Dispatches
Where in the world everybody is going
The Top 10 tourist destinations around the globe Each year, people around the world leave home searching for adventure or a change of scenery. While most tend to travel mainly within their own region, international travel has become a dynamic and profitable business. In 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there […]
Africa’s economic prospects
Population numbers throughout most of Africa will continue to increase severely over the next 30 years. Unless women in sub-Saharan Africa suddenly stop having more than two and sometimes as many as seven children, the gross labour force, unskilled and skilled, in almost every country will continue to grow despite existing, and alarming, unemployment rates […]
Who fills the vacuum?
In December 2018, the Trump White House ordered the Pentagon to plan for a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to officials, plans for this complete withdrawal must be prepared sometime thiAs year. Interestingly, this order follows the Trump administration’s announcement that it is also pulling all American forces out of Syria after claiming victory over […]
What happens in Syria now?
The United States’ entry into the coalition fight against the Islamic State began in 2015; the Islamic State had cut out large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, claiming a caliphate. In the following three years, the self-declared caliphate has all but been eradicated; however, throughout Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State (IS) has […]
The world’s best national debt managers
Debt is a powerful force, with total global government debt exceeding US$65 trillion, up from $37 trillion a decade earlier. Wolfgang Depner examines global debt and gives shout-outs to the world’s best financial bosses. It was a small but symbolic occasion. For the first time in 20 years, Germany’s debt counter reversed direction in January […]
The inequality conundrum
Humans have discussed the origin and outcomes of income inequality for millenniums. The sacred texts of all major monotheistic religions generally denounce it, but contemporary interpretations of the same faiths often disagree about the best way to remedy it, or if a remedy is even necessary. Aristotle considered it corrosive for political communities; European medieval […]
Outlook for Asia in 2019
At the UN General Assembly in September, U.S. President Donald Trump projected an “America First” worldview that American sovereignty and national interests were more important than multilateral international institutions and agreements. Conversely, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been attempting to increase his country’s involvement in international organizations and multilateral pacts. Last autumn, CNN geopolitics analyst […]
Africa: What to expect in 2019
Africa in 2019 will continue to cope with a number of difficult and debilitating challenges: Terror, civil conflict, climate warming and drought, corruption, poor governance, weak rules of law and inconsistent and lacklustre leadership. For all of those reasons, sub-Saharan African migrants will still attempt, in great numbers, to enter Europe by crossing the Sahara […]
Russia: More of the same in 2019
Based on its current behaviour and existing trends, what can we expect from Russia in 2019? Unfortunately, we should expect more of the same. This conclusion about the continuation of this state of siege in Moscow’s relations with the West flows directly from the nature of Russia’s regime. Without a marked change in the regime’s […]
The online threat to democracy
When U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in late October 2018, one of the clear messages he delivered to Putin was to stop meddling in U.S. elections. Bolton underlined that Russian interference, particularly in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, had damaged Russia’s own interests and also been “particularly harmful […]
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