Washington, May 30 (DNA):US President Donald Trump said he is severing ties with the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as the death toll from the disease spiked again in the United States and Brazil.

Trump’s move signals an end to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the United Nations agency just when it needs it most, with outbreaks in many parts of the world yet to reach their peak.

Countries in Latin America are bracing for difficult weeks ahead, especially Brazil, where the death toll shot up by 1,124 on Friday and there were a record number of new infections.

Trump initially suspended funding to the WHO last month, accusing it of not doing enough to curb the early spread of the virus and being too lenient with China, where the virus emerged late last year.

On Friday he made that decision permanent in a major blow for the UN agency’s finances, as the United States is by far its biggest contributor, pumping in $400 million last year.

“Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization,” Trump told reporters.

The Republican leader said the US would be redirecting WHO funds “to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.”

“The world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency,” Trump said.

Beijing has furiously denied US allegations that it played down or even covered up the threat from the virus after it was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, insisting it has been forthcoming.

ATLANTA (DNA) -Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Friday evening denounced vandalism in her city as “chaos” after demonstrations over the death of George Floyd while in in the custody of Minneapolis police turned violent.

“What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta. This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is chaos,” an impassioned Lance Bottoms said at a news conference.

“A protest has purpose. When Dr. King was assassinated, we didn’t do this to our city,” she said. “If you want change in America, go and register to vote. … That is the change we need in this country.”

The protests had started as peaceful Friday afternoon when crowds gathered in the city’s famed Centennial Park. But by 6 p.m. ET, protesters began moving toward the front of the Center, where police had gathered. Over the next few hours, the demonstration swelled as SWAT officers were called in to help with crowd control. Anger over the death of Floyd spilled over into multiple cities across the country after the former officer seen in a video with his knee on Floyd’s neck was arrested and charged with murder.

Demonstrators funneled their anguish in cities like New York and Washington into chants, signs, and outbreaks of violence, smashing windows and setting vehicles ablaze.

“I am a mother to four black children in America, one of who is 18 years old,” Lance Bottoms said. “Yesterday, when I heard there were rumors about violent protests in Atlanta, I did what a mother would do, I called my son and I said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I cannot protect you, and black boys shouldn’t be out today.’ “

Brown University, one of the top American universities, named Professor Beshara Doumani the first holder of the ‘milestone’ chair

Brown University has become the first in North America to appoint a faculty chair in Palestinian Studies.

The university, among America’s high-ranking Ivy League schools and located in Rhode Island, announced this week that it was establishing the “Mahmoud Darwish chair” in Palestinian studies after the late, famed poet.

“Named after Mahmoud Darwish, a towering and beloved figure of Palestinian and Arab literature and humanistic values, this chair is the first of its kind at a major research university,” the announcement read.

Even after his passing in 2008, Mr Darwish is regarded as a national poet for Palestinians and a symbol for his people’s struggle to fight displacement and the Israeli occupation. He authored more than 30 volumes of poetry and eight books of prose.

Professor Beshara Doumani is the first holder of the Mahmoud Darwish Chair at Brown and will start his tenure in July. He is a well-known academic in the field of Middle East studies.

“By joining together the names Mahmoud Darwish and Beshara Doumani, the appointment embraces the vitality of Palestinian life as a driving concern in academic, cultural, and political affairs at the global level,” the university said.

Elias Muhanna, a professor at Brown, told The National that the creation of the Mahmoud Darwish chair and appointment of Mr Doumani was a real marker.

“This is the first faculty chair in Palestinian studies at a North American university, which represents a major milestone,” Mr Muhanna said.

“Over the last several decades, Palestinian studies has faced the kind of pressure that other fields rarely encounter,” he added, arguing that this brings “long-overdue institutional recognition.”

Palestinian voices have faced an uphill battle in seeking representation in the US. In 2012, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called the Palestinians “an invented people.”

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community,” Mr Gingrich told The Jewish Channel.

The struggle for Palestinian academic recognition has gone hand in hand with the broader political battle.

In 2018, the Trump administration closed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington and is now signalling a conditional acceptance of Israeli annexation of occupied Palestinian areas in the Jordan Valley and the West Bank in July.

ISLAMABAD (DNA) -Ambassador Furkat Sidikov has been appointed as deputy for Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan. The President of Uzbekistan has issued a decree of in this regard.

