In The News

Asia States Add to Oil Stockpiles: WSJ

River Davis and Trefor Moss May 3, 2020
Asia’s oil-consuming countries, such as China, South Korea and India, take advantage of plunging oil price to add to their strategic petroleum reserves. Since these countries have millions of barrels of spare capacity. Analysts suggest that such purchases would help stabilize oil prices. Oil prices have recently recovered a little from the historical negative prices, but remain down by two thirds...

Invisible Danger From Afar: Times of India

Nayan Chanda May 2, 2020
Travels and globalization have long been linked to new diseases that contributed to the death of millions: In the 1330s, the bubonic plague traveled along trade routes from China to Crimea and Europe. After 1492, European explorers introduced diseases like smallpox and diphtheria to the Americas, ravaging native populations. Such diseases disrupted trade for a spell, but innovations and...

Dire Diplomacy in Global “Race for Vaccine”: Wired

Brendan Borrell May 1, 2020
The US Naval Medical Research Center once had more than 12 labs around the world, developing foreign partnerships to identify emerging disease. A research team identified the avian flu in Indonesia in 2005, though the partnerships had been deteriorating in 1998 over concerns about vaccine sales, suspended aid and spying worries. The 9/11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis then reduced budgets...

Tribes Dream of a United Nagaland: Al Jazeera

April 30, 2020
Borders drawn by British colonialists for Myanmar and India divided indigenous peoples with long histories in the region. Though checkpoints and mountains divide the two nations, Naga tribes still talk about uniting the 3 million people living in India with the 400,000 in north Myanmar, one of that country’s poorest regions. The tribes, more fragmented over the years, also differ over rebel...

US-Iran Confrontation Escalates: New York Times

David E. Sanger, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt April 30, 2020
A few hours after Iran successfully sent its first “military satellite” into orbit, the US president declared on Twitter that he had asked the Navy to sink any Iranian fast boats that harass US warships in the Persian Gulf. The launch was significant for Iran because the satellite originated from a mobile launch vehicle, which could potentially launch missiles and deliver nuclear weapons....

Inevitable “Greater Depression”? Project Syndicate

Nouriel Roubini April 29, 2020
Tackling problems swiftly, well in advance, tends to produce better results than waiting for crisis. After the 2007-08 crisis, governments failed to address imbalances and other structural problems. Nouriel Roubini, writing for Project Syndicate, anticipates a lingering depression throughout the decade due to economic risks long in play combined with an uneven pandemic response. He identifies 10...

Radar to Detect Deforestation: ENS

April 29, 2020
Major palm oil producers and buyers – including Cargill, Mondelēz, Nestlé, Pepsico and Unilever – are supporting development of a radar system for monitoring deforestation in near real-time. “With this information, the companies say they can more quickly mobilize follow-up actions on the ground and work to improve the sustainability of commodity supply chains,” reports Environment News Service. “...