanied by the icon of Mary Salus populi romani, a sign of Mary’s maternal affection and of the Church’s own maternal concern for all humanity.
Our hope is that many young people, even those who have never participated in a WYD, will walk a path over the next three years — above all an interior one –, and come to meet each other in Asia together with the Successor of Peter, and may they all bear courageous witness to Christ together.
_________________________
[1] Angelus, Apostolic journey of Pope Francis to Portugal on the occasion of the 37th World Youth Day, Parque Tejo
(Lisbon), Sunday, 6 August 2023.
[2] John Paul II, Post-synodal exhortation, Ecclesia in Asia, no. 6.
[3] John Paul II, To young people when entrusting them with the Cross of the Holy Year of Redemption, Sunday 22 April 1984.
Intervention of Archbishop Peter Soon-Taick Chung, O.C.D
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Holy Father for proclaiming the theme scripture for World Youth Day Seoul 2027.
In the coming year, young people from around the globe will gather in Rome to celebrate a jubilee year as pilgrims of hope who “hope in the Lord and will run without growing weary.”
This jubilee seeks to renew the young people’s hearts in Christ as they embrace the Pope’s invitation, carrying the newly declared motto with them on their pilgrimage to Seoul, resting on the eastern edge of Asia.
The Korean Catholic Church stands as a testament to the voluntary and dynamic faith of its first believers, who embraced the seeds of the Gospel without the assistance of missionaries, guided by the Holy Spirit. In 2027, numerous young people from all over the world will gather to meet the young believers of Korea, who have inherited the steadfast faith of their ancestors. Together, they will rekindle a passionate zeal for faith.
During times of persecution, the early Korean faithful sent earnest letters to the Pope, fervently requesting missionaries to preserve their gifted faith and to unite with the universal Church. This appeal moved Pope Gregory XVI to establish the Vicariate Apostolic of Chosun, thereby dispatching missionaries and enabling the faith to flourish despite persecution. Just as he did with the early Korean Church, the Pope has once again embraced our Church’s request, inviting young people from all over the world to join the WYD pilgrimage by attending the WYD Seoul 2027.
The pilgrimage of WYD Seoul 2027 will be more than just a large gathering. It will be a meaningful journey where young people, united with Jesus Christ, reflect on and discuss the modern challenges and injustices they face. It will be a grand celebration, allowing everyone to experience the vibrant and energetic culture created by Korean youth. It will also be an opportunity to immerse in and share the dynamic and passionate culture that Korea’s youth have created. Furthermore, through this celebration, Korean young people will gain the invaluable chance to exchange and engage with the concerns and passions of their peers.
Through this collective journey, WYD pilgrims will become “courageous missionaries,” inspired to live out the joy of the Gospel they have found. The Church, united through this period, will listen carefully to the young voices and accompany the youth throughout the pilgrimage. I pledge my utmost commitment to ensuring that the youth from around the world may experience the profound joy of being the integral members of the Church. To young people around the world, we warmly invite you to join us for World Youth Day Seoul 2027!
Thank you.
Intervention of Bishop Paul Kyung Sang Lee
First and foremost, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our Holy Father for providing the theme scripture that resonates deeply with the circumstances faced by the Catholic Church of Korea and the challenges confronting today’s youth.
Korea stands in a unique context distinct from previous World Youth Day hosts, characterized by the harmonious coexistence of diverse religious traditions. Within this environment, the Catholic Church of Korea has steadfastly embodied the Christian virtues of “forgiveness” and “sharing,” fostering these values in society while coexisting peacefully with other faiths. Amid the persistent reality as a “divided nation,” the Church has diligently worked to resolve the conflicts inherent in this division over the past seven decades, seeking peace and unity for the Korean people. The emergence of K-Catholic and K-faith among our youth is a testament to these sustained efforts. Our young people and young faithful remain open to interreligious dialogue and aspire towards harmonious and peaceful coexistence.
Preparations for the World Youth Day, aimed at sharing our spiritual heritage with the youth worldwide, have already begun in earnest. Following the selection of the host city last year, the Local Organizing Committee was inaugurated in December, alongside the formation of a preliminary research team of young individuals dedicated to spreading the spirituality of World Youth Day. Starting from February 2024, we launched a campaign dedicated to offering a billion Rosaries. This summer, we held a talk concert (at the front yard of Myeongdong Cathedral) fostering genuine conversations among young people and celebrated the Kick-off Ceremony of the World Youth Day Seoul 2027.
From this autumn, we will host Youth Masses and Youth Encounters in 19 deaneries across our diocese. In May of the coming year, we will host a diocesan-wide youth festival. Obviously open to all young people so practically it will be nationwide festival. More importantly, Seoul LOC is always collaborating with Doc of Bishops Conferences of Korea.
Through the Mystery of Life Awards, we encourage young scholars devoted to Christian spirituality to participate and share their scholarly contributions with the universal Church and the global community. As we approach the Jubilee Year, we expect to bring approximately 1,000 young pilgrims to participate in the Jubilee of Youth. It is our fervent hope that through this pilgrimage, they will come to discern the empowering force of hope bestowed by faith and experience a profound personal encounter with Christ within the universal Church.
The logo for WYD Seoul 2027, capturing the vision and aspirations of this momentous event, centered around the theme, “Take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), chosen by the Holy Father. Central to the logo is a cross; the red and blue colors symbolize Christ’s triumphant victory over the world. The left element, reaching upward, signifies God in Heaven, while the right element, pointing downward, symbolizes Earth, illustrating the fulfillment of God’s will on Earth through their unity.
Inspired by traditional Korean art, the overall design employs brushstroke techniques unique to Korean painting and subtly incorporates the Hangul characters representing “Seoul.” At the same time, the logo captures the vibrant energy of youth and skillfully incorporates the letters WYD into its composition.
Additionally, the red on one side of the cross symbolizes the blood of the martyrs, harmonizing with the empowering theme, “Take courage.” The blue represents the vitality of youth and symbolizes God’s calling. Together, these colors echo the Taegeuk pattern on the Korean flag.
Finally, the yellow color that shines behind the cross represents the Christ, who is the “Light of the World.” Christ has overcome the world. He shines upon our Church like the sun rising from the East. And He guides the Church towards unity.
Through this diverse symbolism, the logo for the WYD Seoul 2027 integrates the multiple meanings of martyrdom, youth, Seoul, WYD, and the cross, celebrating the glory of victory achieved through the Holy Spirit. It heralds the call to the young people of Korea and the world to proclaim the faith of the martyrs to the world of our time.
Beyond the symbolism of the logo, we are dedicated to ensuring that the fruits of World Youth Day lead to genuine growth and renewal within the Church. We will undertake this journey, moving forward step by step with unwavering trust in the Lord and with courageous resolve.
Thank you.
Intervention of Miss Gabriela Su-Ji Kim
Youth Leadership and opportunities for evangelization
Hello, my name is Kim Suji Gabriella and I am here to share my passion for youth leadership and the role I hope World Youth Day will have in rekindling our faith. First, I would like to express my gratitude to the Holy Father, who invited everyone to Korea for the next World Youth Day in Seoul, as well as to all those who are working to prepare for this event. My journey in serving youth began as a catechist for middle and high school students in my parish. After experiencing WYD Krakow in 2016, I had the honor of attending the Synod Journeying with Young People in Rome in 2017 as a Korean delegate. This precious experience of meeting and interacting with the Pope and fellow young people has fueled my commitment to serve in the Church.
The COVID-19 pandemic that swept the world prevented many from attending church. As the dark days stretched on, many young people drifted away from the faith, and community dissolved. Now that we can gather once more, we face the challenge of a scattered flock, struggling to pass on the experience of faith. However, I am confident that WYD Seoul 2027 will provide a crucial opportunity to rekindle the flames of faith, not only in Korea but also around the world.
We have been invited to embark on a journey to live the spirit of the Synod. With a joyful “Yes,” we will join with young people from around the world. Through WYD Seoul 2027, we will forge a path of unity, hope, courage, and passion, welcoming people from all walks of life, not just Catholic believers, to walk together in harmony. I trust that our Lord Jesus Christ will walk with us on this pilgrimage to the “Far East” and beyond and I am hopeful that all of you in this room will accompany us as well. Thank you.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Standard Lithium Ltd. (“Standard Lithium” or the “Company”) (TSXV:SLI) (NYSE American:SLI) (FRA:S5L), a leading near-commercial lithium company, today announced its financial and operating results for the fiscal fourth quarter and year ended June 30, 2024.
“We delivered on our promises in fiscal 2024 with the advancement of our world-class lithium brine assets and by securing a strategic partnership with global energy major, Equinor,” said David Park, CEO and Director of Standard Lithium. “Standard Lithium holds globally-significant lithium brine assets in the Smackover with the potential to help meet the growing demand for sustainable lithium production in the U.S. We are the most advanced DLE play in North America, having proven direct lithium extraction at a commercial scale. The Standard Lithium team has done an outstanding job of differentiating itself from the pack by systematically de-risking its business, including the consummation of it’s partnerships with Equinor and Koch. Now, with the recent announcement of the conditional DOE grant of US$225 million, is the time for us to prioritize, focus and execute. We look forward to working closely with our partners to advance our South West Arkansas and East Texas projects.”
Highlights Subsequent to the Fourth Quarter Ended June 30, 2024
All amounts are in US dollars unless otherwise indicated.
Received conditional $225 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) for the South West Arkansas Project.The grant is expected to support the construction of the Central Processing Facility for Phase 1 of the SWA project and is dependent on successful negotiations with the DOE. The grant is one of the largest ever awarded to a U.S. critical minerals project.
Appointed David Park as Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Company. On September 1, 2024, Mr. Park, a highly experienced executive with a strong energy and industrial sector background, assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Park joined the company as a strategic advisor in July 2023 following his retirement from Koch Industries after 28 years.
Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Highlights
Secured strategic partnership with global energy major Equinor to advance the South West Arkansas (“SWA”) and East Texas projects.Equinor ASA (“Equinor”) acquired a 45% interest in two Standard Lithium entities holding the SWA and East Texas projects for a gross investment of up to $160 million. The transaction immediately strengthened the Company’s financial position and resulted in no dilution to existing shareholders.
De-risked commercialization of the direct lithium extraction (“DLE”) process. The Company successfully installed, commissioned, and continues to operate the Li-ProTM Lithium Selective Sorption commercial scale unit at its Demonstration Plant in El Dorado, Arkansas. The Company’s partner, Koch Technology Solutions, supplied the commercial scale unit, which is believed to be the largest commercial-scale column operating in a DLE facility globally. The results to date have exceeded design parameters, including average lithium recovery of 97.3%, key contaminant rejection of greater than 99%, and boron rejection greater than 95%.
Executed drilling programs yielding the highest-ever reported lithium brine values in North America. The South West Arkansas Project’s current resource averages among the highest lithium concentrations in North America. As part of its PFS for SWA, the Company reported an Upper Smackover Indicated and Middle Smackover Inferred resource of 1.4 Mt and 0.4 Mt lithium carbonate equivalent, respectively, at an average lithium concentration of 437 mg/L. In East Texas, the Company delivered globally-significant results with confirmed lithium concentrations up to 806 mg/L and an average concentration of 644 mg/L in the drilled area. The drill results represent the highest-ever reported and confirmed lithium brine concentrations in North America.
Advanced and de-risked the South West Arkansas Project. The Company delivered a Preliminary Feasibility Study (“PFS”) for the project in the first half of the fiscal year, demonstrating robust economics assuming average annual production of 30,000 tonnes per annum (“tpa”) of lithium hydroxide beginning in 2027. Post publishing the PFS, the Company secured brine production rights and purchased a 118-acre parcel of land to further advance the project. Most recently, SWA received a conditional $225 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in support of its construction and development. The grant was awarded based on an updated scope from the original PFS; the Project’s design is being updated and now targets a larger total output of 45,000 tpa of lithium carbonate to be developed in two phases of 22,500 tpa each. SWA is being developed in partnership with Equinor, with ownership shared 55% by Standard Lithium and 45% by Equinor. Ausenco Engineering Canada ULC is leading the Definitive Feasibility Study and Front-end Engineering and Design currently underway to support the larger project scope.
Strengthened the senior management team with the appointment of key executives. Michael Barman was appointed Chief Development Officer and Salah Gamoudi joined as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Barman most recently served as Managing Director in Investment Banking at Stifel Nicolaus Canada Inc. (formerly GMP Securities L.P.) and brings over two decades of banking experience advising senior executives and their boards. Mr. Gamoudi brings extensive experience from the oil and gas sector. Prior to joining the Company, he served as Chief Financial Officer of SandRidge Energy, Inc. where he successfully generated significant value for its shareholders.
Delivered the Definitive Feasibility Study (“DFS”) for the Phase 1A project at LANXESS South Plant.The DFS assumed an average annual production of 5,400 tpa of lithium carbonate over a 25-year operating life beginning in 2026. Phase 1A represents a modest scale-up from the Company’s existing Demonstration Plant that has been operating since May 2020. Advancement of the Phase 1A project is dependent on ongoing commercial discussions with LANXESS and the finalization of the Arkansas lithium royalty.
