World Health Organization

• Talleyrand was an archetypal exponent of realpolitik, and history provides numerous examples of the validity of his remark.
• One is the prolonged US bombing of North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam war in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
• Though the ministry is managed by Hamas, the World Health Organization describes its data collection as “credible and well developed”.
• Israel claims 13,000 of those killed were Hamas fighters, though it has not said how it calculated that figure.

Claims of poor coordination refuted

• The IDF and defence ministry claimed the strikes on the World Central Kitchen vehicles followed misidentification and poor coordination at night in complex war conditions because of suspicion an armed militant was travelling with them.
• The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing defence sources, has refuted these claims.
• The army’s killing of seven aid workers in the Gaza Strip on Monday night “stemmed from poor discipline among field commanders, not a lack of coordination between the army and aid organisations”.

How will this affect Australia’s position?

• Albanese said he expressed Australia’s outrage at Frankcom’s death and said he wanted “full accountability”.
• He added that he made clear Australia believes humanitarian assistance must reach people in Gaza unimpeded and in large quantities.
• It also suggested Netanyahu has a closer eye on his political standing in Israel than the international reaction to the deaths.

Don’t expect much change

• The reality is not much is likely to change in terms of Australia’s dealings with Israel.
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong has already made clear no Australian military equipment has been sold to Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
• Australia’s defence exports to Israel are in any case miniscule – A$13 million over the past five years.
• Wong has said many times Israel has the right to defend itself but the way it does so matters.

Ian Parmeter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• We find that credit demand is highest when
  the first lockdown ends and it drops when supportive monetary compensation schemes are implemented.
• Credit is more likely to be
  accepted under favourable borrowing conditions and after the approval of national recovery plans.
• We also find
  that demographic, economic factors, perceptions and expectations are associated with the demand for credit and
  the credit grant.
• First, it adds to a rapidly growing literature on household
  borrowing behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic; see, for example, Ho et al.
• We provide evidence that credit applications and credit acceptances display a different pattern over
  time.
• Credit is more likely to be accepted under favourable borrowing conditions and after the
  approval of national recovery plans.
• In almost all countries
  households are significantly less likely to apply and to get their credit approved than in Germany.
• In line with literature, we show that
  demographic and economic factors affect the probability for credit applications and credit approval.
• In addition,
  the paper shows that consumer perceptions and expectations matter when they decide to apply for credit.
• Introduction

  The participation of households in the credit market receives wide attention in the consumer finance literature
  because consumer credit enters the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the so-called ?credit
  channel?: changes in credit demand and supply have an effect on consumers' spending and investment, which in
  turn affect economic growth.

• We use microdata from the ECB?s Consumer Expectations Survey (hereinafter CES), a survey that
  measures consumer expectations and behaviour in the euro area.
• Its panel dimension allows for an assessment of
  how consumer behaviour changes over time and how consumers respond to critical economic shocks.
• This way we can gauge how credit applications and credit acceptances change under different, almost
  opposite, borrowing conditions.
• We also distinguish between the demand for long-term secured loans (mortgages) and for short-term
  uncollateralized loans (consumer loans).
• ECB Working Paper Series No 2922

  3

  We use probit models to estimate the probability of the consumer to apply for credit and the credit being granted.

• The rate peaks in 2020Q3 which reflects the rebound in the demand for loans when the first lockdown ended.
• In almost all countries households are significantly less likely
  to apply and to get their credit approved than in Germany.
• However,
  when it comes to credit acceptance, we observe that the two groups of households are more similar.
• Finally, we find some heterogeneity with respect to the type of credit, particularly between secured and unsecured
  debt.
• The demand for
  consumer credit is insignificant for liquid households and decreases significantly for constrained households in
  the last two quarters of our timespan.
• The first consists of a recently growing literature which
  explores consumer behaviour in the credit market during the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly in the United States.
• Sandler and Ricks (2020) show that consumers did not use credit card debt for financial liquidity in the early stage
  of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• (2020) report that credit card applications and new mortgage loans
  declined during the first months of the pandemic in regions with more unemployment insurance claims.
• Lu and
  Van der Klaauw (2021) show that there was a sharp drop in consumer credit demand, especially for credit cards.
• (2022) document that there was a substantial decrease in the usage of credit cards and home equity lines
  of credit by Canadian consumers.
• Our paper is also consonant with studies on the association between financial and demographic factors and
  consumers? participation in the credit market as well as on the demand for specific types of credit.
• January 2020 ? October 2020 - The two main events are the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the
  consequential lockdowns in the euro area.
• 4 If the
  respondent has applied for more than one type of credit, she is asked to refer to the most recent credit application.
• Between 2021Q3 and 2022Q3 the acceptance
  rate stays above the average values, mirroring the easing of credit standards for consumer credit and other lending
  to households during this period.
• Second, we can investigate the presence of nonlinearities in how liquidity and the credit type interact in explaining credit applications.
• (2023) ? who show that in the United States the local pandemic severity had a strong
  negative effect on credit card spending early in the pandemic, which diminished over time.
• First, we select mortgages and consumer credit as the two mostly reported categories for secured and

  13

  The full estimation results are reported in Table 3.

• The right-hand side panel of Figure 6 shows that the demand for consumer credit is insignificant for both liquid
  and illiquid households.
• It also shows that
  subjective perceptions of credit access, financial concerns and expectations on interest rates matter for the demand
  for credit.
• In Bertola, G., Disney
  R., and Grant, C. (eds) The Economics of Consumer Credit, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.
• Horvath, A., Kay, B. and Wix, C. (2023) The COVID-19 shock and consumer credit: Evidence from credit card
  data.
• Magri, S. (2007) Italian households? debt: The participation to the debt market and the size of the loan.

• Baltimore, Md., March 06, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the eve of International Women’s Day, Jhpiego joined a historic wave of commitments to ending cervical cancer as a public health problem as part of the global Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative meeting in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia .
• Jhpiego is also committed in supporting at least five other countries for HPV vaccine coverage improvement and/or implementation of tailored interventions to increase HPV vaccine coverage.
• Jhpiego has long been committed to integrated programs that link improved screening and treatment for cervical cancer as well as accelerating vaccine uptake.
• We are inspired by these new commitments to work together across the whole spectrum of cervical cancer responses; together we have the potential to save many more women’s lives.”

• On World Hearing Day, GN is launching a stigma-busting photography campaign showcasing real people with hearing loss – from world-class athletes to award-winning musicians – wearing their modern-day hearing aids.
• BALLERUP, Denmark, March 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today GN launches The New Norm, a campaign aiming to tackle the visual misperception people have of modern hearing aids, which contributes to the high level of untreated hearing loss.
• In response, GN, a global leader in hearing technology, worked with photographer Gala Ricote (who has worn hearing aids for over 20 years) to photograph six inspiring hearing aid wearers.
• The New Norm image bank provides access to free, high-quality images that represent the modern era of hearing aids and celebrates life with hearing loss.