Day: February 22, 2022

U.S. women soccer players reached a landmark agreement with the sport’s American governing body to end a six-year legal battle over equal pay, a deal in which they are promised $24 million plus bonuses that match those of the men.

The U.S. Soccer Federation and the women announced a deal Tuesday that will have players split $22 million, about one-third of what they had sought in damages. The USSF also agreed to establish a fund with $2 million to benefit the players in their post-soccer careers and charitable efforts aimed at growing the sport for women.

The USSF committed to providing an equal rate of pay for the women’s and men’s national teams — including World Cup bonuses — subject to collective bargaining agreements with the unions that separately represent the women and men.

“For our generation, knowing that we’re going to leave the game in an exponentially better place than when we found it is everything,” 36-year-old midfielder Megan Rapinoe said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “That’s what it’s all about because, to be honest, there is no justice in all of this if we don’t make sure it never happens again.”

The settlement was a victory for the players, who sparked fans to chant “Equal Pay!” when they won their second straight title in France in 2019. And it was a success for USSF President Cindy Parlow Cone, a former player who became head of the federation in March 2020.

Cone replaced Carlos Cordeiro, who quit after the federation made a legal filing that claimed women had less physical ability and responsibility than male counterparts.

“This is just one step towards rebuilding the relationship with the women’s team. I think this is a great accomplishment and I’m excited about the future and working together with them,” Cone said. “Now we can shift the focus to other things, most importantly, growing the game at all levels and increasing opportunities for girls and women.”

U.S. women have won four World Cups since the program’s start in 1985, while the men haven’t reached a semifinal since 1930.

Five American stars led by Morgan and Rapinoe began the challenge with a complaint to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April 2016. Women sued three years later, seeking damages under the federal Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The sides settled the working conditions portion in December 2020, dealing with issues such as charter flights, accommodations and playing surfaces. They were scheduled to argue on March 7 before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to reinstate the equal pay portion thrown out by a U.S. District Court.

“The settlement announced today is an important step in righting the many wrongs of the past,” the union for the women’s team said in a statement.

While a labor contract remains to be reached and ratified to replace the deal that expires March 31, the settlement was an enormous step.

“It’s so gratifying to feel like we can start to mend a relationship with U.S. Soccer that has been severed for so many years because of the discrimination that we faced,” said Morgan, a 32-year-old forward. “To finally get to this moment feels like we can almost sigh a breath of relief.”

Players were able to put off the legal distractions to continue on-field success.

“The additional hours and stress and outside pressures and discriminations we face, I mean sometimes you think why the hell was I born a female?” Morgan posed. “And then sometimes you think how incredible is it to be able to fight for something that you actually believe in and stand alongside these women. … There was something more than stepping on the field and wanting to be a starter or wanting to score goals or wanting to win or wanting to have the glory.”

The $22 million will be split into individual amounts proposed by the players, subject to the District Court’s approval.

Cone said the federation’s method of equalizing World Cup bonuses is yet to be determined. The federation has until now based bonuses on payments from FIFA, which earmarked $400 million for the 2018 men’s tournament, including $38 million to champion France, and $30 million for the 2019 women’s tournament, including $4 million to the champion U.S.

American men have been playing under the terms of a CBA that expired in December 2018.

Rapinoe was critical of both Cordeiro and his predecessor, Sunil Gulati, who headed the USSF from 2006-18. Cordeiro is seeking to regain the job from Cone when the USSF National Council meets on March 5 to vote on a four-year term.

“The thing that Cindy did was acknowledge the wrongdoing and apologize for the wrongdoing,” Rapinoe said. “It was well within Sunil’s ability to not discriminate and to pay us fairly and equally. It was well within Carlos’ ability to do that, and they made choices not to. … I think Cindy has shown a lot of strength in that, and I think the other two, frankly, just showed a ton of weakness and showed really their true colors in allowing this to happen for so long.”

Source: Voice of America

Less than 10% of the plastic used around the world is recycled, the OECD said Tuesday, calling for “coordinated and global solutions” ahead of expected talks on an international plastics treaty.

A new report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report found that 460 million metric tons of plastics were used in 2019, the number that nearly doubled since 2000.

The amount of plastic waste has also more than doubled during that same time to 353 million metric tons, the Paris-based OECD said.

“After taking into account losses during recycling, only 9% of plastic waste was ultimately recycled, while 19% was incinerated and almost 50% went to sanitary landfills,” it said in its Global Plastics Outlook.

“The remaining 22% was disposed of in uncontrolled dumpsites, burned in open pits or leaked into the environment,” the report added.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the use of plastics drop by 2.2% in 2020 compared with the previous year. However single-use plastics rose and overall use is “projected to pick up again” as the economy rebounds.

