SHARE
COPY LINK

RED CROSS

Red Cross chief heads to North and South Korea

The head of the Swiss-based Red Cross has begun a rare official visit to both North and South Korea, pledging to strengthen the organization's humanitarian assistance and cooperation with the countries.

Red Cross chief heads to North and South Korea
Red Cross chief Peter Maurer. Photo: ICRC

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its president Peter Maurer arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday to begin the first official visit to both Koreas by the head of the organization in 21 years.
   
The visit, which comes 60 years after the never formalised armistice that ended the Korean War, "is an opportunity to reaffirm the ICRC's readiness to help resolve humanitarian issues on the Korean peninsula," Maurer said in a statement.
   
"It also reflects our wish to broaden our exchanges and cooperation with both countries," he added.
   
Maurer was set to discuss a range of humanitarian topics with senior government and Red Cross officials in both countries, including "the plight of the thousands of family members who remain separated by the Korean War, many years after the cessation of active hostilities."
   
The head of the ICRC, which has had a permanent presence in North Korea for more than a decade, was also set to discuss how to further develop a physical rehabilitation centre in Pyongyang and four provincial hospitals that the organization already supports in the country.
   
Maurer is scheduled to stay in North Korea until Friday, when he will travel to Beijing to attend the award ceremony of the Florence Nightingale Medal for "exceptionally qualified nurses," before flying on to Seoul for a two-day visit.
   
The visit to South Korea comes as the ICRC aims to establish a permanent presence in the country.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

INCOME

Spain’s basic income scheme hits backlog dead-end

Three months after Spain rushed to launch a minimum basic income scheme to fight a spike in poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic, the programme is at a dead-end because of an avalanche of applications.

Spain's basic income scheme hits backlog dead-end
Red Cross volunteers bring food packages to elderly and low income people. Photo: Cesar Manso/AFP
The measure was a pledge made by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's leftwing coalition government, which took office in January, bringing together his Socialist party with far-left Podemos as the junior partner.
   
The scheme — approved in late May — aims to guarantee an income of 462 euros ($546) per month for an adult living alone, while for families, there would be an additional 139 euros per person, whether adult or child, up to a monthly maximum of 1,015 euros per home. It is expected to cost state coffers three billion euros ($3.5 billion) a year.
   
The government decided to bring forward the launch of the programme because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has hit Spain hard and devastated its economy, causing queues at food banks to swell.
   
Of the 750,000 applications which were filed since June 15 when the government started accepting requests, 143,000 — or 19 percent — have been analysed and 80,000 were approved, according to a social security statement issued on August 20.
 
 
'Months of waiting'
 
But Spain main civil servant's union, CSIF, paints a darker picture. “Nearly 99 percent of requests have not been processed,” a union spokesman, Jose Manuel Molina, told AFP.
   
The social security ministry has only really analysed 6,000 applications while 74,000 households that already receive financial aid were awarded the basic income automatically, he added.
   
For hundreds of thousands of other households, the wait is stressful. Marta Sanchez, a 42-year-old mother of two from the southern city of Seville, said she applied for the scheme on June 26 but has heard nothing since.
   
“That is two months of waiting already, when in theory this was a measure that was taken so no one ends up in the streets,” she added.
   
Sanchez lost her call centre job during Spain's virus lockdown while her husband lost his job as a driver. The couple has had to turn to the Red Cross for the first time for food.
   
“Thank God my mother and sister pay our water and electricity bills,” she said, adding their landlord, a relative, has turned a blind eye to the unpaid rent.
 
 
'Rushed everything'
 
A spokeswoman for the ministry acknowledged that the rhythm “was perhaps a bit slower than expected” but she said the government was working to “automate many procedures” so processing times should become faster from now on.
   
“The launch of a benefit is always difficult … and this situation is not an exception,” she added.
   
But Molina said this was a new situation, that was made worse by years of budget cuts to the public service which has lost 25 percent of its staff over the past decade.
   
“The problem is that they rushed everything, did it without training and a huge lack of staff,” he added.
   
The social security branch charged with the basic income scheme has only 1,500 civil servants, who also process most pension applications, Molina said.
   
These officials are facing an “avalanche” of requests, which already match the number of pension requests received in an entire year, he added.
   
About 500 temporary workers have been recruited as reinforcements but their assistance is limited because they do not have the status of civil servant, so they cannot officially approve requests for financial aid.
   
Demand is expected to increase. The government has said the measure was expected to benefit some 850,000 homes, affecting a total of 2.3 million people — 30 percent of whom were minors.
   
When the scheme was launched the government said all it would take is a simple online form, but this is a problem for many low-income families without computers and internet access, especially since the waiting time for an in-person meeting to apply is about two months, according to the CSIF union
SHOW COMMENTS