Established an at-the-market equity program. Net proceeds to the Company for the fiscal year totaled C$2.8 million and US$13.3 million from the issuance of 1.5 million shares on the TSX Venture Exchange and 9.1 million shares on the NYSE American LLC, respectively. No issuances have been completed under the ATM Program since April 10, 2024.
Cash and working capital of C$52.9 million and C$39.6 million, respectively, as of June 30, 2024.
The Company has no term or revolving debt obligations as of June 30, 2024.
Consolidated Financial Statements
This news release should be read in conjunction with the Company’s Consolidated Financial Statements and MD&A for the year ended June 30, 2024, which are available on the Company’s issuer profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov.
Q4 AND FISCAL YEAR 2024 RESULTS CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST
The Company will hold a conference call and webcast to discuss its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 on Tuesday, October 1st at 3:30 p.m. ET. Access to the call is available via webcast or direct dial.
Conference Call and Webcast Details Standard Lithium Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Results Call and Webcast October 1, 2024 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Participant Information: USA / International Toll +1 (646) 307-1963 USA – Toll-Free (800) 715-9871 Canada – Toronto (647) 932-3411 Canada – Toll-Free (800) 715-9871
Standard Lithium is a leading near-commercial lithium development company focused on the sustainable development of a portfolio of large, high-grade lithium-brine properties in the United States. The Company prioritizes projects characterized by the highest quality resources, robust infrastructure, skilled labor, and streamlined permitting. Standard Lithium aims to achieve sustainable, commercial-scale lithium production via the application of a scalable and fully integrated Direct Lithium Extraction (“DLE”) and purification process. The Company’s flagship projects are located in the Smackover Formation, a world-class lithium brine asset, focused in Arkansas and Texas. In partnership with global energy leader Equinor ASA, Standard Lithium is advancing the South West Arkansas project, a greenfield project located in southern Arkansas, and actively exploring promising lithium brine prospects in East Texas. Additionally, the Company is advancing the Phase 1A project in partnership with LANXESS Corporation, a brownfield development project located in southern Arkansas. Standard Lithium also holds an interest in certain mineral leases in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California.
Standard Lithium trades on both the TSX Venture Exchange and the NYSE American under the symbol “SLI”; and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol “S5L”. Please visit the Company’s website at www.standardlithium.com.
Qualified Person
Steve Ross, P.Geol., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and Vice President Resource Development for the Company, has reviewed and approved the relevant scientific and technical information in this news release.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain certain “Forward-Looking Statements” within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “target”, “plan”, “forecast”, “may”, “schedule” and other similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to intended development timelines, future prices of commodities, accuracy of mineral or resource exploration activity, reserves or resources, regulatory or government requirements or approvals, the reliability of third party information, continued access to mineral properties or infrastructure, fluctuations in the market for lithium and its derivatives, changes in exploration costs and government regulation in Canada and the United States, and other factors or information. Such statements represent the Company’s current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.
I want to begin by thanking the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, and WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesusas, as well as all of our distinguished guests present for this special occasion.
Our gathering today marks a critical milestone; we are one year away from the next UN high-level meeting on NCDs, and just less than six years out from the 2030 SDG deadline.
Yet despite the ticking clock above our heads, underinvestment in health services has become a deadly norm; the gap between the need for, and availability of, quality care and support for people affected by NCDs remains as wide as ever.
Meanwhile, the SDGs, intricately linked with NCDs and mental illness, are careening off-track.
We are best placed to improve health outcomes for NCDs only if we fully know and understand the complex relationship between NCDs and the global goals.
Excellencies,
Let me briefly outline this connection on three fronts.
First, we must fully understand the link between health, climate change and air pollution.
Extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, storms and floods, impact people living with NCDs by worsening their conditions.
When food systems are disrupted, the opportunities and capacities to maintain healthy diets diminish.
When the air we breathe is toxic, our health can no longer be sustained. Ninety-nine per cent of humanity breathes polluted air – leading to an estimated 8 million premature deaths – including more than 700,000 children under five.
Small island nations understand this deadly interplay all too well, and I commend the bold action championed by many on this front.
Second, NCDs and the economy are inextricably linked.
High out-of-pocket payments for NCD treatment push many people into poverty. Chronic conditions also take people out of work with little or no alternative income, continuing the vicious cycle.
Third, and finally, let me underscore the tragic connection between health, conflict and emergencies.
We are living through a time where conflicts are raging across the globe. In times like these of crisis, the needs of people living with NCDs and mental health conditions, are often left unmet and left behind.
Access to essential medicines is cut off.
Acute mental distress increases.
The impacts of COVID-19 still linger on. The world is still catching up on delayed vaccinations and key health services, most of which are related to the prevention of NCDs.
Excellencies,
We are gathered here today because only political will can help turn the tide. Your political commitments and actions are critical to building more resilient health systems that address these equity gaps.
To succeed in the fight against NCDs, governments must act decisively by integrating One Health principles, strengthening national NCD action plans, ensuring equitable access for vulnerable populations, and allocating sustainable funding to public health initiatives that reduce NCD risk factors and address root causes.
The critical role of research for development, robust data systems, accelerating innovation and technologies in advancing solutions to NCDs is also key.
So today, my ask of you is simple: let’s collaborate across borders, sectors, and disciplines to build a more resilient, healthy world for all.
I hope our conversation today will spark optimism and the bold decision-making that is needed at this critical juncture.
We have 52 weeks left to the next high-level meeting on NCDs – let’s make them count.
PORTLAND, Maine, Sept. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Northeast Bank (the “Bank”) (NASDAQ: NBN) announced today that since June 30, 2024, the Bank has purchased primarily commercial real estate loans in the amount of unpaid principal balance of $805 million. Because the purchases closed primarily late in the quarter, there will be minimal impact on earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2025. The Bank has funded and intends to fund the purchase of these loans primarily relying on brokered deposits and Federal Home Loan Bank advances.
Discussing the purchases, Rick Wayne, Chief Executive Officer said, “We are very pleased with this quarter’s purchased loan activity, which represents the second largest quarterly loan purchase volume in the Bank’s history. We have developed a reputation in the loan purchase market as a strong and reliable counterparty. Our experienced, professional, and dedicated team allows us to take advantage of the opportunities that have been and are available to the Bank.”
About Northeast Bank Northeast Bank (NASDAQ: NBN) is a full-service bank headquartered in Portland, Maine. We offer personal and business banking services to the Maine market via seven branches. Our National Lending Division purchases and originates commercial loans on a nationwide basis. ableBanking, a division of Northeast Bank, offers online savings products to consumers nationwide. Information regarding Northeast Bank can be found at www.northeastbank.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We may also make forward-looking statements in other documents we file with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”), in our annual reports to our shareholders, in press releases and other written materials, and in oral statements made by our officers, directors or employees. You can identify forward-looking statements by the use of the words “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “estimate,” “assume,” “outlook,” “will,” “should,” and other expressions that predict or indicate future events and trends and which do not relate to historical matters. Although the Bank believes that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable estimates and assumptions, they are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to significant risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Bank’s control. The Bank’s actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of, among other factors, changes in general business and economic conditions on a national basis and in the local markets in which the Bank operates, including changes which adversely affect borrowers’ ability to service and repay loans; changes in customer behavior due to political, business and economic conditions, including inflation and concerns about liquidity; turbulence in the capital and debt markets; reductions in net interest income resulting from interest rate volatility as well as changes in the balances and mix of loans and deposits; changes in interest rates and real estate values; changes in loan collectability and increases in defaults and charge-off rates; decreases in the value of securities and other assets, adequacy of credit loss reserves, or deposit levels necessitating increased borrowing to fund loans and investments; changing government regulation; competitive pressures from other financial institutions; changes in legislation or regulation and accounting principles, policies and guidelines; cybersecurity incidents, fraud, natural disasters, and future pandemics; the risk that the Bank may not be successful in the implementation of its business strategy; the risk that intangibles recorded in the Bank’s financial statements will become impaired; changes in assumptions used in making such forward-looking statements; and the other risks and uncertainties detailed in the Bank’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and updated by our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other filings submitted to the FDIC. These statements speak only as of the date of this release and the Bank does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this communication or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
For More Information:
Richard Cohen, Chief Financial Officer Northeast Bank, 27 Pearl Street, Portland, ME 04101 207.786.3245 ext. 3249 www.northeastbank.com
Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, September 24, 2024/APO Group/ —
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) on 20 September 2024 approved a $129.71 million loan to Tanzania for the implementation of a youth-focused agribusiness program.
The loan will fund the first phase of the “Building a Better Tomorrow: Youth Initiatives for Agribusiness” program, which aims to create business opportunities and jobs for young people in key agricultural sectors.
The total cost of the project is estimated at $241.27 million. In addition to the Bank’s loan, which covers 53,76 percent of the cost, the funding package includes grants of $1.15 million from the Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation (KOAFEC) Trust Fund and $210,000 from tropical vegetable seed firm East-West Seed. The Tanzanian government will provide $110.41 million, representing 45.76 percent of the total.
Patricia Laverley, the Bank’s Country Manager for Tanzania, said: “This project is expected to incubate and empower approximately 11,000 ‘agripreneurs,’ including at least 6,000 young agribusiness owners.” She added that the program will facilitate access to finance for an additional 2,500 young people already involved in agribusiness but lacking access to commercial loans. We expect each agribusiness run by a young person will employ an average of five workers.”
The project will implement strategies to raise awareness and manage knowledge using youth-oriented information and communication technologies. It will also provide training and support for agrifood business incubation and acceleration, with a particular focus on the recruitment of female applicants.
Digital technologies, including satellite technology and artificial intelligence, will be utilized to improve agricultural productivity and decision-making processes for young farmer cooperatives.
As of 30 June 2024, the African Development Bank approved 25 projects in Tanzania, with a total commitment of $3.48 billion.
by Marta Zhao and Laura Gomez RuizHangzhou (Agenzia Fides) – China, the city of Hangzhou and the Chinese Catholic community have never forgotten Father Martino Martini.The great Jesuit missionary, appreciated by the emperors and welcomed at the court of the Qing Dynasty, was born in Trento, Italy, 410 years ago, on September 20, 1614. Even today, his story and his testimony arouse unexpected sympathy.As part of the celebrations organized by the Italian Embassy in Beijing for the 700th anniversary of the death of the traveler and merchant Marco Polo, the theme “In the footsteps of Marco Polo: Martino Martini” presented for the first time a series of important Italian personalities who, at different times and in different capacities, contributed to the dissemination of knowledge about China in the West.The Chinese President Xi Jinping has publicly expressed his appreciation for Martino Martini. In an article published in the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera on March 20, 2019, on the eve of his official visit to Italy, Xi Jinping described the Jesuit as a pioneer of the group of Italian sinologists who “have played a bridging role in relations between China and Europe, starting with Martino Martini’s first grammar of the Chinese language written for the West.”In Italy, the Martino Martini Study Center, based in Trento, now publishes, among other things, the biannual magazine “Sulla Via del Catai” on cultural relations between Europe and China.In the city of Hangzhou, a park bearing his name has been created around his mausoleum. Protected by the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Heritage Authority, the site has become a kind of sanctuary for Chinese Catholics. The mausoleum, which is currently being restored, houses the remains of 15 famous Jesuit missionaries who ended their earthly lives near the beautiful Xizi Lake. Among them are Father Prospero Intorcetta (1626-1696), Father Nicolas Trigault (1577-1629), Father Lazaro Cattaneo (1560-1640) and Father Emmanuel Diaz (1574-1659).In 2018, an exhibition on the cartographic work of Martino Martini was inaugurated at the headquarters of the China-Italy Center in Hangzhou to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the arrival of the great missionary in that city (see Fides, 13/6/2018).The Catholic community of Hangzhou had organized an academic conference in 2010 to mark the 350th anniversary of the construction of the cathedral. Six well-known academics from Chinese universities and researchers working with Catholic institutions such as the Faith Institute for Cultural Studies (FICS) and the Guang Qi Press of the Diocese of Shanghai presented joint studies on the life and mission of the Jesuit in the presence of the Italian Consul in Shanghai. The legacy of Martino Martini was presented as “a strong impulse for today’s mission, so that it fulfills its mission with his sense of missionary responsibility, his courage and his dedication” (see Fides, 22/1/2010).The affection and veneration shown to the figure of Martino Martini are proportional to the intensity with which he lived his time and dedicated his life to proclaiming the Gospel in China.Martino Martini was born in Trento on 20 September 1614. In 1631 he entered the Society of Jesus as a novice. After studying at the Roman College under the influence of his mentor, the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, he entered the Eastern mission in 1640, traveling by ship from Lisbon in Portugal via Goa in India (November 1640) to Macao in China, where he arrived in August 1642. The following year he was sent to mainland China, thus beginning his legendary journey of cultural exchange between China and Europe. He wrote the first Western Chinese grammar and related works that contributed to cultural exchange, bridged the gap between China and Europe, and had a lasting influence on the emergence and development of Sinology in Italy.The period of his stay in China, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, was a time of great social unrest. The Jesuits, who had built good relations with influential sections of Chinese society and the political hierarchy, were worried about the development of the situation. The Chinese name they chose, Wei Kuangguo, encompassed all his good wishes: it indicated the will to defend and support the country and the desire for peace and prosperity in the world.But the unrest and conflict in China also divided the Jesuits and the Spanish mendicant orders and even infiltrated the Society of Jesus itself. The controversy over the Chinese translation of the divine name and the possibility that the new Christians should continue to practice the cult of the dead according to Chinese culture did not subside, but reached an intensity that even Martini could not contain, both inside and outside the order. An issue that was to shape the rest of his life.His travels and his writing formed the common thread in the second half of his life. During the first eight years of his stay in China (1643-1650), Martini traveled between the two capitals and to Hangzhou and Jinhua in Zhejiang. In the fourth year of Shunzhi’s reign (1647), Martino Martini, with the help of Zhu Shi, a parishioner of Lanxi in Zhejiang, wrote the “Qiu You Zhuan” (Treatise on Friendship, Hangzhou, 1661), which was based on the humanist thought already developed by the other Jesuit Matteo Ricci in his work of the same name, the first written in Chinese by the Italian Jesuit from Macerata.The southern part of Zhejiang, where Martino Martini was, was a region where Spanish monks also worked. He agreed with the information given by his confrere Matteo Ricci and was well aware of the differences with the Spanish Cistercians on the question of Chinese rites. In addition, the Spanish Dominican Juan Bautista Morales (1597-1664) had already traveled to Rome to express his objections to the Jesuits’ attitude in this dispute. When the Jesuit mission in China decided to send a representative to Europe to explain the situation from their point of view, the choice fell on Martino Martini.In 1651, the Jesuit traveled to Europe to defend the position of the Society of Jesus on the issue of Chinese rites. Thanks also to his good offices, in 1656 the Holy See issued an edict in favor of the Jesuits.During his travels in Europe, Martino Martini published three works in Latin: “De Bello Tartarico Historia”, “Novus Atlas Sinensis” and “Sinice Historia Decas Prima” (of which he also announced the publication of the sequel). These works were the most systematic, thorough and effective representations of China circulating in Europe at the time.In 1657 he returned to China and continued his mission in Hangzhou, where he completed the construction of the Church of the Redeemer in 1661 and died on June 6 of the same year at the age of 47. (Agenzia Fides, 24/9/2024)
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On September 1, Cairo wrote to the UN security council to protest against Ethiopia’s continued filling of Africa’s second largest reservoir and bringing two more power generating turbines into operation. Egypt sees any new infrastructure development on the Nile as a potential threat, since the river is the source of over 98% of the country’s water.