Plastics contributed 3.4% of the global greenhouse emissions in 2019, 90% of it from “production and conversion from fossil fuels,” the report said.

In the face of rampant global warming and pollution, it is “crucial that countries respond to the challenge with coordinated and global solutions,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in the report.

The OECD proposed a series of levers to address the issue, including developing the market for recycled plastics, which only represents 6% of the total, largely because they are more expensive.

It added that new technologies related to decreasing the environmental footprint of plastic represented only 1.2% of all innovation concerning the product.

While calling for “a more circular plastics lifecycle,” the OECD said that policies must also restrain overall consumption.

It also called for “major investments in basic waste management infrastructure,” including 25 billion euros ($28 billion) a year to go toward efforts in low and middle-income countries.

Plastic treaty talks

The report comes less than a week before the U.N. Environment Assembly begins on February 28 in Nairobi, Kenya, where formal talks are expected to begin on a future international plastics treaty, the scope of which will be discussed.

Shardul Agrawala, the head of the OECD’s environment and economy integration division, said Tuesday’s report “further accentuates the need for countries to come together to start looking towards a global agreement to address this very important problem.”

Asked about the priorities of the treaty to be discussed in Nairobi, she said “there is an urgent waste management problem which is responsible for the bulk of the leakage to the environment.”

“But we should not limit our focus just to the end-of-pipe solutions, there is a greater need in the long term to forge international cooperation and agreement towards alignment of standards,” she told an online press briefing Monday.

In a survey published Tuesday by polling firm Ipsos for the World Wildlife Fund, 88% of respondents stressed the importance of an international treaty to combat plastic pollution.

In the 28 countries surveyed, 23% of the respondents said such a treaty was “fairly important,” 31% said it was “very important” and 34% found it “essential.”

Source: Voice of America

Governor of Champassak Province Vilayvong Boutdakham received on Feb 19 a delegation of Vietnam’s Quang Tri province led by Le Quang Tung, member of Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and Secretary of the Quang Tri Provincial Party Committee.

The governor highly valued the visit by the Secretary of the Quang Tri Provincial Party Committee and his delegation.

The visit, the first ever conducted by a province of Vietnam since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, constituted a landmark in strengthening and deepening the relations and cooperation between Laos and Vietnam in general and between Champassak Province and Quang Tri province in particular.

Le Quang Tung expressed appreciation on the achievements made by Party committee and authorities of Champassak Province in implementing the 11th resolution of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party as well as the implementation of the 9th five-year national socio-economic development plan and the socio-economic development plan of the province.

The two delegations also spoke highly of the cooperation between the two provinces over the past years.

They noted that the visit by the Vietnamese delegation contributed significantly to deepening the relations and special solidarity and to celebrating the Laos-Vietnam, and Vietnam-Laos Solidarity and Friendship Year 2022.

On this occasion, the Quang Tri delegation presented ten sets of laptop computers, worth VND150 million to Champassak Province.

The Vietnamese delegation also visited well known tourist attractions of the province and attended Bolaven Coffee-Tea Festival 2022 and the declaration ceremony for Donghuasao Forest and Dongsepian Forest as national parks.

Source: Lao News Agency

The National Consultation Workshop on the 36th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC) held in Vientiane on Feb 8.

The workshop is a critical forum in order to prepare and provide national perspective from the Lao PDR. It is an opportunity for all relevant stakeholders in the country.

The participant will review the priorities of the regional conference and review linkages to the national priorities and goals.

The National Consultation Workshop on the 36th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC) which is being organized from 8th to 11th March 2022 in Dhaka Bangladesh.

“Climate change is one of the most important challenges to enhancing food security and nutrition in the region and globally. Resilience to climate change is a crucial feature of sustainable agrifood systems,” said Mr Thongphat Vongmany, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.

He explained strengthening the climate resilience of agrifood systems requires action to anticipate, absorb and accommodate shocks or to manage the impacts or recover from shocks resulting from climate variability and change over time. Our country has suffered significantly due to climate change during the last few years. There have been floods, droughts and as a result, the pest and diseases have increased.

“The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been intensively working on the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme to reach a larger share of rural populations and to relaunch economic activities,” said Mr Nasar Hayat, FAO Country Representative.

“The Programme is now focusing on building back better and stronger towards transforming agrifood systems across all our Four Betters, with an emphasis on science and innovation, climate change, legal frameworks and scaling up. This paper examines the situation in Asia and the Pacific during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021,” said Mr Nasar Hayat.

