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KABUL:With the launch of a new $224 million aid package to tackle the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Afghans told Arab News on Sunday that they feared corruption, and demanded stricter monitoring of resources.

It follows President Ashraf Ghani launching the initiative on Saturday, to provide basic food and essentials to 4 million families, by covering 90 percent of the population in the war-torn country.

It is going to be implemented by thousands of local members of Misaq Sharwandi (Citizenship Charter) council all civil society entities are responsible for monitoring. It is a citizens-based approach,Ghanis chief spokesman, Seddiq Sediqqi, told Arab News on Sunday, adding that the new project was a partnership between the Afghan government and the World Bank.

Afghan citizens, however, are not convinced.

I am a war widow and breadwinner for my family of four, and deserved to have been on the list of beneficiaries in the last round, but got nothing, Jamila, a 46-year-old Kabul resident, told Arab News, referring to a government bread distribution program for families affected by weeks of lockdown to limit the spread of COVID-19.

There should be a monitoring system to make sure that this time, too, the aid is not misused and looted, she said.

It is a sentiment shared by lawmakers who said that the government under fire at home and abroad for not doing enough to tackle corruption had not consulted or informed them about the new program.Some politicians are skeptical that the aid may be embezzled.

The aid hardly reaches the needy and deserving people, Hamida Wardak, an MP from Maidan-Wardak province, told Arab News.

I think the resources will be wasted again. There should be tight monitoring of the process, and we in the parliament will have to be part of the monitoring, she added.

Atta Mohammad Dehqanpur, a legislator from Ghor province, agreed, and said that the parliament was mostly weak, with no power to check government spending.

He feared that the new resources would be misused by some in the government, while many in his impoverished province would not benefit from it.

Others on social media spoke about their mistrust of the government and its ability to deliver the new aid package.

As a citizen, I have no belief in the transparency of this process, Hasiba Efat, a former provincial council member from Parwan province, tweeted on Sunday.

This could be a plan for corruption within the government from those who could not squander resources in previous programs, she added.

Another lawmaker said instead of spending $224 million on the new aid package, Kabul needed to rebuild roads, upgrade urban areas and construct a hydroelectric dam, which would ensure long-term benefits for the public and provide jobs for thousands of people.

In recent months, international institutions and donors had pledged to provide hundreds of millions of dollars for Afghanistan to combat the COVID-19 crisis. In contrast, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had said it would offer Kabul $229 million as a free loan.

Since March, however, there have been complaints of mismanagement and embezzlement by government officials in Kabul and elsewhere, with an Afghan daily reporting that $11 million alone was misused from the bread distribution program.

Other accusations include the disappearance of ventilators, delayed payment of doctors salaries, a shortage of protective gear for medical staff, and a lack of oxygen, sanitizers and surgical masks at hospitals dealing with the pandemic.

Amid complaints of corruption involving COVID-19, Ghani said his government will act against those who have misused the resources in fighting coronavirus.

But locals say they have not seen any significant progress, even as Ghani reiterated on Saturday that his government would prevent corruption in the new program.

Torek Farhadi, a former government and IMF adviser, told Arab news that Kabul was using World Bank package first and foremost for its propaganda and popularity, adding: Afghanistan has become addicted to international aid. The trouble is, international aid does not reach the needy it ends up in private real estate projects and financing armored cars for the powerful.

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Captain to face trial in first Italy 'migrant pushback' case - Arab News

No country in the EU has suffered more from the coronavirus than Italy.

Although Spain has surpassed it in total number of cases, Italy has had the highest death toll. Its economy is projected to shrink 11 percent this year compared to 8.3 percent for the EU as a whole.

The EU needs to help. And it has.

Italy has been the largest recipient of disinfectants, masks, medical gowns and ventilators donated by EU member states.

Germany, Poland and Slovenia have sent doctors. Austria and Germany took in coronavirus patients when Italian hospitals were overwhelmed.

Dutch researchers processed lung echos to quickly diagnose patients. The European Commission has suspended rules on state aid to allow the Italian government to underwrite up to 200bn in business loans.

The European Central Bank is pumping more than 1 trillion into the European economy in order to lower borrowing costs for businesses and governments.

This has provided immediate relief to Italy's banks, which are saddled with excessive levels of non-performing loans and government debt.

But when it comes to Italy's longer-term recovery, it's not unreasonable to ask it to make some changes to qualify for aid from a proposed 750bn EU fund.

Italy's economic problems didn't start with COVID-19.

The European Commission has advised it for years to invest more in education, improve the efficiency of its judicial system and simplify the tax code.

Year-after-year, Italy rejected that advice. It spends less on tertiary education than its neighbours. Only 27 percent of Italians in their thirties have a higher degree, the second-lowest rate in the eurozone, where the average is 40 percent. Tax evasion is between two and three times higher in Italy than in France, Germany and Spain.

Italy is one of the worst rich-countries to start and run a business in, and the time and effort it takes to enforce contracts and resolve bankruptcies in Italy's slow courts, where cases can drag on for years, is a major reason.