Egypt calls this a violation of international law and Ethiopia’s obligations to “prevent significant harm”. Ethiopia’s policies, it says,
could result in an existential threat to Egypt … and would consequently jeopardise regional and international peace and security.
Ethiopia has told Egypt to “abandon its aggressive approach” towards the dam. Ethiopia says that it must allow the Blue Nile’s water to flow through the dam’s turbines and on to Egypt to generate the hydropower for which it has been built, thus guaranteeing the overall flow to Egypt.
I have tracked the Nile disputes since the 1970s, first as a development journalist, then as a civil engineer and senior public servant. More recently, my research on water and regional integration for regional development agencies has provided further insights. My 2021 study considered the lessons to be learnt for today’s water challenges from centuries of the use and management of Nile waters.
Ongoing tension between Egypt and Ethiopia over control of the Nile River has a long history. Therefore, in one sense, the row between Egypt and Ethiopia is nothing new.
The countries went to war as far back as 1874, even as they both were also battling European colonialism. Ethiopia won the war of 1874 and, 20 years later, beat back Italy’s attempt to colonise it, at the battle of Adwa.
However, Egypt gained long term advantage from treaties negotiated by the British, which gave Cairo almost total control over the Nile. Egypt is still asserting the rights and privileges conferred by those colonial era treaties even though they are being challenged by other Nile countries. In my view, this is because Egyptians are still trapped by their past fears. As Norwegian professor Torje Tvedt has explained, these fears were deliberately entrenched by past colonial authorities.
With these perspectives, my view is that the current controversy over the Ethiopian dam still reflects historical conflicts rather than a careful analysis of present challenges.
Now 90% complete, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has begun to generate electricity. A series of good rainy seasons have allowed the reservoir to start filling rapidly without affecting Egypt’s water availability.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam offers not just cheap green electricity for Ethiopia and the sub-region as well as reliable irrigation supplies and flood control for Sudan. Once filled, its storage could offer supply security and increase the amount of water available for Egypt as well.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
What, then, are the issues that have prompted Egypt’s recent protests and what are the possible solutions to the problems raised?
The immediate technical challenge is to continue filling the dam without disrupting flows to Sudan and Egypt. The filling process might have to be interrupted if there is a regional drought. So recent developments, notably the greater focus on the rate at which the dam will be filled rather than the legality of its construction, suggest that there is a shift in positions which neither side is yet willing to acknowledge publicly.
This shift will be supported when other future-focused issues are raised. For instance, there must be negotiations about the supply of electricity to support Sudan’s irrigation expansion, although this is on hold due to the war in Sudan. In the longer term, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia could cooperate to use the GERD’s storage to help Egypt to manage its Aswan High Dam more efficiently. Aswan currently suffers very high evaporation losses, which could be reduced if its reservoir levels were better controlled. The GERD could help to do this.
Unfortunately, the history of colonial Britain repeatedly threatening to cut Egypt’s Nile water supplies has been deeply imprinted in Egyptian public consciousness. It is understandable that Egyptians still fear a similar threat from Ethiopia. The responsibility now falls on Ethiopia to show good faith in its operation of the dam and to work with Egypt to change the combative discourse.
Potential for cooperation
Egypt’s repeated complaints have alerted Ethiopia and international organisations of the need to act carefully. If there is another regional drought, Ethiopia will need to slow the rate at which it completes filling its dam. Informal liaison structures are monitoring the situation and such a response would help to build a more constructive engagement with Egypt.
Water is a patient teacher. Every season provides an opportunity for those who live with its natural cycles to understand it better. The hope is that, if the three countries experience the benefits of some seasons of the dam’s operation, the natural cycle will reveal the potential for cooperation and mitigate the conflict.
When peace returns to Sudan, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will enable a vast expansion of irrigation to develop its role as a regional breadbasket. The dam will also help to manage Nile floods which regularly cause death and destruction, even to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
Efforts to promote cooperation between the East African countries that share the White Nile have been relatively successful. However, such cooperation on the Blue Nile will need much greater trust between the parties. To achieve this trust, the countries and their people will have to overcome centuries of cultural and political preconceptions. This will require much patient work and interaction, which is not easy in the current climate.
– Egypt’s fears about Ethiopia’s mega-dam haven’t come to pass: moving on from historical concerns would benefit the whole region – https://theconversation.com/egypts-fears-about-ethiopias-mega-dam-havent-come-to-pass-moving-on-from-historical-concerns-would-benefit-the-whole-region-239418
Dhaka (Agenzia Fides) – “The situation we find ourselves in after the political and social crisis of last August is delicate. There are still tensions in society, there are protests, especially among young people. The massive student protests have led the Prime Minister to leave the country and flee abroad. The new interim government led by Mohamed Yunus now has the difficult task of healing the political, social and economic wounds, restoring trust, but also maintaining the rule of law, because there are also some worrying signs,” said the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Dhaka, Subroto Boniface Gomes, in an interview with Fides.The Bishop points to possible “dangers” arising from the student protests. “For example, in some Catholic schools in the diocese of Dhaka, students tried to force the dismissal of some teachers, duly selected and paid by the school administration, just because they did not agree with the new course or because they dared to criticize the student protest. This led to a crisis in our schools, which are attended by 95% Muslim or non-Christian students,” he explains. “Faced with the attempt to impose this or other measures by force, such as admitting girls wearing burqas in school, the Archbishop first decided, in a resounding decision, to close two schools. One was a girls’ school, the other is run by the Brothers of the Holy Cross. The joint intervention of the parents’ committee, religious representatives and school staff enabled dialogue, a peaceful solution to the crisis and the reopening of the schools. We could not give up on our values and principles. But it is an example that the legitimate rights of students must not interfere with and undermine democracy, the rule of law or the rights of others,” said Bishop Gomes.Another aspect to keep under control “is the return or creation of radical Islamic groups and parties that could affect the lives of religious minorities or promote an Islamization agenda.” “We must be vigilant in this regard because the temptation of extremism is just around the corner. It is important not to polarize society. We trust that the new Yunus government will turn the tide in the spirit of upholding democratic principles, respect for the constitution and fundamental freedoms for all citizens, regardless of their religious affiliation,” said the bishop.In July this year, thousands of students took to the streets to protest the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a controversial quota system for access to coveted government jobs. The government of Prime Minister Shehik Hasina responded to the demonstrations by deploying police and paramilitary forces, who shot at the crowd. The protests thus became a movement against Hasina and his party, the Awami League, which has ruled the country for 15 years, often delegitimizing or arresting political opponents and dissidents. The official number of victims of the repression is around 1,000 dead and hundreds injured. On August 5, the head of government finally fled abroad, seeking refuge in India. The army then dissolved parliament and appointed 84-year-old economist Muhammad Yunus, known as the “banker of the poor”, as head of a transitional government. He is known for the “Grameen Bank”, which specializes in the microcredit system and for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. His executive is now leading a delicate transition period until new elections.(PA) (Agenzia Fides, 24/9/2024)
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Iquitos (Agenzia Fides) – “We need authorities to defend the rights of girls, boys and young people of indigenous peoples, because they cannot continue to be excluded,” says Mariluz Canaquiri, a member of the indigenous people of the “Kukama Kukamiria” in the Peruvian Amazon, who complains about the decline in education among indigenous peoples.”The authorities do not care about the education of indigenous children, there is no adequate infrastructure and not enough bilingual teachers to teach them in our language,” says Canaquiri, who is also president of the women’s rights organization “Federation of Kukama-Kukamiria Women”.Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) is one of the educational policies in the South American country of 33 million inhabitants and 55 recognized indigenous peoples, four from the Andes and 51 from the Amazon.According to the results of the latest National Evaluation of Learning Outcomes (ENLA) published by the Ministry of Education, only 5.6 percent of fourth-grade elementary school students (10 and 11 years old) in IBE institutions in the Amazon region achieved the expected results. “There is no bilingual intercultural education here,” Canaquiri said. “How are they supposed to learn when our identity, our culture, our way of seeing the world are not taken into account in any way in the curriculum, and in logistical conditions where the school building is an area covered by branches and tree trunks in unbearable heat,” she noted in a statement to an international non-governmental organization.Although the first policy in favor of indigenous students was launched in 1972, more than half a century ago, it has always received little interest from the State, even though IBE is one of their individual and collective human rights. “They hire teachers because they speak Quechua, Shipibo, Asháninka or the equivalent, but when they go to school they do not apply the IBE. Sometimes they teach only in Spanish, sometimes they speak the children’s mother tongue, but everything else they read and write in Spanish,” reported one analyst.There are 24,000 schools affiliated to the IBE throughout the country, where most reinforce the students’ native language and teach them Spanish. Education policies try to ensure that the school population of indigenous peoples is bilingual and has oral and written skills, but studies by local researchers show that success is becoming increasingly limited.Despite this precarious situation, a small school in the rural community of Accollya, in the municipality of Soccos, almost 3,400 meters above sea level, in the province of Huamanga, one of the 11 provinces of Ayacucho, stands out positively. In the Andean department, affected by an internal armed conflict that Peru experienced between 1980 and 2000, the school is supported by an NGO and has a single teacher with 33 years of experience, but who has always been actively committed to bilingual intercultural education through training and in-depth courses. “I work in Spanish from Monday to Thursday and in Quechua on Fridays, using the notebooks that the ministry provides us for each subject,” says the teacher, who teaches ten students in first, second and third grade, aged six to eleven. “The response from the children is very good, from the first grade they learn to read and write, now it is September and the youngest can already read. That is the advantage of teaching different classes, because they motivate each other,” stressed the teacher.Also significant is the important contribution of the Catholic Church in the Amazon region in the field of education and health, where it has often taken the place of the State. Hundreds of missionaries have been true promoters of respect for human dignity throughout history. Religious and lay people from dozens of countries have sacrificed their lives in the most remote places to make the Amazon a place of coexistence and respect for the dignity and rights of all, especially the most vulnerable, largely indigenous peoples.Other initiatives to promote learning and the establishment of school libraries in these areas include the commitment of the “yachacs”, the wise men of the community, who hold intergenerational meetings and encourage reading among students and their families.The indigenous school population is estimated at 1.2 million nationwide, with the vast majority coming from the Quechua (700,000) and Aymara (300,000) peoples from the Andean areas of the country and the rest from Amazonian language groups such as Asháninka, Shipibo Konibo, Awajún and others.The Kukama Kukamiria people live mainly in the department of Loreto, the largest in the Peruvian Amazon. According to the Ministry of Culture, the population of the communities of the Kukama Kukamiria people is estimated at 37,053. Of these, 1,185 have declared that they speak the Kukama Kukamiria language, which represents 0.02% of the total number of indigenous languages in the country. (AP) (Agenzia Fides, 24/9/2024)
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Since his first day in office, President Biden has been committed to restoring American leadership at the United Nations. Our world today faces many challenges that no one country can or should confront alone. But when the United States shows up and leads at the UN, we can rally global action to tackle problems that affect us all. That is why the Biden-Harris Administration has worked tirelessly at the UN to advance American values, safeguard human rights for all, and address conflict and instability. Alongside our allies and partners from around the world, we have worked with UN agencies to tackle the climate crisis, shape our digital future, and fight poverty and disease.
