In The News

Global Migration Trends Add Tensions: Asia Sentinel

John Berthelsen December 16, 2019
People migrate for wealthy nations for many reasons, economic and security, including poverty, disasters and conflict. Numerous businesses and families seek low-cost workers for household services, construction, farming and more, yet opposition to undocumented and even legal immigration is on the rise, suggests a new report on world immigration. The report warns that immigration is “weaponized”...

Downsizing and Letting Go: Stuff

Nick Barnett December 14, 2019
Older and younger people alike are reconsidering the size of their homes and how many belongings they should own. Decluttering and downsizing are in vogue, and many people conduct regular inventories to assess which belongings they have not used or touched during the previous year. “Moving from a regular house into a tiny house brought that reckoning forward for me,” writes Nick Barnett for Stuff...

$20 Trillion Threat of Climate Change: OilPrice.com

Nick Cunningham December 14, 2019
Businesses and investors who deny climate change is underway can anticipate the loss in trillions of market value. Natural disasters are on the rise and cost more, and entire asset classes and sectors can expect repricing. “One glaring example is the real estate market along coastlines, which will see both physical damage and a dramatic repricing as the threat becomes increasingly clear,”...

Polluting Firms to Be “Hit by Climate Policies”: BBC

Roger Harrabin December 11, 2019
Climate researchers overwhelmingly agree that carbon emissions are increasing global temperatures and contributing to worsening storms and rising seas. Most nations rallied around reducing carbon emissions with the Paris Accord in 2015. All levels of government are imposing policies aiming to reduce carbon emissions. As a result, carbon-intensive firms could lose 43 percent of their value and...

OPEC Cuts Production: Wall Street Journal

Summer Said, Benoit Faucon and David Hodari December 11, 2019
Saudi-led OPEC and Russia and its allies, 24 nations in all, agreed to implement an additional collective oil production curb of 500,000 barrels a day, pushing the Brent crude price up by 1.2 percent. The original pact was to hold back about 1.2 million barrels per day. Some analysts express doubt about the new pact’s effect because based on some independent estimates, Saudi Arabia’s production...

PISA Results Can Mislead Policymakers: Economist

December 9, 2019
The OECD initiated the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, about two decades ago, and students in select schools of member and some non-member states take the test every three years. PISA analyzes reading, math, and science skills of 15- and 16-year-old students. OECD released the newest results and although the expenditure per pupil in the OECD has increased by 15 percent in...

China Pushes NATO Together: CNN

James Griffiths December 6, 2019
NATO members gathered to celebrate the alliance’s 70th anniversary in London, but relations seemed rough. NATO, a legacy of the Cold War, originally focused on confronting the Soviet Union and communism. However, with the collapse of the common enemy, NATO member states increasingly disagree about the meaning of its existence. Under President Donald Trump, the United States has questioned the...