Poor availability of credit and excessive licensing requirements are two more.

For young Italians, it's almost impossible to start a career as a lawyer, notary, pharmacist or even a taxi driver unless they inherit a license from their parents or can buy one from a family friend.

These factors conspire to drive a lot of economic activity into the informal sector and deny young Italians job security. Just 45 percent of Italians under the age of 30 had a job before the pandemic, compared to a eurozone average of 63 percent. Nearly eight-out-of-ten of those could only find part-time work.

The current government, led by Giuseppe Conte, hasn't helped by passing a 20bn tax-evasion amnesty and overturning the labour reforms of the last centre-left government, which introduced a new type of permanent contract to close the gap between insecure part-time work without social benefits and impossible-to-break full-time contracts with generous benefits.

Even those reforms did not apply to anyone in work. At the insistence of the trade unions, they only applied to new contracts. Hence their short-term effect was limited, which Conte's government used as an excuse to cancel them.

Rather than tackle these problems, which would mean taking away some of the security and wealth of incumbents and the well-connected to give younger and entrepreneurial Italians a chance, Italy's politicians blame outsiders.

They accuse Europe of "abandoning" Italy in its hour of need and call on the EU to "take responsibility".

They said the same thing during the migrant crisis. And during the euro crisis. Italy is always the victim. Northern Europe, which would rather Italy took some responsibility for its problems before asking for help, is always at fault.

Conte insists he will not accept a "weak compromise" on the recovery fund. He argues conditions would "stigmatise" recipients and warns that, if Italy doesn't get what it wants, it would "destroy the common market."

But his government can't even tell what it would spend the money on.

One of the two ruling parties, the Democrats, wants to invest in infrastructure. The other, the Five Star Movement, argues for tax cuts.

Little wonder the leaders of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are unwilling to sign off: they're not going to give money so the Italians can fund a tax cut in the middle of an economic crisis.

Yet it's them Italians blame, not their own leaders.

Years of blaming Brussels have turned Italians into one of the most Eurosceptic people in Europe. Just 38 percent told Eurobarometer last year they had faith in the EU.

Only the British, French and Greeks trusted the EU less. Italians were more likely than most to cite unemployment as the reason, even though that is still largely the preserve of national governments. 28-percent supported leaving the euro, the highest rate among eurozone nations. Italy is the only country in the EU where the young are more Eurosceptic than the old.

Italy's politicians are failing the next generation of Italians. They need to stop demonising the only countries that can - and will - help Italy and resist the temptation to enact more stop-gap measures that only perpetuate the inequalities and inefficiencies that hold the country back.

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Italy has a responsibility, too - EUobserver

Photojournalists are pivotal in telling a news story. Photos allow the reader to experience thefeelings a situation evokes first-hand. However,with the majority popularion equipped with asmartphone camera, professionals face a threat. Metrolife spoke to a range of photojournalists to discuss their relevance in a changing world.

Most people see life as a video, we see it as a collection of freeze frames, says Anantha Subramaniam, a photojournalist with 25 years of experience.

Approaching every event with the same level of curiosity and passion is important. You are there to capture interesting moments and pictures that hold the attention of the viewers, he says.

Samyukta Lakshmi, a freelance photojournalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Bloomberg, says authenticity is important. We dont just click a picture of whats happening; we inquire about the situation and try to understand why something is happening, she says.

Vaishnavi Suresh, documentary photographer and photojournalist, works with NGOs.

The focus is on documenting an event, area or situation for a long period of time and then working towards getting it published to bring attention to a certain cause, she says.

Subramaniam adds that intuition is a must. One never knows what will happen. But its our job to know, to anticipate situations and be ready with our finger on the shutter. I was once in Sri Lanka to cover a cricket match, but on the way to the stadium there was a bomb blast in front of me. I was able to stay focused and deliver the pictures, he explains.

Are journalistic ethics alwaysfollowed?There is a certain pressure from above that you cant ignore, but for certain things you have to put your foot down, says Subramaniam.

He explains how photojournalists are often asked to document the family of students who have died by suicide. We are asked to take pictures that capture their grief and sometimes even inquire for happy pictures of the student. That is something I refuse to do as I feel its disrespectful to the family, he says.

Samyukta says they can always take a photo and help the person after, but their consent is always important.

I know of photojournalists covering the migrant crisis who go up to the people and help them afterwards, either by providing them with more information or food and money. Most times you can do more by just getting their story out, she says.

Vaishnavi says she is aware of the gaze of the camera and the effect it has. I always try to take pictures of individuals at the eye-level, so as to not portray them as lesser than or greater than the viewer, she explains.

Cracking the field

For the past few years, newspapers have been asking for journalists with a certain educational qualification and a portfolio.

They should be able to write small reports, so courses that teach this are an added advantage. But with that being said, nothing can beat experience, I have no qualifications above Class 10, Subramaniam says.