At a time of increasing geopolitical challenges and growing global needs, strong and effective American leadership at the UN is more critical than ever. The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to strengthen American leverage at the United Nations, uphold the UN Charter, and keep human rights at the core of the organization. Without robust American engagement, our competitor nations would gain leverage to advance their interests and values at our expense.
The Biden-Harris Administration has also been committed to reforming and adapting the UN to the needs of the 21st century. For example, President Biden announced a new U.S. openness to expanding the membership of the UN Security Council, including permanent seats for Africa and Latin America. The UN is not a perfect organization, but given the scale of today’s challenges, the world needs global institutions that are more inclusive and effective.
Over nearly four years, the Biden-Harris Administration’s leadership at the UN has delivered results for the American people. At the UN, we have:
Responded to Threats to International Peace and Security
After Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we worked at the UN to build support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and hold Russia to account. We rallied 141 countries in the UN General Assembly to condemn Russia’s violations of international law. We used UN Security Council debates to shine a spotlight on Russia’s illegal war and atrocities. We pressed the UN General Assembly to kick Russia off the UN Human Rights Council. We isolated Russia by denying it senior UN appointments and preventing its election to UN bodies.
Responding to the security situation in Haiti, we partnered with Ecuador to obtain UN Security Council authorization of a new Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission.
Working with African partners, we secured a UN Security Council decision to create in December 2023 a new mechanism to largely fund future African Union-led Peace Support Operations from the UN-assessed budget.
Following the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, we defended at the UN Security Council Israel’s right to defend itself and demanded the release of hostages. Also in the Security Council, we called for increased humanitarian assistance to Gaza and established a new UN mechanism to improve aid coordination. In July 2024, we secured Security Council endorsement of President Biden’s plan for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
As the Sudan conflict worsened, we mobilized action in the UN Security Council, including the adoption of a resolution in June 2024 demanding an end to the siege of El Fasher.
Responding to concerns that Russia intended to deploy nuclear weapons in space, we and Japan proposed a UN Security Council resolution calling on countries not to develop such weapons.
In 2022, we partnered with Ireland at the UN Security Council to reform, expand and strengthen humanitarian exemptions for UN sanctions.
Working with the United Kingdom, we secured adoption of the first-ever UN Security Council resolution condemning the February 2021 military coup in Burma.
Protected and Upheld Universal Human Rights
We rejoined the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, enabling the United States to once again lead multilateral efforts to hold accountable human rights violators worldwide.
We issued a standing invitation to all UN thematic human rights monitors to visit the United States and assess our human rights record at home. In contrast to authoritarian governments, this invitation showed that a confident democracy is willing to have its record scrutinized and receive advice on strengthening rights protections for its citizens.
We pressed for the release of a landmark report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on human rights violations against Uighurs in China.
We worked in the UN Human Rights Council to establish a new Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Russia to examine Moscow’s crackdown on dissent at home and a Commission of Inquiry on violations and abuses in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
We restored American leadership at the UN in defending the human rights of LGBTQI+ individuals around the world. This included participating in high-level meetings of the Core Group of countries advocating for LGBTQI+ rights, including a September 23 meeting where the First Lady represented the United States. We also secured the renewal of the mandate of the UN’s Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and urged the UN to release its first-ever organization-wide strategy on LGBTQI+ rights, co-sponsoring the first-ever Human Rights Council resolution on the rights of intersex persons, and convening the second-ever informal UN Security Council meeting on the rights of LGBTQI+ individuals.
We spotlighted egregious human rights violations by North Korea, including by organizing the first briefing of the UN Security Council on North Korea human rights since 2017.
We helped establish mechanisms through the UN Human Rights Council to investigate human rights violations and abuses in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Nicaragua.
We worked at the UN to advance the global fight against antisemitism, including to ensure 36 countries and four multilateral organizations joined the U.S.-led Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism. In 2023, we convened a UN meeting on antisemitism with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and, in 2022, a roundtable at UNESCO.
We advanced the UN’s work to promote racial equality, including by championing the inaugural session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. We co-sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution designating July 25 as International Day of Women and Girls of African Descent.
We engaged seriously with the human rights treaty body process, including through periodic reports about our domestic human rights record to the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Reaffirming support for the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we pressed for enhanced participation of Indigenous Peoples throughout the UN system. In 2022, Ambassador (ret.) Keith Harper, the first-ever Senate confirmed U.S. ambassador from a federally-recognized tribe, was elected to the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues.
We supported efforts in the UN General Assembly to advance discussion of a proposed convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.
After assuming the presidency of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), we hosted the UNCAC conference in Atlanta, Georgia in 2023, with approximately 2,600 delegates, including an unprecedented 1,000 from civil society.
Advanced Gender Equity and Equality
We restored American leadership in pressing at the UN for the rights of women and girls, advancing their inclusion in societies, and supporting strong language in UN resolutions and at the Commission on the Status of Women on sexual and reproductive rights.
The January 2021 Presidential Memorandum on Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad restored life-saving funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
We announced that the United States will contribute for the first time to the UNICEF–UNFPA Global Program to End Child Marriage.
Following the Iranian regime’s killing of Mahsa Amini and crackdown on protestors, we helped establish a new UN Fact-Finding Mission to investigate human rights abuses. We spearheaded efforts to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women.
In 2024, we reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action.
We launched the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse, which included actions at the UN to address online safety for women and girls.
Shaped Our Digital Future, Promoted Labor Rights, and Tackled Synthetic Drugs
We sponsored the first-ever UN General Assembly resolution outlining principles for the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI). This landmark resolution helped define a global consensus on safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems for advancing sustainable development.
We hosted events at the UN on misuses of new technologies, such as countries using commercial spyware to surveil dissidents and journalists.
We worked at the International Labor Organization (ILO) to empower workers worldwide and joined the ILO’s Equal Pay International Coalition to share best practices to close the gender wage gap.
At the first Summit for Democracy in 2021, we announced the Multilateral Partnership for Organizing, Worker Empowerment and Rights (M-POWER), an initiative working with governments, trade unions, labor support, civil society organizations, and philanthropy to uphold and promote workers’ trade union rights around the world.
In coordination with the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), we launched and hosted at the UN high-level meetings of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats and secured adoption of a UN General Assembly resolution to enhance international action to fight such drugs.
Strengthened Global Health Cooperation, Advanced Sustainable Development, and Bolstered Climate Action
We redoubled efforts to support implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, launching a U.S. Strategy on Global Development to accelerate progress and mobilizing $150 billion of U.S. funding and billions more from the private sector, philanthropic, and other donor resources.
In 2021, we reversed the previous administration’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), enabling the United States to shape the WHO’s work on global health and reform. With the WHO, we led the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic by launching the COVID-19 Global Action Plan and donating nearly 700 million vaccine doses to 117 countries.
We hosted the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s 7th Replenishment in 2022, resulting in more than 75 governments, foundations, and corporations delivering pledges totaling a record $15.67 billion.
We worked at the UN to advance universal health coverage, continue the fight against tuberculosis and mpox, and combat global antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including to push countries for commitments on AMR that are bold, aspirational, and implementable.
We focused attention at the UN on addressing global food insecurity, repeatedly using the U.S. presidency of the UN Security Council to focus on the nexus between food security and conflict. We hosted at the UN ministerial-level meetings to generate new commitments to expand agricultural capacity and respond to famine with over 100 partner countries.
U.S. Representative to the UN Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland co-led the U.S. delegation to the 2023 UN Water Conference, where they announced more than $49 billion towards water security both at home and abroad.
In 2024, Secretary Haaland co-led the U.S. delegation to the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4), where we announced new efforts to enhance our partnerships with SIDS.
After rejoining the Paris Agreement, we galvanized efforts at the UN to combat climate change, raising global climate ambition through countries’ enhanced national contributions, accelerated action to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, forward-leaning decisions at annual UN Climate Change Conferences, and major initiatives for ocean-climate action catalyzed by the annual Our Ocean Conference.
Former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and Senior Advisor for International Climate Policy John Podesta have helped lead an all-out effort, including critical agreements at the UN Climate Change Conference COPs 26 and 28 to partner with countries to accelerate climate efforts worldwide and reduce global emissions sufficiently to limit warming to 1.5° Celsius.
We advanced efforts within the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization, and other multilateral organizations to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from the aviation, shipping, and other sectors.
Strengthened American Presence at the United Nations
After a five-year absence, we rejoined the UN Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This allowed us to partner with UNESCO to combat the scourge of antisemitism, support global Holocaust education, promote journalist safety, safeguard Ukrainian cultural heritage, bolster ethical uses of AI, and advance science education for girls in Africa.
We led robust campaigns resulting in the election of U.S. citizens to key UN positions, including Doreen Bogdan-Martin as Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Amy Pope as Director-General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Sarah Cleveland as Judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
We supported the appointments of highly qualified Americans to lead UN agencies, such as Ambassador Cathy Russell as Executive Director of UNICEF, Ambassador Cindy McCain as Executive Director of the World Food Program, and Ian Saunders as Secretary-General of the World Customs Organization.
Co-chairing the UN Accessibility Steering Committee, we worked to make UN headquarters in New York more accessible for all delegates, including construction of a 24/7 entrance for wheelchair users and the installation of a lift so everyone can address the General Assembly from behind the official rostrum.