Ambassador Furqat spent an eventful tenure in Pakistan and during his tenure relations between the two countries were further strengthened.

Ambassador Furqat will soon take charge of his new assignment in Tashkent.

Pakistan, Uzbekistan relations saw new heights during Mr.Furqat tenure. During his tenure he arranged a number of bilateral visits as well as exhibitions in order to promote Uzbekistan in Pakistan.

It was because of his untiring efforts that Uzbek air started operations from Pakistan due to which peoples of both countries had chance to visit each other.

Resumption of flights also increased tourism.

Developing story…….

TASHKENT,  (DNA) –  Dr. Muhsinjon M. Kholmukhamedov Center for Economic Researches and Reforms Until mid-March, residents of Uzbekistan – a doubly landlocked state – experienced the coronavirus epidemic with some degree of surprise: the epidemic, which originally found in China, circled the center of Asia and began to spread in Europe. On March 15, Uzbekistan officially announced the detection of the first case of coronavirus infection in a citizen who arrived from France. 2 months passed and during this time the number of infected COVID-19 on May 19, 2020, has reached 2802 people, of which 2314 (82.6%) – recovered, and 13 – died.

The mortality rate in Uzbekistan remains extremely low – 0.46% of the total number of cases. In the fight against coronavirus in Uzbekistan, the best features of the Uzbek society were manifested: general support of the population and quickly mobilized government apparatus.

On the other side, the introduction of restrictive measures against the pandemic paralyzed both formal and informal economies, which left most of the country’s population without a subsistence. Social protection systems are crucial to safeguarding the poor and vulnerable during coronavirus pandemic and crises hit.

As of May 8, 2020, a total of 171 countries (12 more since last week) have planned and adapted 801 social protection measures in response to COVID-19. Social assistance transfers keep remaining the most widely used class of interventions (60.7% of global responses, or 487 measures). These are complemented by significant contribution in social insurance and labor market-related measures (supply-side measures). In addition, 246 (30.7%) of COVID-related measures goes to cash transfer programs.

Composition of global social protection response and cash transfers
as % of social assistance – Cash transfers are being implemented in three ways, including expanding coverage, increasing benefits, and making administrative requirements simpler and more user-friendly. Combined, those adaptations in social assistance benefit over 1.46 billion people. Specifically, for cash transfers administrative adaptations are occurring in 27 countries. Increases in benefits among preexisting programs are implemented in 37 countries, including transfer value being increased in 29 countries and additional payment cycles taking place in 11 countries. Coverage extension is underway in 88 countries: this includes expanding coverage of existing programs (6 countries) and one-off programs provided in 38 countries (5 universal and 34 targeted). Combined, those adaptations across administration, generosity and coverage in cash transfers benefit over 1.04 billion people. If only consider coverage (horizontal expansion) of new and existing cash transfer schemes, these cover an estimated 577.2 million people. There has also been a remarkable growth in measures related to social insurance – 215 measures. Developing countries have introduced selective top-ups in favor of the lower income pensioners (countries such as Serbia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia). Other countries like Costa Rica, Colombia, Kosovo and Mexico, have decided to anticipate pension payments. Social security contributions have been subsidized in 49 programs – a level equal to paid sick leave measures. Unemployment benefits are present in 61 cases. The number of labor market interventions is also growing. Wage subsidies continue to dominate those interventions. There is considerable diversity in generosity and accompanying conditions. Together with wage subsidies, countries are strengthening their active labor market programs, particularly intermediation services and skills training. Graph.1. Key measures taken by the Government of Uzbekistan in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Uzbek government is also announced 3 packages of social assistance measures and labor market interventions by the Government of Uzbekistan[1](Graph�1) . Social Security Priority As a result of quarantine, economic activity of 196 thousand enterprises were significantly dropped, and about 95 thousand individual entrepreneurs suspended their activities. The service sector has been affected too, where 13 thousand food service enterprises, 45 thousand trade enterprises, 19 thousand service companies, and 7 thousand transport enterprises stopped or experienced significant losses in revenue. As a result, the number of unemployed has grown significantly. During the quarantine period, the number of visits to employment centers increased to 150 thousand, which is three times more than in January-February of this year. It is clear that the poverty level in Uzbekistan is already quite high. During a video conference on February 27, the President of Uzbekistan noted that 12-15 percent or 4-5 million of the population of our country are remaining in poverty. This means that their daily income does not exceed 10-13 thousand UZS. The World Bank estimates that the impact of coronavirus infection through declining household incomes and remittances will increase poverty in 2020. Pandemic Risk Groups At the same time, direct state aid cannot always reach all objective groups, mainly the groups of people whose income plummeted due to coronavirus and lockdown measures. First of all, this concerns the informal economy and labor migrants. Accounting for the incomes of citizens employed in these sectors is very difficult for some objective reasons, which further creates difficulties in classifying them into the support group. Even in the most developed countries of the world, the shadow economy is at least 7.5% of GDP.

