OPINION

Opposition’s Assessment of Govt’s 2nd year in office

Economy This year the economy is projected to nosedive to between negative 2 to 6 percent growth rate. It makes the worst performance in our economic history. The shrinking fiscal space because of a hefty ‘debt burden’ of Nu.28 billion in the last two years will be a stumbling block …

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Designing Vaccines for People, Not Profits

LONDON – Recent announcements of demonstrated efficacy in COVID-19 vaccine trials have brought hope that a return to normality is in sight. The preliminary data for Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s novel mRNA vaccines are highly encouraging, suggesting that their approval for emergency use is forthcoming. And more recent news of effectiveness (albeit …

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The Global South’s Pandemic Path to Self-Reliance

MELBOURNE – COVID-19 continues to have a devastating impact on public health and to rattle the global economy with structural shocks. The pandemic has now killed more than one million people, while the International Monetary Fund estimates that global GDP will shrink by 4.4% in 2020. But, strange as it may seem, the current …

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Vaccine Apartheid

NEW DELHI – The American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have announced that the COVID-19 vaccine they are jointly developing was more than 90% effective in early clinical trials. The news raised hopes around the world that life may soon return to pre-pandemic normal. Those hopes may not last long. The …

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America’s Alliances After Trump

ATLANTA – America’s allies should be forgiven if they are confused about where American foreign policy is headed. Who isn’t, given the go-it-alone recklessness of Donald Trump’s presidency? Over the past three years, Trump has sowed strategic chaos, and his foreign policy, if one can call it that, brought new …

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Why America Must Lead Again

Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump By nearly every measure, the credibility and influence of the United States in the world have diminished since President Barack Obama and I left office on January 20, 2017. President Donald Trump has belittled, undermined, and in some cases abandoned U.S. allies and partners. …

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Post-Pandemic Geopolitics

CAMBRIDGE – There is no single future until it happens, and any effort to envision geopolitics in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic must include a range of possible futures. I suggest five plausible futures in 2030, but obviously others can be imagined. The end of the globalized liberal order. The …

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The Vise Tightens on the Dollar

NEW HAVEN – The US dollar has now entered the early stages of what looks to be a sharp descent. The dollar’s real effective exchange rate (REER) fell 4.3% in the four months ending in August. The decline has been even steeper as measured by other indexes, but the REER is what matters …

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Transforming Africa’s Agriculture

LONDON – Over the next 30 years, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will double to over two billion, and its economies will industrialize. Africa’s development will therefore be critical to the world’s future stability, prosperity, and health. Given this, the continent should be receiving much more international attention. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a …

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