Good morning. I would like to thank the Kentucky Bankers Association for the invitation to join you today for your annual convention.1 I appreciate the opportunity to share my views on the U.S. economy and monetary policy before we engage on community banking issues and other matters affecting the banking industry. In light of last week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, I will begin my remarks by providing some perspective on my vote and will then share my current views on the economy and monetary policy. Update on the Most Recent FOMC MeetingIn order to address high inflation, for more than two years, the FOMC increased and held the federal funds rate at a restrictive level. At our September meeting, the FOMC voted to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage point to 4-3/4 to 5 percent and to continue reducing the Federal Reserve’s securities holdings. As the post-meeting statement noted, I dissented from the FOMC’s decision, preferring instead to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 5 to 5‑1/4 percent. Last Friday, once our FOMC participant communications blackout period concluded, the Board of Governors released my statement explaining the decision to depart from the majority of the voting members. I agreed with the Committee’s assessment that, given the progress we have seen since the middle of 2023 on both lowering inflation and cooling the labor market, it was appropriate to reflect this progress by recalibrating the level of the federal funds rate and begin the process of moving toward a more neutral stance of policy. As my statement notes, I preferred a smaller initial cut in the policy rate while the U.S. economy remains strong and inflation remains a concern, despite recent progress. Economic Conditions and OutlookIn recent months, we have seen some further progress on slowing the pace of inflation, with monthly readings lower than the elevated pace seen in the first three months of the year. The 12-month measure of core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation, which provides a broader perspective than the more volatile higher-frequency readings, has moved down since April, although it came in at 2.6 percent in July, again remaining well above our 2 percent goal. In addition, the latest consumer and producer price index reports suggest that 12‑month core PCE inflation in August was likely a touch above the July reading. The persistently high core inflation largely reflects pressures on housing prices, perhaps due in part to low inventories of affordable housing. The progress in lowering inflation since April is a welcome development, but core inflation is still uncomfortably above the Committee’s 2 percent goal. Prices remain much higher than before the pandemic, which continues to weigh on consumer sentiment. Higher prices have an outsized effect on lower- and moderate-income households, as these households devote a significantly larger share of income to food, energy, and housing. Prices for these spending categories have far outpaced overall inflation over the past few years. Economic growth moderated earlier this year after coming in stronger last year. Private domestic final purchases (PDFP) growth has been solid and slowed much less than gross domestic product (GDP), as the slowdown in GDP growth was partly driven by volatile categories including net exports, suggesting that underlying economic growth was stronger than GDP indicated. PDFP has continued to increase at a solid pace so far in the third quarter, despite some further weakening in housing activity, as retail sales have shown further robust gains in July and August. Although personal consumption has remained resilient, consumers appear to be pulling back on discretionary items and expenses, as evidenced in part by a decline in restaurant spending since late last year. Low- and moderate-income consumers no longer have extra savings to support this type of spending, and we have seen loan delinquency rates normalize from historically low levels during the pandemic. The most recent labor market report shows that payroll employment gains have slowed appreciably to a pace moderately above 100,000 per month over the three months ending in August. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.2 percent in August from 4.3 percent in July. While unemployment is notably higher than a year ago, it is still at a historically low level and below my and the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates of full employment. The labor market has loosened from the extremely tight conditions of the past few years. The ratio of job vacancies to unemployed workers has declined further to a touch below the historically elevated pre-pandemic level—a sign that the number of available workers and the number of available jobs have come into better balance. But there are still more available jobs than available workers, a condition that before 2018 has only occurred twice for a prolonged period since World War II, further signaling ongoing labor market strength despite the reported data. Although wage growth has slowed further in recent months, it remains indicative of a tight labor market. At just under 4 percent, as measured by both the employment cost index and average hourly earnings, wage gains are still above the pace consistent with our inflation goal given trend productivity growth. The rise in the unemployment rate this year largely reflects weaker hiring, as job seekers entering or re-entering the labor force are taking longer to find work, while layoffs remain low. In addition to some cooling in labor demand, there are other factors likely contributing the increased unemployment. A mismatch between the skills of the new workers and available jobs could further raise unemployment, suggesting that higher unemployment has been partly driven by the stronger supply of workers. It is also likely that some temporary factors contributed to the recent rise in the unemployment rate, as unemployment among working age teenagers sharply increased in August. Preference for a More Measured Recalibration of PolicyThe U.S. economy remains strong and core inflation remains uncomfortably above our 2 percent target. In light of these economic conditions, a few further considerations supported the case for a more measured approach in beginning the process to recalibrate our policy stance to remove restriction and move toward a more neutral setting. First, I was concerned that reducing the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage point could be interpreted as a signal that the Committee sees some fragility or greater downside risks to the economy. In the current economic environment, with no clear signs of material weakening or fragility, in my view, beginning the rate-cutting cycle with a 1/4 percentage point move would have better reinforced the strength in economic conditions, while also confidently recognizing progress toward our goals. In my mind, a more measured approach would have avoided the risk of unintentionally signaling concerns about underlying economic conditions. Second, I was also concerned that reducing the policy rate by 1/2 percentage point could have led market participants to expect that the Committee would lower the target range by that same pace at future meetings until the policy rate approaches a neutral level. If this expectation had materialized, we could have seen an unwarranted decline in longer-term interest rates and broader financial conditions could become overly accommodative. This outcome could work against the Committee’s goal of returning inflation to our 2 percent target. I am pleased that Chair Powell directly addressed both of these concerns during the press conference following last week’s FOMC meeting. Third, there continues to be a considerable amount of pent-up demand and cash on the sidelines ready to be deployed as the path of interest rates moves down. Bringing the policy rate down too quickly carries the risk of unleashing that pent-up demand. A more measured approach wo
uld also avoid unnecessarily stoking demand and potentially reigniting inflationary pressures. Finally, in dialing back our restrictive stance of policy, we also need to be mindful of what the end point is likely to be. My estimate of the neutral rate is much higher than it was before the pandemic. Therefore, I think we are much closer to neutral than would have been the case under pre-pandemic conditions, and I did not see the peak stance of policy as restrictive to the same extent that my colleagues may have. With a higher estimate of neutral, for any given pace of rate reductions, we would arrive at our destination sooner. Ongoing Risks to the OutlookTurning to the risks to achieving our dual mandate, I continue to see greater risks to price stability, especially while the labor market continues to be near estimates of full employment. Although the labor market data have been showing signs of cooling in recent months, still-elevated wage growth, solid consumer spending, and resilient GDP growth are not consistent with a material economic weakening or fragility. My contacts also continue to mention that they are not planning layoffs and continue to have difficulty hiring. Therefore, I am taking less signal from the recent labor market data until there are clear trends indicating that both spending growth and the labor market have materially weakened. I suspect the recent immigration flows have and will continue to affect labor markets in ways that we do not yet fully understand and cannot yet accurately measure. In light of the dissonance created by conflicting economic signals, measurement challenges, and data revisions, I remain cautious about taking signal from only a limited set of real-time data releases. In my view, the upside risks to inflation remain prominent. Global supply chains continue to be susceptible to labor strikes and increased geopolitical tensions, which could result in inflationary effects on food, energy, and other commodity markets. Expansionary fiscal spending could also lead to inflationary risks, as could an increased demand for housing given the long-standing limited supply, especially of affordable housing. While it has not been my baseline outlook, I cannot rule out the risk that progress on inflation could continue to stall. Although it is important to recognize that there has been meaningful progress on lowering inflation, while core inflation remains around or above 2.5 percent, I see the risk that the Committee’s larger policy action could be interpreted as a premature declaration of victory on our price-stability mandate. Accomplishing our mission of returning to low and stable inflation at our 2 percent goal is necessary to foster a strong labor market and an economy that works for everyone in the longer term. In light of these considerations, I believe that, by moving at a measured pace toward a more neutral policy stance, we will be better positioned to achieve further progress in bringing inflation down to our 2 percent target, while closely watching the evolution of labor market conditions. The Path ForwardDespite my dissent at the recent FOMC meeting, I respect and appreciate that my FOMC colleagues preferred to begin the reduction in the federal funds rate with a larger initial cut in the target range for the policy rate. I remain committed to working together with my colleagues to ensure that monetary policy is appropriately positioned to achieve our goals of attaining maximum employment and returning inflation to our 2 percent target. I will continue to monitor the incoming data and information as I assess the appropriate path of monetary policy, and I will remain cautious in my approach to adjusting the stance of policy going forward. It is important to note that monetary policy is not on a preset course. My colleagues and I will make our decisions at each FOMC meeting based on the incoming data and the implications for and risks to the outlook guided by the Fed’s dual-mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices. We need to ensure that the public understands clearly how current and expected deviations of inflation and employment from our mandated goals inform our policy decisions. By the time of our next meeting in November, we will have received updated reports on inflation, employment, and economic activity. We may also have a better understanding of how developments in longer-term interest rates and broader financial conditions might influence the economic outlook. During the intermeeting period, I will continue to visit with a broad range of contacts to discuss economic conditions as I assess the appropriateness of our monetary policy stance. As I noted earlier, I continue to view inflation as a concern. In light of the upside risks that I just described, it remains necessary to pay close attention to the price-stability side of our mandate while being attentive to the risks of a material weakening in the labor market. My view continues to be that restoring price stability is essential for achieving maximum employment over the longer run. However, should the data evolve in a way that points to a material weakening in the labor market, I would support taking action and adjust monetary policy as needed while taking into account our inflation mandate. Closing ThoughtsIn closing, thank you again for welcoming me here today. It is a pleasure to join you and to have the opportunity to discuss my views on the economy and monetary policy. And given the recent FOMC meeting decision and my dissent, I appreciate being able to provide a more detailed explanation of the reasoning that led me to dissent in favor of a smaller reduction in the policy rate at last week’s FOMC meeting. I look forward to answering your questions and to engaging with your members on bank regulatory and supervisory matters.
1. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee or the Board of Governors. Return to text
Mobilisation of the European Union Solidarity Fund: assistance to Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Greece and France further to natural disasters occurred in 2023 Georgios Aftias
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Strengthening Moldova’s resilience against Russian interference ahead of the upcoming presidential elections
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The democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia
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Motion for a resolution
Wednesday, 2 October 2024, 13:00
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Amendments to joint motions for resolutions
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Requests for “separate”, “split” and “roll-call” votes
Tuesday, 8 October 2024, 19:00
Separate votes – Split votes – Roll-call votes
Texts put to the vote on Tuesday
Friday, 4 October 2024, 12:00
Texts put to the vote on Wednesday
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Texts put to the vote on Thursday
Tuesday, 8 October 2024, 19:00
Motions for resolutions concerning debates on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law (Rule 150)
New rules that went into effect in July 2024 provide the first federal protections specifically for parents with disabilities. These new rules ban discrimination against parents and caregivers with disabilities throughout the child welfare system.
In 2010, I found that three-quarters of states had laws which said that a parent’s disability could be used as the grounds for terminating their parental rights. Most of these state laws focused on parents with intellectual and developmental disabilities or mental health disabilities, though some listed physical disabilities and other types as well.
Many of these laws were vague and used outdated language such as “mental deficiency.”
Parental disability is the only grounds for termination of parental rights that focuses on a condition of the parent. The rest focus on behaviors. For example, parental poverty is not listed as grounds for termination of parental rights in any state, but neglect – a behavior – is.
State laws were only one of the issues parents with disabilities encountered related to child protection. For years, there had been confusion as to how the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law banning disability discrimination, applied to parents in the child welfare system. Until 2015, most state courts denied ADA claims by parents with disabilities who believed they were discriminated against.
One of the main biases that parents with disabilities face is the “presumption of unfitness bias.” This is a widespread bias that parents are unable to parent solely because of their disability.
This bias can lead child welfare workers to not consider that parents with disabilities can rely on “parental supports” to assist them in parenting, ranging from adaptive cribs and baby monitors to in-home helpers. It also can result in parents with disabilities being held to a higher standard than others.
State laws specifically naming parental disability as a for termination of parental rights, the lack of federal protection, and widespread biases left parents with disabilities vulnerable in encounters with the child welfare system.
Gaining national attention
Two federal actions in the early 2010s brought national attention to parents with disabilities.
First, the National Council on Disability, the independent federal agency that advises the federal government on disability issues, released a report in 2012 called Rocking the Cradle. That report focused on the widespread discrimination faced by parents with disabilities; highlighted and called for changing the state child protection laws; and called for the application of ADA protections in child welfare cases involving parents with disabilities.
This report received a lot of media attention and led to more awareness of the plight of these parents.
Then, in 2015, Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services released guidance directing child welfare agencies to protect parents with disabilities from discrimination. This was the first federal action indicating that the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applied to child protection services.
This guidance followed the departments’ investigation of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families’ removal of a newborn baby from Sara Gordon, a new mother with a developmental disability, in 2012. The Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services found that the state agency had made assumptions that Gordon was unable to take care of her child and unable to learn parenting skills. The state agency had also failed to take into account that Gordon had support systems in place. She lived with her parents, and her mother had quit her job to assist with parenting.
Making progress for parents with disabilities
The momentum for protecting parental rights has led to some positive changes.
A few states changed their own child protection laws to address some of these problems before the federal government took action by providing new protections for parents with disabilities. In addition, the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services have reached agreements with state agencies in Oregon, Georgia and Massachusetts related to discrimination against parents with disabilities.
In particular, it is promising that Section 84.60 of the rule clarifies that disability discrimination is not allowed in any part of the child welfare process. Child welfare agencies throughout the United States now must ensure that they are not making decisions based on speculation, stereotypes or generalizations.
Thanks to changes in the federal rule, when a child welfare agency evaluates how a child is being parented, the tools it uses must be backed by research. The evaluations must be conducted by a qualified professional and tailored to the needs of the individual parent. Agencies must ensure that parents with disabilities can participate in any services they provide. These services include parent-child visitation, parenting skills programs, family reunification services and child placements in foster care settings or in the care of another relative.
Disability advocacy groups applauded this new rule when it went into effect in the summer of 2024.
I believe these new rules will protect parents with disabilities when interacting with child protection authorities. They will also make it easier for child welfare agencies and state courts to recognize disability discrimination when it appears in their caseloads or on their dockets.
Elizabeth Lightfoot receives funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research and the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council.
On September 1, Cairo wrote to the UN security council to protest against Ethiopia’s continued filling of Africa’s second largest reservoir and bringing two more power generating turbines into operation. Egypt sees any new infrastructure development on the Nile as a potential threat, since the river is the source of over 98% of the country’s water.
Egypt calls this a violation of international law and Ethiopia’s obligations to “prevent significant harm”. Ethiopia’s policies, it says,
could result in an existential threat to Egypt … and would consequently jeopardise regional and international peace and security.
Ethiopia has told Egypt to “abandon its aggressive approach” towards the dam. Ethiopia says that it must allow the Blue Nile’s water to flow through the dam’s turbines and on to Egypt to generate the hydropower for which it has been built, thus guaranteeing the overall flow to Egypt.
I have tracked the Nile disputes since the 1970s, first as a development journalist, then as a civil engineer and senior public servant. More recently, my research on water and regional integration for regional development agencies has provided further insights. My 2021 study considered the lessons to be learnt for today’s water challenges from centuries of the use and management of Nile waters.
Ongoing tension between Egypt and Ethiopia over control of the Nile River has a long history. Therefore, in one sense, the row between Egypt and Ethiopia is nothing new.
The countries went to war as far back as 1874, even as they both were also battling European colonialism. Ethiopia won the war of 1874 and, 20 years later, beat back Italy’s attempt to colonise it, at the battle of Adwa.
However, Egypt gained long term advantage from treaties negotiated by the British, which gave Cairo almost total control over the Nile. Egypt is still asserting the rights and privileges conferred by those colonial era treaties even though they are being challenged by other Nile countries. In my view, this is because Egyptians are still trapped by their past fears. As Norwegian professor Torje Tvedt has explained, these fears were deliberately entrenched by past colonial authorities.
With these perspectives, my view is that the current controversy over the Ethiopian dam still reflects historical conflicts rather than a careful analysis of present challenges.
Now 90% complete, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has begun to generate electricity. A series of good rainy seasons have allowed the reservoir to start filling rapidly without affecting Egypt’s water availability.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam offers not just cheap green electricity for Ethiopia and the sub-region as well as reliable irrigation supplies and flood control for Sudan. Once filled, its storage could offer supply security and increase the amount of water available for Egypt as well.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
What, then, are the issues that have prompted Egypt’s recent protests and what are the possible solutions to the problems raised?
