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
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 […]
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, […]
Over recent weeks, the United States and China have been using increasingly strong rhetoric around COVID-19. The war of words had real-life consequences in late March when a meeting of the G7 failed to agree a joint statement following US State Department’s insistence on referring to the virus as the “Wuhan Virus”. How have the two […]
1 Rigged!: Who governs the US? 2 The Great Decoupling 3 US/China 4 MNCs not to the rescue 5 India gets Modi-fied 6 Geopolitical Europe 7 Politics vs. economics of climate change 8 Shia crescendo 9 Discontent in Latin America 10 Turkey Read Here – Eurasia Group
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a global public health disaster of almost biblical proportions. It is a once-in-a-century occurrence that threatens to destroy countless lives, ruin economies, and stress national and international institutions to their breaking point. And, even after the virus recedes, the geopolitical wreckage it leaves in its wake could be profound. Read Here […]
The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus closed in on 100,000 as Christians around the globe marked a Good Friday unlike any other — in front of computer screens instead of in church pews — and some countries tiptoed toward reopening segments of their battered economies. Read Here – APNews
The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented threat to both public health and the global economy. Only by ditching nationalist rhetoric and policies, and embracing stronger international cooperation, can governments protect the people they claim to represent. Read Here – Project Syndicate