He says that the field has become extremely competitive with smartphones coming into the picture.

Reporters, nowadays, feel like an image they click with a smartphone will suffice for their story. For us to survive, we constantly have to innovate and train the eye to see beyond the usual frames, he adds.

Vaishnavi does not think it is an easy field to break into; she doesnt think she has completely cracked it either. There are stories of people who slog for months and years as unpaid interns, but still dont get a job. Its even more difficult for women, she says.

Freelancing opportunities galore

Samyukta says being a freelancer does not mean you are less successful. One constantly has to hustle, but she enjoys it more than being a staff photographer. While there is a higher risk in terms of income, its more fulfilling to be able to work for different publications, she says.

Vaishnavi works freelance and in the NGO space, which she says can be a double-edged sword. I dont have to censor my work to fit a certain ideal, but I do wish I had guidance since Ive barely been in the field for the five years, she says.

A woman in the field

Samyukta says that being a woman can have its pros and cons. Safety is a prime issue: The best way to combat it is to research and prepare. You should know where youre going, who will be there, who your fixers are. Vaishnavi adds that sometimes even if they are prepared, there is always reluctance to send a woman photographer to a charged situation.

Samyukta says that her gender helps when trying to get people more comfortable. Women photographers definitely have an edge when covering women: they always open up to us more comfortably, she explains.

Vaishnavi adds, Im young and five feet tall, which makes me more accessible to the people I shoot. They dont see me as a towering figure.

Mental health

Samyukta says that when she is on the field she concentrates solely on getting the best pictures. In a way, I am detached until my day ends, thats when all the physical and mental exhaustion hits. To deal with this, Ive turned towards activities like yoga that help me relax, she says. Vaishnavi says the kind of attachment you have to a project and how long you spend with it changes the way it affects you. I have been covering various protests, but since they are short-term I dont really have the time to interact with people and empathise, she says.

On the other hand, her longest project, the movement against mining at Hasdeo, had a significant impact on her.

On my first visit, I had taken a picture of a father and son and on my next visit, I found out that they had passed away. That took a great toll on my mental health. Its an inexplicable feeling to think that your photograph of someone might be the last reminder of their life, she says.

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Pro ways to capture emotions - Deccan Herald

The creator of Pepe the Frog the comic character that became an alt-right-troll meme attempts to reclaim his creation in the new trailer for Feels Good Man, a documentary about cartoonist Matt Furie and the unintentional evolution of his anthropomorphized amphibian.

In the trailer for the Sundance award-winning film, Furies beloved happy little frog is co-opted by white-supremacy groups, which the cartoonist helplessly witnesses. Im just a spectator to how things evolved on the internet, Furie says in the preview.

In November 2016, a nasty election cycle had exposed a seismic cultural rift, and the country suddenly felt like a much different place. For underground cartoonist Matt Furie, that sensation was even more surreal. Furies comic creation Pepe the Frog, conceived more than a decade earlier as a laid-back humanoid amphibian, had unwittingly become a grotesque political pawn, the documentarys synopsis states. Feels Good Man is a Frankenstein-meets-Alice in Wonderland journey of an artist battling to regain control of his creation while confronting a disturbing cast of characters who have their own peculiar attachments to Pepe.

The Arthur Jones-directed doc arrives on September 4th.

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Pepe the Frog Creator Tries to Reclaim Meme in Feels Good Man Doc Trailer - Rolling Stone

Pepe the Frog celebrated his fifteenth birthday this year, but chances are you first stumbled upon him during the 2016 US election in the pungent depths of a racist Twitter thread. That was the year when Matt Furies cartoon went from being a happy little frog to becoming the unexpected mascot of the alt-right movement.

The history behind Pepe is complicated bordering on indecipherable, much like anything that grew to prominence on 4chan, the controversial anonymous message board that has long harboured racists, sexists and political extremists. The cartoon first appeared as a meme on the forum in 2008 after being lifted from Furies 'Boys Club #1' comic strip, and it gained such popularity that even Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj shared Pepe images on social media. Eight years later it was official recognised as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League. So what changed?

Feels Good Man, the Sundance award-winning documentary from Arthur Jones, follows Furie around as he attempts to repair his infamous cartoons reputation. But can Pepe be redeemed, or is he better left to fester with the white supremacists of the world? The fact that he has recently been co-opted by Hong Kong protestors would suggest that Furis frog still wields some power; that his prominent place in politics is, bafflingly, far from over.

Describing the film, director Jones says: The movie is really about him negotiating that uncomfortable reality for himself, [...] Matts personal journey really makes the movie really unique that I hope a lot of people find satisfying for a lot of reasons.

First and foremost, its a story about how powerless we become after we put something into the world. As Furie says: Im just a spectator to how things evolved on the internet.

Feels Good Man will be available streaming and on demand in the US on 4 September. A UK date is yet to be announced.

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'Feels Good Man' Will Try To Save Pepe The Frog, The Innocent Cartoon That Became A Hate Symbol - esquire.com