The immediate technical challenge is to continue filling the dam without disrupting flows to Sudan and Egypt. The filling process might have to be interrupted if there is a regional drought. So recent developments, notably the greater focus on the rate at which the dam will be filled rather than the legality of its construction, suggest that there is a shift in positions which neither side is yet willing to acknowledge publicly.
This shift will be supported when other future-focused issues are raised. For instance, there must be negotiations about the supply of electricity to support Sudan’s irrigation expansion, although this is on hold due to the war in Sudan. In the longer term, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia could cooperate to use the GERD’s storage to help Egypt to manage its Aswan High Dam more efficiently. Aswan currently suffers very high evaporation losses, which could be reduced if its reservoir levels were better controlled. The GERD could help to do this.
Unfortunately, the history of colonial Britain repeatedly threatening to cut Egypt’s Nile water supplies has been deeply imprinted in Egyptian public consciousness. It is understandable that Egyptians still fear a similar threat from Ethiopia. The responsibility now falls on Ethiopia to show good faith in its operation of the dam and to work with Egypt to change the combative discourse.
Potential for cooperation
Egypt’s repeated complaints have alerted Ethiopia and international organisations of the need to act carefully. If there is another regional drought, Ethiopia will need to slow the rate at which it completes filling its dam. Informal liaison structures are monitoring the situation and such a response would help to build a more constructive engagement with Egypt.
Water is a patient teacher. Every season provides an opportunity for those who live with its natural cycles to understand it better. The hope is that, if the three countries experience the benefits of some seasons of the dam’s operation, the natural cycle will reveal the potential for cooperation and mitigate the conflict.
When peace returns to Sudan, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will enable a vast expansion of irrigation to develop its role as a regional breadbasket. The dam will also help to manage Nile floods which regularly cause death and destruction, even to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
Efforts to promote cooperation between the East African countries that share the White Nile have been relatively successful. However, such cooperation on the Blue Nile will need much greater trust between the parties. To achieve this trust, the countries and their people will have to overcome centuries of cultural and political preconceptions. This will require much patient work and interaction, which is not easy in the current climate.
Mike Muller has received funding from the African Development Bank and South Africa’s Water Research Comission for work on regional cooperation in water resource management. He has been a member of the Global Water Partnership’s Technical Committee, chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water and been funded by the World Bank’s Cooperation in International Waters (CIWA) programme for contributions to the Nile Basin Initiative. He was also funded by UNESCO to attend a conference in Khartoum, organised with Sudan’s Ministry of Water Resources Irrigation and Electricity, on integrated and sustainable water management.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
GUANGZHOU, Sept. 24 — The first batch of plant products exported from the Chinese mainland to Macao was declared with digital customs clearance on Monday by the Gongbei Customs in Zhuhai, a city in south China’s Guangdong Province, which borders Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).
From Monday, all exports of plant products via Gongbei Customs started to undergo paperless customs clearance of inspection and quarantine certificates after the customs inked a cooperation agreement with the Macao SAR government on animal and plant quarantine and food safety.
“In the past, we had to spend hours in the customs office for the declaration of the paper certificates of the goods. With digital management, the time was greatly shortened,” said Lin Genrui, the exporter of the plant products.
He said his company is a long-term supplier of flower and seedling products to Macao.
In the first eight months of this year, customs handled 952 batches of flower and seedling exports to Macao worth 14.88 million yuan (about 2.1 million U.S. dollars).
Chen Weiqi, an official of the Gongbei Customs, said that customs had strengthened communication and cooperation with the Macao SAR government for mutual authentication of customs declaration certificates to jointly ensure safety, promote cross-border trade facilitation, and enhance the market integration in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
All plant products declared for export through customs are recognized through information sharing between the Chinese mainland and Macao, said Chen, adding that customs would continue to expand the types of export goods to be covered by the paperless customs clearance.
Source: Africa Press Organisation – English (2) – Report:
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World Health Organization (WHO) in the African Region and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have endorsed a regional collaboration framework to strengthen public health emergency response, especially at the community level, and bolster health security.
With the WHO in the African Region’s presence in 47 countries and the IFRC’s Africa Regional Office’s support of 49 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in sub-Saharan Africa as well as over 1.4 million volunteers and 12 000 branches, the two organizations are leveraging their vast networks and presence on the continent to support governments in scaling up response at the community level.
To address the ongoing mpox outbreak, WHO in the African Region and IFRC are reinforcing their long-standing collaboration to support Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to ramp up measures for an effective response to halt the outbreak. The collaboration can be expanded to include other countries facing active mpox cases, as well as other public health emergencies.
“As the continent and the world face new and emerging threats, our enduring partnership remains crucial in safeguarding health, enhancing emergency preparedness, and building a healthier, more resilient Africa,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
WHO and IFRC have collaborated for decades on the continent, driven by a deep-rooted commitment to save lives. The new collaboration framework will facilitate closer coordination and alignment in the response to health emergencies in Africa. It aims to enhance capacity-building in national health workforces, strengthen disaster preparedness and risk reduction, increase vaccine access and expand evidence-based action. The partnership will also streamline and integrate preparedness approaches within ministries of health and address the health impacts of climate change, among other priority areas for collaborative action across the continent.
Approximately 500 000 IFRC volunteers are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that accounts for 90% of all mpox cases in Africa. They have been trained in community-based surveillance, community engagement, risk communication and case management.
“Our volunteers are members of the community who have built social trust over many years. They generate large reservoirs of applied research and data on the health status of communities,” said Mohammed Omer Mukhier-Abuzein, IFRC Regional Director for Africa.
With an estimated ratio of one volunteer for every 200 people living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the IFRC workforce will play a crucial role in passing real-time information about suspected outbreaks to WHO’s national mpox response team. This team includes polio experts who have demonstrated considerable effectiveness in previous disease eradication initiatives.
“By combining WHO’s technical expertise and national coordination with IFRC’s grassroots community mobilization, we can create a powerful and complementary response mechanism. This partnership ensures interventions are scientifically sound and locally relevant, setting a new standard for integrated and effective outbreak responses,” said Dr Abdou Salam Gueye, WHO’s Regional Emergency Director for Africa.
Epidemiological surveillance conducted in collaboration with IFRC will support the mpox vaccine rollout in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is set to begin in the coming weeks. WHO will be able to use data to guide vaccines to where they are needed most.
WHO is supporting countries experiencing mpox outbreaks through multiple response strategies, including enhancing disease surveillance, vaccine introduction readiness, contact tracing, training and combating misinformation.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of WHO Regional Office for Africa.
CHICAGO, Sept. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sprout Social (Nasdaq: SPT), an industry-leading provider of cloud-based social media management software, has been recognized by G2’s 2024 Fall Reports with 173 leader badges spanning all business segments, from small business to mid-market and enterprise, and across every region including EMEA, APAC, and the Middle East. The company earns these additional recognitions after being named G2’s #1 Best Software Product for 2024.
Sprout Social has maintained their #1 position in the Grid® Report for Social Customer Service, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Suites and Social Media Listening Tools. The company has been recognized in an increasing number of G2 reports across Asia-Pacific and other regions, including the Enterprise Asia Regional Grid® Report for Social Media Suites, further solidifying their position as a global leader in social media management.
“Our continued recognition in G2’s Fall Reports is a testament to the trust and loyalty of our customers,” said Mike Wolff, Chief Revenue Officer, Sprout Social. “These rankings are more than just a reflection of our platform’s capabilities—they highlight the meaningful ways we help businesses solve complex challenges. From leveraging AI to expanding our integrations, we’re committed to delivering innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of businesses worldwide.”
This recognition follows several exciting developments at Sprout Social, including their integration with Salesforce’s Agentforce to assist service reps, new advancements from their latest quarterly product showcase, and a partnership with Carahsoft as a NASPO-approved vendor, strengthening their presence in the public sector and making their solutions more accessible to government agencies. Sprout Social earned its place on these lists because of customer feedback, including:
“I love that Sprout Social was easy to set up and allows for easy posting/scheduling. It was very quick to integrate with our other tools such as Salesforce.”
“I love the AI assistant that provides caption options for posts and the suggested posting times are very accurate. Additionally, Sprout offers very useful analytics to help us determine if our content is on the right track or if adjustments are needed.”
“What I love most about Sprout Social is its seamless integration of social media management tools that make my agency’s workflow incredibly efficient. The platform’s user-friendly interface allows us to easily schedule, monitor, and engage across multiple social channels, all in one place. The detailed analytics provided by Sprout give us actionable insights, helping us refine our strategies and demonstrate clear ROI to our clients. It’s not just about managing posts; it’s about having a comprehensive understanding of our social media impact, which Sprout makes possible with minimal hassle.”
“Sprout Social has been a game-changer for our team. Plus, the team-friendly design has enhanced our collaboration, making it easier to hit our social media goals together.”
Learn about G2’s methodology or read more reviews directly from Sprout users here.
About Sprout Social Sprout Social is a global leader in social media management and analytics software. Sprout’s intuitive platform puts powerful social data into the hands of more than 30,000 brands so they can deliver smarter, faster business impact. Named the #1 Best Software Product by G2’s 2024 Best Software Award, Sprout offers comprehensive publishing and engagement functionality, customer care, influencer marketing, advocacy, and AI-powered business intelligence. Sprout’s software operates across all major social media networks and digital platforms. For more information about Sprout Social (NASDAQ: SPT), visit sproutsocial.com.
SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Zoom announced several new add-on products and functionalities to further strengthen its advanced enterprise offerings portfolio for the Zoom platform. Zoom advanced enterprise offerings consist of a comprehensive portfolio of Zoom products and features that help organizations meet their compliance, security, privacy, survivability, and manageability requirements.
“Zoom’s advanced enterprise offerings reflect our commitment to empowering businesses and providing them with offerings that enable them to be more efficient, secure, compliant, and reliable,” said Smita Hashim, chief product officer, Zoom. “Our advanced enterprise products and features are essential tools built for Zoom Workplace and Zoom Business Services like Zoom Events and Zoom Contact Center that work behind the scenes as part of the Zoom network infrastructure to provide exceptional experiences to our customers. Our goal is to make communication and collaboration on Zoom foolproof, future-proof, and fail-proof.”
New offerings for enterprise customers
In 2023 alone, over $549 million in non-compliance penalties were issued globally, more than 353 million individuals were impacted by security breaches, and 31 percent of enterprises experienced unstable network or bandwidth constraints. Companies face urgent pressures to manage often complex compliance obligations, avoid hefty fines, safeguard their reputations against security threats, and prevent user dissatisfaction stemming from unreliable connectivity. Zoom’s newest additions to its advanced enterprise offerings are poised to help companies overcome these challenges.
Zoom Compliance Manager Plus: Launched in March and powered by Theta Lake, Zoom Compliance Manager (ZCM) is an all-in-one offering that provides archiving, eDiscovery, legal hold, and information protection offerings for enterprises. Zoom Compliance Manager Plus enhances ZCM with advanced features such as risk detection, data loss protection, and advanced trends analysis. These enhanced capabilities will further help organizations fulfill regulatory obligations and mitigate organizational communications compliance risks.
Zoom Meeting Survivability: Introduces a new level of network redundancy and enables business continuity, helping to ensure uninterrupted Zoom meeting service even during internet disruption due to outages from a storm, natural disaster, or carrier failure. Utilizing Zoom Node, a central hub for hosting Zoom workloads on premises, this functionality keeps meetings running smoothly via a failover to data centers where meetings are hosted on your local servers with minimal disruption to the end users.
Zoom Mesh for Meetings: With Zoom Mesh, companies can optimize bandwidth usage and save up to 60 percent on internet bandwidth and associated costs. Already available for Zoom Webinars and Zoom Events, this capability now extends to Zoom Meetings for an exceptional user experience regardless of bandwidth constraints.
Zoom Customer Managed Key (CMK) Hybrid: CMK Hybrid enhances Zoom’s current CMK data privacy offering by providing customers with more options to manage the encryption keys used to protect data maintained by Zoom. CMK Hybrid allows customers to control the entire encryption/decryption process on premises. Zoom Team Chat messages, for example, can be encrypted locally by the Zoom Workplace app (some Zoom cloud-based Team Chat functionalities will not be available as a result). Zoom CMK Hybrid will be available for Zoom Workplace starting with the support of Zoom Team Chat in Q4 2024.
An enterprise-grade offerings portfolio designed to meet organizations’ needs
The new advanced enterprise products and features introduced today bolster the existing robust portfolio of Zoom’s enterprise offerings, which are specifically designed to address the complex needs of large organizations and those in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and government agencies. These offerings are included with Zoom Workplace Enterprise licenses, help improve business continuity, optimize bandwidth, enhance security, simplify manageability, and support communications compliance. The advanced enterprise offerings are organized across six key categories:
Communications compliance: Archiving, Data Loss Prevention, Information Barrier, and Chat Etiquette solutions help address communications compliance requirements for regulated industries worldwide.
Data residency & privacy compliance: Tools to help meet local and regional customer data residency and privacy compliance requirements such as Customer Managed Key.
Policy & deployment management: Zoom Device Management, policy provisioning, and deployment tools to help ease implementation and support.
Security & access control: Encryption and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) offerings to provide enhanced security protection for data at rest and in transit.
Analytics & insights: A robust set of dashboards, monitoring, reporting, and alerting tools to improve overall operational visibility.