According to UNDP estimates in 2019, the size of the shadow economy in Uzbekistan varies between 40% and 50% of GDP. Furthermore, according to the international non-governmental non-profit organization BUYUK KELAJAK, the size of the shadow economy in Uzbekistan reached 50% of GDP in 2019. On the report of World Bank, the total number of employees in Uzbekistan in 2019 amounted to 13.2 million people. Of these, 7.9 million informally employed (59.8%) and 5.3 million formally employed (40.2%). The ratio of formal and informal employment by type of activity in Uzbekistan*

(thousand people) * As of the 1 st January 2020 This implies that more than half of the economically active labor force of the country is not covered by social insurance, which makes them more vulnerable to the consequences of pandemic. Labor migration is important for Uzbekistan, as it provides an inflow of foreign exchange earnings and income for migrant families in Uzbekistan. For instance, in Russia alone, there are more than 2 million labor migrants from Uzbekistan. Due to the situation with the coronavirus pandemic, many labor migrants cannot return to their homeland and have fewer opportunities to earn money due to the self-isolation regime introduced in Russia, which significantly reduces ability to support their families. Moreover, migrants returning to their homeland are faced with work absence. The World Bank predicts that remittances, a vital source of income for many of the poorest households, will fall by more than 50% due to the pandemic. To solve the problems of population groups, both employed in the informal economy, and related to labor migration, which can be classified as self-employed, the state is making significant efforts. Thus, during the video conference, the President emphasized the need to create a convenient and simple legal system to support and legalize the activities of those self-employed people. If previously, self-employed citizens were engaging in 85 types of activities, then in the meeting officials were instructed to extend the classification of these activities and to introduce a mechanism for notification registration of self-employed. In addition, on May 19 the President Sh.Mirziyoyev announced the exemption of more than 60 professions from payment of income tax.

These include hairdressers, shoemakers, bakers, smiths, carpenters, tailors, taxi drivers, translators, designers, programmers. Moreover, the «Hunarmand» Association, the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade was entrusted with the task of creating an online platform for marketing handicraft products abroad under the brand of Uzbekistan. Freelancer activity also falls into the category of self-employment, which faces a number of obstacles, in particular, when opening a bank account remotely and accepting payments. In this regard, it was instructed to create various benefits and preferences for such categories of workers. Declining levels of household income and consumer demand do not fully prevent a sharp drop in living standards and incomes of vulnerable groups of the population only due to social support and support for self-employment. Improving the situation in this area can be helped by expanding the creation of new jobs by the private sector and charity by those entrepreneurs and commercial structures. However, the state does not relieve itself of responsibility for providing support to these groups of the population, despite the fact that a significant part of these groups did not fully pay taxes. But, not being able to provide this support directly, the state provides an opportunity for businesses to provide appropriate support to citizens, compensating for its costs in this direction through various benefits and preferences for taxes, leasing, loans, access to necessary resources, that is, by reducing revenues in the budget. According to international organizations, entrepreneurs donate 12% more to charity, if the state provides various preferences for this. And this mechanism has already been effectively used in Uzbekistan. The social partnership between government and business� On April 20, the President of Uzbekistan Sh.M. Mirziyoyev launched an initiative to create a nationwide movement «Sakhovat va ko’mak», «Charity and Support» to provide voluntary targeted charity and sponsorship assistance to low-income and needy families. The Fund activity is targeted for social assistance during the quarantine period for vulnerable families and people in need of social protection, persons with disabilities, and temporarily unemployed people who have lost income.