In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations. Read Here – APNews
In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, national responses are vital, but in the medium term, international cooperation will be our best weapon. And reforming and reinforcing the institutions and mechanisms that underpin such cooperation will be our best defense against future global threats. Read Here – Project Syndicate
Despite the obvious public health benefits of suspending the umrah and hajj, Saudi Arabia will pay a heavy cost for its prudence. Pilgrims bring in billions of dollars to the country every year, so the Saudi economy will suffer as long as the crisis lasts. Another loss is less quantifiable, but just as significant: pilgrimage […]
President Donald Trump is squabbling with governors and calling on a new council of corporate executives as he tries to reopen the American economy as quickly as possible. But his powers are limited not just by the Constitution but by the fact that he has limited sway over the real economy. Read Here – Politico
Why has the WHO failed so miserably in tackling the coronavirus crisis? The answer is in the acronym. The key problem at the WHO isn’t corruption or mismanagement, though the WHO has a terrible track record on both. It’s “who” is at the top: director-general Tedros Adhanom. Read Here – The National Interest Also Read: […]
India extended a lockdown on its 1.3 billion people until at least May 3 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said economic sacrifices were needed to save lives as the number of coronavirus cases exceeded 10,000. A few hours after Modi spoke, police baton-charged protesting migrant workers in Mumbai. Read Here – Reuters
Two months ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping looked like he would emerge from the novel coronavirus pandemic with his legitimacy and his ambitions for Chinese global leadership in tatters. Today, as the Chinese government lifts its lockdown on the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, Xi can present himself instead as a forceful […]
An economy without crowds is not a “new normal.” It may be more like the new anomie, to borrow Émile Durkheim’s term for the sense of disconnectedness. For most people, the word “fun” is almost synonymous with “crowd.” The coming year will be a time of depression in the psychological as well as the economic […]
Under the assumption that the pandemic and required containment peaks in the second quarter for most countries in the world, and recedes in the second half of this year, in the April World Economic Outlook we project global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent. This is a downgrade of 6.3 percentage points from January 2020, […]
In the mid-twentieth century, modern art and design represented the liberalism, individualism, dynamic activity, and creative risk possible in a free society. Jackson Pollock’s gestural style, for instance, drew an effective counterpoint to Nazi, and then Soviet, oppression. Modernism, in fact, became a weapon of the Cold War. Both the State Department and the CIA supported exhibitions […]
