economy and politics

Infant mortality, regional exports, world trade, Iran… The news on Tuesday

The largest estimated increases in exports from Latin America and the Caribbean during 2022 were registered in countries that export hydrocarbons.

In 2021, five million children died before their fifth anniversary

Five million children died before their fifth birthday and another two million children between the ages of five and 24 died in 2021, according to the latest calculations published by the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.

In another report, the Group revealed that close to two million babies were stillborn during the same period.

Studies show that many of these deaths could have been prevented if mothers, newborns, adolescents and children had equitable access to high-quality health care.

Although since the year 2000 the risk of mortality has decreased globally in all the age ranges studied, the advances have slowed since 2010 and 54 countries will not reach the goal of the Sustainable Development Goals related to the mortality of children under five years.

If prompt action is not taken to improve health services, some 59 million children and young people will die before 2030, and almost 16 million babies will be stillborn.

Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the regions with the highest mortality rates.

© Unsplash/Francesco Boncompagn

The export values regional goods increased by 20% last year favored by the 14% increase in prices and the 6% growth in the volume exported, the Commission reported on Tuesday Economic for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Despite the fact that for the second consecutive year growth was above double digits, the growth was due more to the rise in the prices of raw materials, particularly the fuelswhich due to the ability to increase export volumes or the diversification of the export offer towards new sectors.

On the side of imports of regional goods, the report points to a 24% rise driven, like exports, by price growth.

Unlike the slowdown in trade in goods, trade in services showed a significant recovery, with growth of 45% during the first half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. This is mainly due to the reactivation of tourism, followed by the category of other services.

In a context marked by the conflict in Ukraine, high inflation, lower growth, geopolitical tensions and the persistence of the pandemic, the report indicates that world trade suffered a sharp slowdown in 2022 that will sharpen in 2023 with growth of barely 1%.

The world economy will only grow 1.7% in 2023; The World Bank warns of a possible recession

ILO/Marcel Crozet

Poverty will increase if the economies with the biggest debt problems do not have access to a restructuring.

In similar pessimistic terms, the world Bank that forecasts a slowdown in world trade for this year of 1.7%, a figure quite far from the 3% forecast six months ago. For 2024, it projected a slight increase of one percentage point -2.7%-.

According to the most recent edition of his report World Economic Outlookthe organization attributes the slowdown in turnover to high inflation, rising interest rates, reduced investment and disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The World Bank forecasts that growth in advanced economies will decline from 2.5% in 2022 to 0.5% in 2023 and warns that slowdowns of this magnitude were “the prelude to a global recession”.

For emerging markets and developing economies, excluding China, the economic decline will go from 3.8% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2023.

The study dedicates a section to the plight of 37 small states that suffered a deeper recession as a result of COVID-19 and had a much weaker rebound than other economies, partly due to the prolonged shocks that affected to tourism.

Iran uses speedy trials and the death penalty as weapons to punish protesters

View of Tehran, the capital of Iran.

© Unsplash/Hosein Charbaghi

In the opinion of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the government of Iran is using the trials and the death penalty as a deterrent to punish people who participate in the protests and to instill fear in the population in order to to end dissent.

Volker Türk affirmed that during the last month four people who participated in the recent demonstrations were executed after accelerated trials that did not meet the minimum guarantees of a fair trial and due process required by international law of human rights, for which reason their executions amount to an arbitrary deprivation of life.

“The government of Iran would best defend its interests and those of its people by listening to their grievances and undertaking the necessary legal and political reforms to ensure respect for diversity of opinion, the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and full respect and protection of women’s rights in all spheres of life”, he reasoned.

Since nationwide protests erupted last September over the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, who died shortly after being arrested for improperly wearing the hijab, thousands of people have been detained. Hundreds of people have died in the government crackdown on protesters

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