Network optimization & survivability: Zoom Mesh, Zoom Node, and Zoom survivability solutions help reduce bandwidth, optimize performance, and improve business continuity.
Several Zoom advanced enterprise offerings including end-to-end encryption, GDPR and privacy controls, management dashboards, and other capabilities are already available with Zoom Workplace Enterprise licenses while other features, including these new products, are available as paid add-ons. For more information on Zoom’s advanced enterprise offerings, please visit the Zoom advanced enterprise website. Zoom will also host technical sessions on its enterprise offerings at Zoomtopia 2024 for those interested in learning more.
About Zoom Zoom’s mission is to provide one platform that delivers limitless human connection. Reimagine teamwork with Zoom Workplace — Zoom’s open collaboration platform with AI Companion that empowers teams to be more productive. Together with Zoom Workplace, Zoom’s Business Services for sales, marketing, and customer care teams, including Zoom Contact Center, strengthen customer relationships throughout the customer lifecycle. Founded in 2011, Zoom is publicly traded (NASDAQ:ZM) and headquartered in San Jose, California. Get more information at zoom.com.
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at business luncheon Hong Kong-Spain: Partnering for Success in Madrid, Spain, today (September 24, Madrid time): Dr Peter Lam (Chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council), Ms Jarillo (Deputy Director General for Asia, Europe and Oceania, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise of Spain, Ms Laura Jarillo), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be here, in Madrid, the dynamic capital and financial heart of Spain, a city renowned for its world-class museums and fine dining and wine, not to mention the best football club in Europe, if not the world. What more can a visitor ask for? Well, I can tell you that this speaker, and the young and energetic innovation and technology delegation here with me, are pleased to be here, with you, to talk about how Spanish and Hong Kong business can partner for success long-term, mutually rewarding success.Hong Kong, connecting Spain and Asia Ladies and gentlemen, like Spain, Hong Kong is back in business after the challenges of the COVID pandemic, back creating opportunity for a world of business. Spain, included of course. Hong Kong has long been recognised as one of the best connected cities in the world. Half the global population is no more than a five-hour flight away from us. Before the pandemic, Hong Kong International Airport operated 1 100 flights a day, covering 220 destinations. Today, passenger throughput is rebounding, reaching over 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels on peak days, with full resumption expected by year’s end. As for cargo, our airport has been the busiest in the world for 13 of the last 14 years. This strategic connectivity is enhanced by Hong Kong’s institutional advantages, reinforcing our role as a “super connector” in Asia. The unique “one country, two systems” arrangement makes this possible. As part of China, Hong Kong enjoys convenient and sometimes priority access to the vast Mainland market, particularly the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, a city cluster comprising Hong Kong, Macao and nine Mainland cities in Guangdong province. The Greater Bay Area’s collective population counts more than 87 million, with a GDP exceeding 1.8 trillion euros, surpassing that of Australia and the Republic of Korea. And, on a purchasing power parity basis, the per capita GDP of the Greater Bay Area is US$40,000, 75 per cent of Spain’s. (Note: HK’s is US$71,500) Hong Kong, let me add, is the most international city in China, thanks to the “two systems” that distinguish us. We are the only jurisdiction in China practising the common law system, our judiciary exercising its powers independently. Information, capital, goods and people flow freely in and out of our city. Our taxes are low and simple, with a currency pegged to the US dollar. Our regulatory systems and professional services align with the best international standards. Our commitment to the rule of law is exemplified by the Rule of Law Index, produced by the World Justice Project. In the latest Index, Hong Kong ranked 23rd and Spain 24th, both ahead of the United States. Hong Kong’s enduring strengths will continue to thrive, as our country is committed to the “one country, two systems” principle for the long term. This commitment has been reiterated by President Xi Jinping on multiple occasions, and reaffirmed at various high-level state and party meetings in Beijing. Last year, China and Spain celebrated the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties. And those ties continue to grow. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Sanchez was in Beijing, his second trip to the Chinese capital in two years. As political and economic ties between our two countries strengthen, Hong Kong is proud to play a pivotal role in fostering more two-way investments, and more economic, innovation and cultural exchanges.Financial Services One obvious area where we can contribute is financial services. Hong Kong, after all, is an international financial centre – number three worldwide, behind only New York and London, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index, released today. We have a robust fund-raising market. Our stock market’s total capitalisation stands at 3.7 trillion euros, while assets managed by private equity and venture capital exceed 200 billion euros. Hong Kong is the leading biotech fund-raising hub in Asia, too. A defining feature of our capital market are the “Connect Schemes” with the Mainland. Under the schemes, Mainland investors can buy stock, bonds, ETFs and derivatives directly from Hong Kong, while foreign investors can buy similar financial products on the Mainland through Hong Kong. In short, Spanish companies looking to list or issue bonds in Hong Kong can tap the capital from both the Mainland and international markets. Hong Kong is also the world’s offshore renminbi hub. As the use of renminbi as a trade and reserve currency increases, businesses will naturally look for renminbi-denominated investment and risk-management tools. Hong Kong handles approximately 80 per cent of global offshore renminbi transactions, offering a wide range of investment and risk-management products. Then there’s green and sustainable finance. We have long been Asia’s leader in green finance, issuing, on average, more than 55 billion euros in green and sustainable debt a year over the past three years. Our green standards align with the best international practices. To take an example, the Hong Kong Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance, released in May, is highly compatible with the European Union’s Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. For green projects looking for funding, Hong Kong is simply Asia’s premier destination.Innovation and Technology No less important is our commitment to rise as a global innovation and technology hub, together with the Greater Bay Area. We have what it takes to realise that ambition. Hong Kong is home to five global top 100 universities, and our two medical schools are among the world’s top 40. We also support 29 labs and research and development centres in collaboration with prestigious universities around the world. Our start-up system is thriving, offering a variety of innovative products in fintech, green tech, biotech, supply-chain management, big-data analytics and more. And 20 per cent of our 4 200 start-ups were founded by overseas entrepreneurs. Many of them are based in our two main innovation flagships: Science and Technology Park and Cyberport. And you will soon hear more from senior executives from these institutions, Albert and Eric. Let me add that our delegation members, many of them founders and CEOs of start-ups, are eager to talk to you, to explore business opportunities together. Hong Kong boasts a full-spectrum financing market, including banks, private equity funds, venture-capital funds and a well-developed stock and bond market. These provide abundant financial support for tech companies local and global, at different stages of growth. Greater Bay Area cities, let me add, each offers distinct strengths in innovation and technology; from basic research to technological application, commercialisation, and advanced manufacturing. This year, the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index ranked the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster second, globally, for the fifth consecutive year. Now, allow me now to highlight a few I&T areas where Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area offer singular advantages, starting with artificial intelligence. Crucial to AI are algorithms, supercomputing power, data and application scenarios, all of which Hong Kong is blessed with. We serve as a convergence point for Mainland and international data. We are also investing in the necessary i
nfrastructure, including a supercomputer centre. Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area provide many different application scenarios for AI. Many AI companies, let me add, are choosing Hong Kong to develop their large language models and to go global. Biotechnology is also a priority. And we are planning to conduct clinical trials for the Greater Bay Area. We are also working on a “primary evaluation system” that will allow medicine and medical devices approved in Hong Kong to be widely used in the Greater Bay Area, the Asian region and around the world. Then there’s the Northern Metropolis, a 300-square kilometre area in Hong Kong bordering Shenzhen. The Northern Metropolis is destined to rise as an innovation and technology hub, a vast bridgehead for Hong Kong’s co-operation with other Greater Bay Area cities. Ladies and gentlemen, that just touches on the opportunities Hong Kong is actively pursuing. But let me say that we’re particularly focused on four areas: AI, biotech, fintech and new energy and new materials. We are bringing in strategic companies to help us develop those sectors. Since the end of 2022, we have attracted over 100 tech companies to Hong Kong. Together, they will invest about 6 billion euros and create more than 15 000 jobs in our city. We are equally keen on attracting talent. Since the launch of the new talent admission schemes and updating existing ones, to date, we’ve received some 360 000 applications under our various talent admission schemes. About 226 000 applications have been approved, and 150 000 professionals have already arrived in Hong Kong, I’m pleased to say.Concluding remarks Ladies and gentlemen, Hong Kong offers boundless opportunities for Spanish companies – as a gateway to the Chinese Mainland and throughout Asia, and as a hub for financial services and I&T. My thanks to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council for hosting today’s luncheon, and to our Spanish partners, including CEOC, ICEX and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, for make this welcome gathering possible. I am happy now to take your questions, to hear your thoughts and ideas on how our two economies and peoples can deepen our co-operation, creating far-reaching opportunities that benefit us all. Thank you.
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
EDB launches “Love Our Home,Treasure Our Country 3.0” joint school national education activities to celebrate 75th anniversary of founding of People’s Republic of China (with photos) EDB launches “Love Our Home,Treasure Our Country 3.0” joint school national education activities to celebrate 75th anniversary of founding of People’s Republic of China (with photos) ******************************************************************************************
The Education Bureau (EDB) today (September 24) held the “Love Our Home, Treasure Our Country” – Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China and Joint School National Education Activities Kick-off Ceremony. The Bureau announced that it will collaborate with Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Po Leung Kuk, the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China, the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon, Hong Kong Subsidized Secondary Schools Council, Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council, Hong Kong Aided Primary School Heads Association and Subsidized Primary Schools Council to jointly organise the “Love Our Home, Treasure Our Country 3.0” series of joint school national education activities in the 2024/25 school year, with an aim of deepening students’ understanding of Chinese culture and strengthening their affection for and sense of belonging to the country. The Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Cheuk Wing-hing; the Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin; the Convenor of the Working Group on Patriotic Education, Ms Starry Lee; the Division Director of the Education, Science and Technology Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Dr He Jinhui, together with representatives from school sponsoring bodies, school councils and school head associations involved in the activities, jointly officiated at the kick-off ceremony. About 2 500 representatives from school sponsoring bodies and the EDB, principals, teachers, students and parents attended. Addressing the event, Mr Cheuk said that the “Love Our Home, Treasure Our Country 3.0” joint school national education activities will further expand the scale of the event. Participating schools cover kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools, special schools and sister schools on the Mainland. Joint school collaboration not only strengthens exchanges among schools but also combines strengths to develop resources, enabling a patriotic atmosphere and sentiments to extend continuously across school campuses in all districts of Hong Kong. Mr Cheuk said, “Love for the country should be the value and sentiment of every Chinese national. Patriotic education and activities play an important role in nurturing the growth of patriotic sentiments.” He thanked practitioners from the education sector for remaining steadfast in their roles. Through learning inside and outside the classroom, students are given the opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the country’s history, culture and values from an early age, and experience the distinctiveness of traditional Chinese culture, thereby fostering their pride in being Chinese and enhancing their national pride and sense of responsibility and ownership. The kick-off ceremony featured a variety of rich programmes, including the performance of the magnificent “Hymn to the Sun” by a joint school Chinese orchestra formed by nearly 90 students. In addition, over 100 students performed lion dances, martial arts and other dances. A choir composed of 75 principals from school sponsoring bodies, school councils and government schools marked the finale of the ceremony with a song to express their warm congratulations on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Highlights of the kick-off ceremony will be broadcast on RTHK TV 31 at 1.30pm on September 28 (Saturday).
Ends/Tuesday, September 24, 2024Issued at HKT 21:25
Thanks so much to everybody. Good morning to you. Thank you for inviting me to join you for your 16th Judicial Conference.
You had me a couple of years ago. The fact that you welcomed me back notwithstanding the intervening time as Secretary I take as a mildly positive sign. We’ll see how the reviews are on that at the end of the speech.
Chief Judge [Michael] Allen, thank you so much for the introduction. It’s fitting that you’ve stepped up to Chief Judge during this conference because, as I gather, your introduction to Veterans law for the first time was when you accepted an invitation to speak to this very conference in 2006. And at that conference, you recognized the importance of Veterans law, and so here we are.
Thanks for all you have done for Veterans, even before you joined this Court. You became one of the first professors with expertise in Veterans law, and you founded one of the law school clinics providing pro bono legal access for our nation’s heroes. I appreciate that one of your very first actions as Chief Judge was to introduce me just now. And so, I take that very seriously. So, thanks for that. I hope the rest of your tenure is as auspicious.
Judge [Margaret] Bartley, also known as Chief Judge Bartley for the last five years, congratulations. And thank you for your 30 years of service to Veterans. You’ve worked to ensure that Veterans receive all the benefits and services they’ve deserved and they have so richly earned, provided them with pro bono representation yourself, clerked for this Court, been appointed as a judge on this Court, and elevated then to Chief Judge. Your service to Veterans, to the national interest, to the country, has been remarkable.
And thanks also to all of you here at this Court, including this Court’s other distinguished judges, VA employees from the Board of Veterans Appeals and Office of General Counsel, attorneys representing Veterans before the CAVC [Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims], law professors, law students, and of course Veterans. No matter your role, you all care deeply about our nation’s heroes.
One of the benefits of this biannual event is that it brings us all together. It might be on different sides of the table, but each one of us supports Veterans all the time.
Let me begin where this Court began.
