THE GOVERNING body of Oxford University”s Oriel College on Wednesday recommended the removal of a statue of Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes that has long been the target of protests — though it won”t be taken down immediately.

The college”s governors said they had “voted to launch an independent Commission of Inquiry into the key issues surrounding the Rhodes statue.”

In a statement, Oriel College”s governing body, made up of faculty, said they had “expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes” and a plaque to him, adding that “this is what they intend to convey to the Independent Commission of Inquiry.”

Rhodes made a fortune in the late 19th century from gold and diamond mines where miners labored in brutal conditions. He was an education benefactor whose legacy includes Oxford University”s prestigious Rhodes scholarships, which have been awarded to international students for over a century.

Famous Rhodes scholars include former U.S. President Bill Clinton and feminist writer Naomi Wolf.

His statue was removed from the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 2015 after students led a “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign.

A similar campaign has sought the removal of his statue in Oxford. The movement had gained new momentum since the death of George Floyd spurred anti-racism protests worldwide and a renewed debate on colonialism and its legacy in Britain.

Other historical monuments and statues around the world, honoring figures from Christopher Columbus to Belgium”s King Leopold II, have since become flash points in protests.

Earlier this month, Black Lives Matter protesters pulled down a controversial statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in the English city of Bristol and threw it into the harbor. Colston was prominently involved in England”s slaving company, the Royal African Company, which transported tens of thousands of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean.

Oriel”s governors said the new commission would include people from academia, education policy, law, politics and journalism. The commission aims to look into how to improve access to black and ethnic minority students and faculty, and review “how the college”s 21st-century commitment to diversity can sit more easily with its past.” The Rhodes statue will stay up until the inquiry finishes its work later this year.

In a statement, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign group said it welcomed Oriel College”s intention to take down the statue, but demanded a stronger commitment to follow it through.

“This is a potentially epoch-defining moment for our institution, the University of Oxford. We can, potentially, offer a powerful example of the decolonial project in higher education in the U.K. and beyond,” the group said.

(Source: AP)

CHILDREN in Africa remain confronted by a host of threats due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday in commemorating Day of the African Child.

The direct and secondary impacts of the virus threaten to unravel the gains made for the poorest children across Africa, UNICEF said in a statement emailed to Xinhua.

While wealthier children are able to continue learning online, barely one in five households in Eastern and Southern Africa have internet access, according to UNICEF.

Eighty-four percent of the rural population – where the bulk of African learners reside – have no electricity, meaning online learning is not an option, said UNICEF.

Up to 16 million children in Africa are no longer accessing critical daily meals at school while violence is increasing, and more African children will fall into poverty, UNICEF said.

Prior to COVID-19, it was estimated that around three out of every four children in Africa are affected by multi-dimensional poverty. These children are deprived of the most basic things in life, like access to sufficient food and clean drinking water, going to school, being able to get medical help, sleeping in adequate shelter, going to the bathroom in a safe place, or living in an environment free of physical and emotional abuse.

The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic could push up to 86 million more children into household poverty by the end of 2020, two thirds of these in Africa, according to analysis released by Save the Children and UNICEF.

Only 16 percent of children in Africa are covered by social protection programs, making it impossible for families to withstand financial shocks caused by COVID-19 and furthering the cycle of intergenerational poverty, said UNICEF.

While the challenges are immense, UNICEF said it is collectively achieving significant regional results, including 71 million people reached with messaging on COVID-19 prevention and how to access services, 10.8 million children supported with distance/home-based learning, more than two million people reached with hand-wash supplies and two million children and women reached with essential healthcare services in UNICEF-supported facilities.

(Source: Xinhua Agency)

BEIJING has ordered all schools to close in an escalation of containment measures as it struggles to halt a new coronavirus outbreak which has already spread to neighboring provinces.

The Chinese capital on Tuesday lifted its emergency response to level two and said that people will have to be tested for the virus before being allowed to leave the city.

The total reported number of infections has reached 106, according to the National Health Commission, while cases linked to the Beijing cluster have already been reported in two provinces in China’s northern region.

While the decision to close schools and limit people leaving signals the severity of the growing crisis, officials have so far taken a more targeted approach towards the latest outbreak compared to similar resurgences in Wuhan and in the country’s northeast region. The stakes are higher in Beijing, where the country’s business and political elite reside, and an aggressive lockdown risks undoing China’s economic re-opening and nascent moves to restart travel with other countries.

Beijing has restricted movement only in areas where new cases have been found. While taxis and cars from ride-hailing apps have been banned from leaving Beijing and passenger buses from some cities in nearby provinces have been halted, trains and most other forms of transport to and from Beijing remain open.

The costs of imposing an across-the-board shutdown are too high as Beijing’s population is much larger than that of Wuhan, said Yanzhong Huang, professor at the Center for Global Health Studies of Seton Hall University.

“A city-wide lockdown in Beijing would not only reverse the process of economic and social reopening, a key policy objective of the party, but also undermine considerably the government’s own narrative on the success of its anti Covid-19 campaign,” Huang said. “The social, economic, and political pain might be way too high to justify a city-wide lockdown.”

Beijing on Tuesday closed another food market located near the financial district after a case linked to the original cluster was discovered. Eleven other food markets have been shuttered and almost 300 others sanitized, while nearly 30 housing compounds have been put under lockdown, local officials said.

Housing compounds and companies are collecting information from their residents or workers on whether they have been to or had contact with anyone who has been to Xinfadi, the fruit and vegetable market where the new cluster was first discovered. It supplies around 80% of the city’s farm produce and tens of thousands of people pass through daily.

With mass testing and contract tracing underway, the next few days will be crucial in deciding whether to reinstate the strict measures in place during the height of China’s epidemic, when workplaces and restaurants were shut and social gatherings were banned.

The city of more than 20 million has said it can test over 90,000 people a day. It tested more than 70,000 on Sunday.

“Beijing’s reported cases in the next three days will determine where the epidemic is going,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told state television on Monday night. Those who have contracted the virus should display symptoms in around two days and if cases aren’t surging by then, it’s safe to say the outbreak has basically stabilized, said Wu.

“There’s no obvious sign of family clusters, or cross-infection between patients,” he said.

Zeng Guang, a senior expert with the National Health Commission, said he sees a high chance of a “mild second wave” when the number of infections increases in the next couple days before the spread is contained.

“But even if the virus spreads across China and lockdowns have to be implemented, Beijing will not be the second Wuhan,” he said.

(Source: Bloomberg)