As with every aspect of the pandemic-postponed Olympics, the virus will cast a long shadow on how people are fed
The Tokyo Olympic Games are finally upon us. Most of the attention will be given to the athletes, the sports, the empty stands and, of course, COVID-19. But every Olympics brings the gigantic task of feeding an entire village of high-performing humans from all over the world. In Tokyo, that means organizers need to feed…
The U.S. and its allies should signal in no uncertain terms that dragging the world into war over Taiwan would impose severe costs on China
The increase in Chinese military activity near Taiwan over the past year has engendered a tremendous amount of commentary and analysis from various circles, professional and not. With People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft intruding into Taiwan’s southern Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) occurring on a near-daily basis, and with record-breaking numbers in some instances, the…
Dealing with only one side of an issue – whether it’s migrating fish or electric cars – can generate more problems than it solves
Economists often talk about over-constrained problems. These are situations where there are so many goals to be reached and/or so many limitations that it’s impossible to find a solution that meets all requirements. Contrast this with advice often given to politicians to never talk about anything that can’t be fully described on a bumper sticker.…
Decentralization of supply management led to better results
Vaccines are seen as the key to ending the COVID-19 crisis. But creating a vaccine is one thing; having enough of it for the population is another. Here comes the problem of supply management. From the beginning of the crisis, many pharmacy laboratories worldwide tried to develop a vaccine against the virus. Some of them…
A profile of someone who has been in the public eye most of his life but achieved little of note isn’t a worthwhile subject
Prince Harry is writing a book. Hmm. The crickets are pretty loud today. All kidding aside, it’s true. “The Duke of Sussex is to publish an intimate memoir of his life,” the Daily Telegraph’s Victoria Ward wrote on July 19, “which he has vowed will be ‘accurate and wholly truthful.’” The book will be published by…
Communist dictator Xi Jinping showers praise on the 33 Senators who deny he is perpetrating genocide
If there was any doubt that foreign propaganda is influencing Canadian democracy, the defeat of a Senate motion to recognize the Uyghur genocide last month should remove it. In total, 33 Canadian Senators voted to turn their backs on millions of Muslim Uyghur victims and their families and were hailed by Beijing as “people of…
All eyes are focused on Saudi Arabia. Will it continue to single-handedly maintain stability in the markets?
Uncertainty has overtaken the crude oil markets again for several reasons. Since March, crude oil markets have mostly been ascending. But prices declined last week by a greater margin than any time in the last four-plus months. And the resurgence of COVID-19 in many parts of the world is clouding the near-term future of oil.…
The plight of global millions fleeing persecution goes unnoticed while our attention is fixed on the pandemic
They are the wretched of the earth (to use Haitian writer Franz Fanon’s phrase), the world’s homeless wanderers. Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, stated recently in his official Twitter account that, during the past year when the pandemic put much of the world on hold, 82.4 million people were forced to flee their…
Centerra is being held hostage by Kyrgyzstan but, fortunately, it is no longer part of a Crown corporation so taxpayers aren't on the hook
Centerra, a mid-size Canadian gold-mining company, is engaged in a legal and political dispute with the government of Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia with a chronically unstable and fractious political class and culture. Its main asset, the Kumtor mine, is in that troubled land and the source of roughly half of its…
U.A.E. prepares for a post-oil world, endeavouring to make the best of the oil it has before demand shrinks for good
Crude oil markets have left a confused picture and observers can’t decipher where prices will stabilize. In the immediate aftermath of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fiasco last week, oil prices were on a slippery slope. OPEC+ ministers halted crude oil output talks on July 5 after the United Arab Emirates rejected a…