During legislative hearings leading to passage of the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act in 1988, Sonny Montgomery—then-Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee—said, “Accurate, informal, efficient, and fair. These are the goals which have guided the committee in … expanding judicial review of VA decision-making …. [It is] not intended to express displeasure with the BVA [Board of Veterans’ Appeals] method of reviewing claims or imply that the existing review process is unfair.”
“To the contrary,” he said, “the committee believes that Veterans presently receive every possible consideration where the BVA reviews a case, and the committee expects that the new court will be similarly inclined.”
That’s quite a statement from the chairman of a Congressional committee. And given that statement, and Chairman Montgomery’s observation about “Veterans [receiving] every possible consideration,” I’ve been wondering what he would think of the last few years, years which have seen significant improvements and significant developments in Veterans law.
Two changes in particular have impacted the Veterans law landscape.
First, the Appeals Modernization Act [AMA], implemented in 2019, has improved the appeals process—so far. The AMA has made appeals faster, it’s provided Veterans different options for addressing denied claims. But we are still operating in two separate legal systems, with different options for Veterans filing appeals, and thousands of Legacy claims being adjudicated.
Second, President Biden’s PACT Act in 2022 greatly expanded VA health care eligibility for toxic-exposed Veterans and extended enhanced eligibility for Vietnam era, Gulf War era, and Post-9/11 combat Vets. We’re seeing Veterans file more benefits claims than ever before.
In 2023, VA processed nearly 2 million benefits claims—a record high. So far this year, we’ve exceeded that by processing more than 2.4 million, with another 10 days left, yet, in the fiscal year, on pace to surpass last year’s record by more than 27%. The VBA grant rate for these claims is 64.2%—and as high as 75% for PACT Act claims. In 2024, the average overall disability rating granted to Veterans is 70%, with over $20,000 per year in disability compensation.
Now, I know I’ve just listed a bunch of stats. Nearly every one of them represents all-time VA highs. But let’s remember that behind every one of them is a Veteran and their family receiving life-changing benefits and care.
Now, breaking records is good. But it’s not good enough. Because here’s the bottom line: we have a lot of work left to do, a lot of improvement. In fact, we need to improve. We must keep Veterans at the heart of everything we do. Part of that involves the appeals process. So, let’s talk about what that looks like.
When Veterans aren’t satisfied with decisions they’ve received, they have several recourses under the AMA, as you well know. Over the last three years, the Board of Veterans Appeals has hired more than 50 Veterans Law Judges, hired more than 350 attorneys, and has issued more decisions than ever before.
In 2023, the Board issued 103,245 appeals decisions, again a record. And in 2024, the Board has already issued more than 111,000 decisions—another record again, with 10 days left in the fiscal year—so I don’t want any of the BVA personnel or the Board of Appeals team in the room there thinking that you can take the next 10 days off.
The appeal rate to this Court has dipped over the last several years also. And last year, it was 7.4% of cases. However, this year there will still be about 9,000 BVA decisions appealed to this Court. Nine thousand of our nation’s heroes who have not received all the benefits they believe they’re entitled to, and in fact they believe VA has wrongfully denied them access to.
Nine thousand.
It’s long and complicated, and many of appeals don’t result in the outcome they desire. But it’s not simply the denial of benefits that makes Veterans unhappy. It’s the process, which can involve remand after remand and years and years of waiting.
Each week, hundreds of Veterans send me letters. I’d estimate that a third of those express frustration—and let’s just say I’m being diplomatic here—frustration with the benefits claims and appeals process. Let me share selections from a few of them.
In June, Travis in North Carolina wrote me: “Dear Secretary McDonough, I am a military Veteran writing to express my deep frustration with the unacceptably long wait times for decisions on VA disability claims. After sacrificing for my country, I now find myself struggling with service-connected disabilities and trapped in a seemingly endless bureaucratic process. This unresolved claim has caused tremendous stress and hardship for myself and my family. We rely on disability compensation not only for income, but for access to VA health care critical for treating my service-connected disability.”
Later in June, I received a letter from Chris in California—U.S. Marine, Vietnam, now in his 70s. He described multiple remands from Board judges ordering tests from an orthopedic specialist and x-rays to determine service connection for arthritis. But, Chris wrote, a VA contractor sent him to urgent care, not a specialist, and sent him to an imaging center incapable of conducting x-rays. He’s still waiting to see a specialist. He’s still waiting for x-rays. Chris ended with, “I am dismayed, disappointed, even appalled that our government and country I was so excited and happy to serve at 17 years of age would treat me this way. Shame on you and on your team.”
Shame.
And in August, Deborah in Tennessee, emailed me. Her husband, Army Vet, had a disability compensation rating of 100%. “Since his death in 2022,” she wrote, “I’ve been trying to get widows benefits. I’ve filed, been rejected, appealed, got a Veterans assistance firm to help, but every time the VA comes up with some sort of excuse, in the hopes I’ll give up. I have to borrow money from family members just to pay utilities bills. I fear I’ll lose my home. I need help to get through the process. Please help me.”
Now, there’s countless other Veteran letters I receive that express similar disappointment, heartache, anger, betrayal. So how can we address—alleviate—that frustration that Veterans so clearly express with our appeals process?
Well, we do it by getting to the root of these issues.
The Board of Veterans Appeals grants Veterans relief about one third of the time. One third.
Yes, we have to follow the law, we want to follow the law, we do follow the law. There’s no way to wave a wand and grant every single appeal. But too many Veterans—caught in the endless churn of remand after remand, claims examination after examination, hearing after hearing—don’t trust the process. We need Veterans to trust us, to trust the appeals process, and to understand why we reach the decisions, even if, in fact particularly when, they walk away disappointed. We—the Board, this Court, private counsel—can gain trust through final decisions, and final decisions that are faster than Veterans get today.
Look, the AMA has enabled us to make the process better, although there is still more to be done. Over the last few years, the Board’s AMA decisions result in 20% fewer remands and 10% higher grant rates. On average, final resolution of all issues in AMA cases takes between two to three years, faster than the seven to 10-year average before the passage of the AMA. But still, two to three years is too long.
Here’s the reality. Today, Legacy appeals take about six years. That’s faster than before, but that’s still six years. None of us thinks six years is fast enough. That duration is going to tick up and up, and appeals are going to take longer and longer, because there’s 40,000 Legacy cases still at VA.
Each year this Court remands thousands of additional Legacy cases to the Board. At any given time, 54% of the Legacy cases the Board is adjudicating have already been seen by a Board judge at least twice, nearly 30% at least three times, and almost 10% have already been adjudicated five times or more.
Even after the Board resolves all issues, for many Veterans the journey’s not over. It can take years to get a decision from this Court or the Federal Circuit. Typically, that decision just returns the case to the Board for further adjudication.
I think we can do better for Veterans. I know some of you are talking about these issues in various settings, including sessions with the Bar Association. And that’s encouraging. Yes, it’s important to capture ideas and suggestions for change down the road, but let’s think about how we can help more Veterans now—improvements that VA, this Court, the private bar can implement sooner rather than later to benefit Vets. Now, none of us is immune here. We can all do better, no matter where we work.
First, the claims examination process. Contractors speeding through compensation and pension exams, or not carrying out clear instructions on what to focus on, or conducting exams rife with inaccuracies. VA can—in fact, must—ensure that these exams are more accurate, with higher quality, leading to more resolved claims. Under Secretary [of Benefits, Josh] Jacobs and his team are working hard to implement quality measures on C&P exams—reducing unnecessary exams where we can so as to get to a decision sooner.
Second, the Board of Veterans Appeals. I’ve challenged the Board to increase efficiencies. I’ve asked them to increase capacity, increase output. I’ve asked them to find ways to fill hearing slots that open up due to cancellations and increase appeal resolution rates so that we can reduce wait times for Veterans. I’ve also asked the Board to explore how we better inform Veterans of the expected wait times before their appeal will be issued. I know they are discussing these issues, and they’re figuring out how to do it. It’s not easy. The hiring process, which we’ve had our foot on the gas on over these last several years—also too slow.
Remands going back and forth between the Board and this Court often aren’t productive, in my view. We’ve heard concerns that sending remanded cases back to the same Board judge may not always be the best way to get finality.
Third, this Court. I ask you to ask yourselves, if we’re remanding 75% of appeals back to the Board, are we doing everything we can for Vets? Are we moving with efficiency and urgency? Vets don’t want to wait year after year, not knowing whether they’ll receive benefits or not. Veterans need timely, fair, final decisions on their claims, decisions that either grant their benefits, or fairly deny those benefits only after proper hearing, proper development, a full consideration of all the evidence developed, and a correct application of law. They don’t want to be stuck in legal limbo.
Fourth, private counsel. One of the AMA’s improvements is that it gives Veterans options besides filing an appeal with this Court. Consider whether you’re always choosing the best option for your client, especially when the Veteran, or their surviving family member, or their living family member, wants a final decision on the claim—and quickly. Is an appeal to this Court the best option for your client when you know there’s a strong likelihood of a remand, or even multiple remands, and no resolution for years and years? Or would it be better for the Veteran to file a supplemental claim that can be processed much faster than a remanded appeal?
To everyone, please think about what happens if the system stays the same. Thousands and thousands of Veterans will continue to wait, burdened by what to them is a broken bureaucracy. They will continue to view appeals with disappointment and anger.
What are Veterans doing to make the system work for them? They are turning to unaccredited representatives who call themselves “coaches” or “consultants,” charging Vets high amounts or outrageous percentages of future benefits. Veterans turn to these claim sharks because they promise the Veteran they’ll get a quicker resolution. And as payment, the Veteran signs over a portion of the benefits that Veteran earned serving our nation. This surely is not what we want.
We have to do better.
We need finality, and we need that finality more quickly. Finality in the appeals process isn’t dictated by just one factor or one specific actor. Getting to final decisions—and how we get there—depends on actions and decisions of VA, claimants, their lawyers, and judges. If we want Vets to receive benefits they are entitled to, and for their claims decided fairly and justly—which everyone in this room surely wants—we must focus on finality and achieving finality with urgency.
Let’s consider how we make the system better for Vets. Talk about this with each other during your time here and after you leave. Because what everyone wants, I know, is for Veterans to receive all the benefits they have earned, accurately, quickly, fairly—the goals Chairman Montgomery hoped this Court would achieve.
The President often says that our nation’s only sacred obligation is to prepare and equip the troops we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they come home. The second part of that solemn duty is VA’s to fulfill, each and every day. And in this instance, it’s not on VA alone. It’s on each of us here. Each decision at VBA, the Board, this Court, and counsel appearing before this Court has an impact on the Veteran. And often, the impact on a Veteran, their families, and survivors is, in fact, life changing.
Remember, justice delayed is justice denied. Veterans did not hesitate to raise their hands and put their lives on the line for all of us. They didn’t say wait. So, let’s not make them wait one second longer than they have to for their hard-earned benefits.
It’s on all of us to make that happen.
Thanks for letting me be here today with you, and now let’s hear from you on your questions.
The Government has decided to advance its allocations to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). This comes as humanitarian needs are increasing while these organisations’ life-saving activities are severely underfunded. Sweden is therefore augmenting its 2024 support by SEK 461 million, of which SEK 186 million will be allocated to WFP to stave off famine, SEK 185 million to UNHCR to help displaced people and SEK 90 million to UNFPA to prevent maternal mortality and combat gender-based violence.
“We see how humanitarian crises around the world are becoming deeper and more numerous, while funding is not increasing at the same pace. A record number of people are displaced. More than a million people are on the brink of starvation in Gaza, Haiti, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan. The support we’ve approved will help the family in Darfur who lost everything when fleeing violence and conflict and, at best, might only have a loaf of bread to share for dinner tonight, or the heavily pregnant woman in Gaza who might not survive childbirth. Sweden’s development assistance makes a difference in these heartbreaking situations,” says Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Benjamin Dousa.
Hunger and forced displacement are currently two of the most prominent humanitarian challenges. More than 300 million people are suffering from chronic hunger in 71 countries, and more than 120 million people are displaced from their homes. For the first time in seven years, there is famine in the world – this time in Sudan, where more than 12 million people have been forced to flee their homes since April 2023. Women and girls are often particularly vulnerable in humanitarian crises and lack life-saving maternal health care and other sexual and reproductive health services. The assessment of the UN is that more than 300 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024.
At the same time, donor countries have only provided one third of the funding required. A number of humanitarian organisations are thus facing an urgent and extremely strained situation. These include the central UN agencies – UNHCR, WFP and UNFPA – where liquidity shortages are currently threatening their ability to help people in need. It is therefore particularly urgent that the Government disburse Sweden’s support to these UN agencies now, earlier than planned, when their life-saving operations are needed most. Sweden will also provide SEK 185 million to UNHCR and SEK 133 million to WFP in remaining funds that the Government approved earlier this year. Sweden is providing a total of SEK 779 million to these three UN agencies – much needed additional funding for an important cause.
Sweden is one of the world’s largest humanitarian donors. Every day, Swedish kronor help people with the most pressing humanitarian needs. This government decision means that Sweden is taking even greater responsibility for helping people who are displaced, suffering from famine, lacking maternal health care or subjected to gender-based violence. At the same time, more actors must renew their efforts to reduce humanitarian needs and expand the humanitarian donor base.