In The News

RSIS: G20 and Time for Greater Multilateral Role

Pradumna Bickram Rana and Xianbai Ji December 4, 2018
The world’s 20 largest economies have met annually for 10 years, since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, to plan economic cooperation. At this year’s summit in Argentina, the US and Chinese presidents agreed to a 90-day pause on the trade war and continue negotiations. The United States will delay raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. G20 leaders also supported “necessary...

Project Syndicate: Silent Inflation

Robert J. Shiller December 2, 2018
Central banks manage inflation for stability, and Yale economics professor Robert Shiller describes the challenge of “silent inflation” – the practice of central banks setting inflation targets ranging from below or near 2 percent for Europe, the United States and Japan to 13 percent for Egypt. “Such policies cause a sort of magnification of the present in the minds of most people,” Shiller...

Asia Times: Asia Cowers as Trump Battles Xi

William Pesek November 30, 2018
The world’s 20 largest economies gather in Buenos Aires for the G20 summit. Participants include the European Union and 19 nations, seven of which are in Asia. Asian nations worry about the ongoing trade fight between China and the United States, along with the threat of more tariffs, could trigger inflation and global recession. “The China-US trade brawl is the economic equivalent of giant...

DW: Far-Right Populists and Climate Policy

November 28, 2018
Virtually all climate researchers agree that the evidence reveals climate change spurred by human activities is underway. Yet right-wing skeptics reject the science as hoax, equating concern with “an irrational environmentalist religion,” reports Deutsche Welle. They obstinately compare themselves to Copernicus, the mathematician who angered religious leaders by proposing the sun was the center...

Japan Times: Delay in UN Security Council Reform

November 25, 2018
Developed and developing nation alike are impatient for reforms in the UN Security Council with its governance structure of permanent members, any of which can veto actons. “The negotiations have been going on for the past 10 years with various groups representing different positions on how reform should be manifested and has relied on a consensus-based decision-making style,” report Kyodo and...

National Geographic: AI and Wildlife Research

Anne Casselman November 23, 2018
Numerous wildlife species are in rapid decline. New software, photography, remote-sensing and other technologies like Wildbook assist biologists to document the decline, allowing calculation of individual species counts, locations and population assessments in a few days rather than months. Wildbook is free and open source. “AI is well on the road to completing tasks typically done manually by...

New York Times: “Like a Terror Movie”

John Schwartz November 20, 2018
Societies delayed reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and must now prepare to handle multiple disasters related to climate change – hurricanes, wildfires, flooding that kill and destroy property. A paper for Nature Climate Change projects future trends. “In a scientific world marked by specialization and siloed research, this multidisciplinary effort by 23 authors reviewed more than 3,000 papers...