To de-weaponise human rights and restore global peace requires a shift of architecture from competition to cooperation COMMENT | CRISPIN KAHERU | Speaking at the official opening of the Forum on Global Human Rights Governance at the Capital Hotel in Beijing, China on June 14, 2023, I made a presentation on …
Read More »Threads versus Twitter
Why Meta’s app is the biggest threat to Twitter yet after gaining 30 million users in less than 24 hours of launch COMMENT | LISA M. GIVEN | The launch of social media app Threads as a competitor to Twitter is a game-changer. Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, launched …
Read More »Focus on productivity, not technology
New technologies may fail to lift all boats because their benefits can be captured by a small group COMMENT | DANI RODRIK | Economists have long argued that productivity is the foundation of prosperity. The only way a country can increase its standard of living sustainably is to produce more goods …
Read More »A world of cronyism and corruption
To eliminate it, we must first improve our understanding of its mechanisms and incentive structures COMMENT | KAUSHIK BASU | Imagine the following scenario. A political outsider wins a critical election by promising to root out corruption. Even if that is a sincere intention, upon assuming office, they will quickly realise …
Read More »Energy transition is fueling power transition
It means seizing this moment of peril and possibility to ensure that women and girls fulfill their potential COMMENT | GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON | In the battle to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and avert the worst impacts of climate change, the world has a vast resource that remains largely untapped: women. Preventing …
Read More »The axis of denial
To escape politics of denial, we cannot just cling to multi-party democracy but build social consensus COMMENT | SLAVOJ ZIZEK | The wife of a drunkard is in bed with her lover when her husband unexpectedly stumbles in and climbs under the sheets. “Darling, I’m so drunk that I see six …
Read More »A mild global contraction is coming
While a severe credit crunch has been avoided, a short and shallow recession has become likely COMMENT | NOURIEL ROUBINI | There are currently four scenarios for the global economic outlook. Three of these entail potentially serious risks with far-reaching implications for markets. The most positive is a “soft landing,” where …
Read More »The costly return of geopolitics
This state of affairs should not only be better than previous state, it must cover evils of transition COMMENT | ROBERT SKIDELSKY | One of the regrettable consequences of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was the advent of the pseudoscience known as geopolitics. Drawing inspiration from Darwin’s concepts of …
Read More »An economic model for the AI age
Economic models require a rethink as workers may do little to drive growth, but benefit from it COMMENT | DAMBISA MOYO | In April, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai predicted that artificial intelligence would have an impact “more profound” than any other human innovation, from fire to electricity. While it is impossible …
Read More »Without whistleblowers, the West is lost
The biggest threat to Western democracies is the nihilism and self-indulgence in their politics COMMENT | SLAVOJ ZIZEK | Earlier this month, CNN reported that a British court has denied Wikileaks founder Julian Assange “permission to appeal an order to extradite him to the United States, where he faces criminal charges …
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