Inside the rarified atmosphere of the Great Hall of the People, the aroma of disinfectant will mingle with a whiff of economic distress. A toxic mix before Premier Li Keqiang gives his annual state-of-the-union-style speech at the National People’s Congress in Beijing later this week. Outside, the air will be virulent as the fallout from the […]
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing deal on Sunday, signalling the end of a months-long stalemate that plunged the country into a political crisis. The breakthrough, which sees Abdullah heading peace talks with the Taliban, comes as Afghanistan battles a rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus and surging violence that saw […]
Trump remains the unpredictable force that he has been since he began running for the presidency. Trump’s presidency could be destroyed by the pandemic if it continues to rage and the economy remains stagnant or worse. But Trump has shown that he is the ultimate political survivor. Biden should beware. Read Here – The National […]
The hybrid regime ruling Pakistan – a political party backed by the military establishment – has been doing everything to suppress the opposition and dissenting voices in the press but has failed miserably to change the economic fortunes of the country or to bring normalcy to the political discourse. Read Here – Asia Times
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 […]
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 […]
That Trump—in the throes of the worst public health crisis in more than a century and the most devastating economic downturn since the Great Depression—is writing rosy history long before it has actually happened might seem audacious… But this is a page from a playbook Trump has used many times before. Read Here – Politico
The ability of China to eventually control the outbreak in Hubei Province may lend superficial credibility to the claim that autocracies are better than democracies at managing public health crises. However, democracies across the world have demonstrated their own ability to flatten the curve, with several democratic countries around the world starting to ease lockdown […]
In the two decades since rising to the top of the Kremlin, Putin has consolidated power and strengthened Russia’s role on the world stage. Many of these changes, which have come at no small cost, would have been unfathomable at the turn of the century; Putin’s election marked the country’s first democratic change of power. […]
One needs an expert driver, but the driver does not get to decide where to go. As data, knowledge, technology and expertise are available for hire and purchase, the real mark of a leader will increasingly be his or her intuitive power and instinctive capability to understand the public mood and influence it. Emotions unfettered […]
looking beyond borders 