China should prepare for more inflammatory comments from US President Donald Trump and his team as relations between the two countries come under increasing pressure due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic recession it created, according to observers. Read Here – South China Morning Post
The Boxer Protocol was an unequal treaty that recognised the right of foreign powers to station troops in China. Many believe it precipitated the fall of the Qing dynasty. The memories are bitter. But China today is the world’s second-largest economy, and a global power that is feared by others. It cannot continue to be […]
COVID-19 will trigger a sharp drop in household incomes in Middle East and North African (MENA) countries that are fragile and in conflict situations, such as Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, and Somalia. As export earnings suffer and social distancing reduces domestic activity, incomes will decline—especially for informal and low-skilled workers, including within large internally displaced […]
By many measures, 2020 is looking to be the worst year that humankind has faced in many decades. We’re in the midst of a pandemic… The world economy is in free fall, with unemployment rising dramatically, trade and output plummeting, and no hopeful end in sight. A plague of locusts is back for a second time […]
The viruses and related diseases are not necessarily new but the spillover to humans appears to be occurring with increasing frequency. These viruses are unfamiliar to human immune systems and therein lies the problem… When further propagated by global supply chains, what previously might have been isolated pockets of disease turn into global concerns—and in […]
The U.S. Labor Department last week reported unemployment at 14.7%, with 20 million jobs lost in April. Administration economists warn US output may plummet at a 40% annual rate in the second quarter. Those staggering measures of economic suffering do not guarantee that President Donald Trump will meet the same one-term fate as Bush, who lost to […]
While many early indicators suggested that the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to contain it would be damaging to the labor economy, we’re now getting a fuller picture of just how bad the situation is in the United States. Read Here – Vox
So far, most investors have viewed the easing of lockdown measures as a big positive for markets….It’s true that for the economy to begin climbing out of a sharp recession, businesses must be allowed to reopen and restrictions on movement have to be lifted. But reopening also carries with it fresh risks. Read Here – CNN
The COVID-19 crisis is now widely seen as the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. In January, the IMF expected global income to grow 3 percent; it is now forecast to fall 3 percent, much worse than during the Great Recession of 2008-09. Behind this dire statistic is an even grimmer possibility: if past pandemics are […]
To say that COVID-19 changes everything is already a cliché. But it’s also true. The pandemic is deepening tension between China and the United States, accelerating the digitalisation of commerce, and shining a bright light on the inequalities that divide our societies. It is also triggering dramatic knock-on effects in the criminal underworld. Read Here […]
looking beyond borders 