The COVID pandemic has now entered third year. And as in much of the world, Asia the Pacific has had their share of rising infections, deaths, and several peaks and waves the most recent ones are Delta and now Omicron.

The macroeconomic impacts of the COVID-pandemic were negative across the board, with the region as a whole contracting by more than 4% in 2020 erasing the gains of 4% the year before.

2021 started off as a better year but the regional economy was stalled under the severe hit of Delta and only began recovering at the end of 2021.

Source: Lao News Agency

Access to clean water and adequate sanitation are key in reducing the prevalence of waterborne diseases hence a key factor – among others- to improving the nutritional status of the population.

As of now, thanks to the Scaling-Up Nutrition and WASH Infrastructure Project (SUNWIP), over 9,000 households in urban and rural areas of the Lao PDR benefit from continuous access to clean water, as reported at the SUNWIP Steering Committee meeting organised on Feb 21.

KfW and the Government of the Lao PDR jointly implement SUNWIP, funded by the European Union (EU).

At the meeting, Ms. Vilaykham Phosalath, Vice Minister of Public Works and Transport, praised the European Union and the long-standing commitment and support given to the people of the Lao PDR. She expressed: “We are proud of the partnership and collaboration extended to us by the European Union to help us fight back the hunger and starvation, while giving more than 100,000 people clean and safe access to water supply”.

The Department of Water Supply (DWS) of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT) takes the lead in the project implementation, in cooperation with the National Nutrition Committee Secretariat (NNCS) and the Department of Hygiene and Health Promotion of the Ministry of Health. KfW takes a major role to supervise and steer the project implementation to ensure its activities are completed as planned.

Mr. Sompong Sitthivong, Director General of the Department of Water Supply, Ministry of Public Works and Transport, on behalf of the project implementation steering committee, also provided an overview on SUNWIP, which has been implemented in two districts of Khammuan (Hinboun and Nhommalath) and four districts of Savannakhet (Nong, Atsaphone, Xepon and Outhoumphone) where it funds the construction, rehabilitation and extension of existing and new water supply systems in secondary towns. SUNWIP also contributes to raise awareness of the beneficiaries on how to best use clean water, on the importance of proper sanitation and hygiene practices, especially among the peri-urban communities and schools in the targeted districts.

As a result, SUNWIP support the Government of the Lao PDR in achieving two Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 2 “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” and SDG 6 “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. SUNWIP also directly contributes to the implementation of the National Nutrition Strategy to 2025.

“Since two years, the COVID-19 has affected our lives in many ways,” said EU Ambassador to the Lao PDR Ina Marciulionyte, “Yet, it does not impact our commitment to support people living in 62 villages in two targeted provinces of Laos, Khammuan and Savannakhet to gain access to clean water and proper sanitation and hygiene. In particular, nearly 15,000 m3 of drinking water per day will be produced by the new systems and distributed to 61,000 households through over 400 kilometres of network. Such number is expected to be increased to 90,000 households in the next 20 years,” added Ms Ina.

Director of the KfW Vientiane Office Jan Wiegelmann also remarked: “For the installation of water supply systems in six districts, we have completed 95% of the civil works, upon which 3 districts are already operational. A monitoring conducted by KfW and DWS in Savannakhet last month showed that many households already have water connection and villagers are benefiting from it. SUNWIP project does not only grant access to clean water to the population of secondary towns, but also provide knowledge and guidance to the communities to build more than 91 latrines properly in 13 priority peri-urban communities and 11 group handwashing facilities benefiting more than 900 students and teachers.”

Through effective awareness raising campaigns in the forms of student WASH kits, different types of posters and manuals and community outreach activities, villagers are better informed on the use of clean water and hygiene practices to avoid waterborne diseases and thus triggering nutritional gains and reducing the number of children suffering from the negative and devastating consequences of malnutrition.

To ensure the sustainability of the Project, SUNWIP also contributes to building the capacity of the two Provincial State Enterprises on different topics. These are, for instance, borehole design and drilling of boreholes for water supply, including the operation and maintenance of the new water supply facilities. Training on financial modelling to ensure the viability of the Provincial State Enterprises managing the new facilities has now been conducted for Savannakhet authorities.

Indeed, as expressed by the EU Ambassador to the Lao PDR, “We trust this project will benefit more and more people in the long term. In this regard, I would like to highlight that governance and financing are key elements for the maintenance of such service (water service),” added Ms. Ina.

The Annual Steering Committee Meeting hosted more than 60 participants, both on-site and online, representing government partners from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance, and provincial and district authorities, as well as the European Union and KfW Vientiane Office and Headquarters.

Source: Lao News Agency