It is time to revisit China. Of late, Xi Jinping, the country’s ruler, seems to be taking fashion advice from his elusive counterpart just across the border in North Korea, replacing his stylish suit and tie for the drab attire that marked the Maoist Era. With a somewhat disconcerting frequency,...

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil remains without equal. Mr Bolsonaro not only mimics the behaviour of his US counterpart Donald Trump, whom he considers a good friend and model leader, but takes the art of indifference to an entirely new level....

‘Deplatforming’ is alive and kicking, and apparently not affected by the pandemic. Controversial US filmmaker Michael Moore was loudly booed after the release of his latest documentary in which he questions the dogmas surrounding climate change. The film was met with cries of shame and calls to outlaw its showing....

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop and so is an idle mind. Being cooped up at home is an open invitation to bodily harm and unhinges the mental balance as well. The wielding of potentially lethal tools to craft do-it-yourself hobby objects that usually offend any lingering sense of aesthetics...

Disconcerting news from Germany. The corona reproduction rate (R) has crept back up from 0.7 to 1, meaning that every person carrying the virus, knowingly or otherwise, on average infects one other person. The news, not entirely unexpected after last week’s easing of the lockdown restrictions, prompted Dr Lothar Wieler...

The global cost of the corona pandemic now approaches the $10 trillion mark. This is the price of the handouts, tax deferrals, and loan guarantees extended by governments trying to nurse their societies back to health. Only a fraction of that money may, in the fulness of time, be recouped....

In the good old days, the likes of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez entertained their people with seemingly unending ramblings about nearly every topic under the sun. Both rulers are now dead, but a few presidents still cling to notions of omniscience and feel the need to shine their light...

Just like a particle accelerator produces a string of strange phenomena, a pandemic-stressed economy churns out elements that do not comply to long-standing theories. Negative interest rates and like oil prices are but two of the curios that breeched the walls of convention. The former already existed in the pre-corona...

Most news cycles only last a few days. Major events may capture the readers’ attention for perhaps a week or two before they are demoted to the inside pages only to drop out altogether a few days later. The intensity of news coverage is also inversely proportional to the distance...

During the early 1980s, the architect of the Brazil’s ‘economic miracle’ was vilified almost unanimously after he sacrificed monetary stability on the altar of growth. Between 1979 and 1985 Delfim Netto, now 91, was in charge of economic planning under the country’s last military dictator, General João Figueiredo. However, after...