Showing 21 - 30 of 4,289
Why the US can't win trade war with China
Oped, Published on 22/05/2024
» Allegations about China's manufacturing overcapacity have sparked heated discussions among policymakers. During her visit to China in April, US Treasury Secretary Janet L Yellen reportedly argued that "when the global market is flooded by artificially cheap Chinese products, the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question", adding that it was the same story a decade ago.
Old rice, new debate
Oped, Postbag, Published on 21/05/2024
» Re: "Lab tests show rice 'edible' ", (BP, May 20) & "Push to sell old rice raises questions", (Post, May 19).
Green push needs united approach
News, Published on 20/05/2024
» Bridging the divide between agriculture and forestry is imperative for climate action. The global and national race is on to steeply reduce emissions over the next six years. According to the watershed Global Stocktake report, released ahead of COP28 in Dubai, we face the daunting task of reducing emissions by 43% by 2030 to retain the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, and 27% to stabilise at a 2-degree temperature increase. Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, we have managed only to be on track for a 2% reduction in emissions against 2019 baselines. Each subsequent year, we collectively feel the impacts of a hotter, more volatile climate as new records are set for temperature and natural disasters.
Thailand's cannabis U-turn is a cautionary tale
News, Published on 20/05/2024
» Turns out you can have too much of a good thing. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin ordered a U-turn on the country's landmark cannabis policy, saying the plant should be soon classified as a narcotic again and its use limited to medical and health purposes.
Talk show must be more than PR
Editorial, Published on 19/05/2024
» With the government stumbling from one controversy to another, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin's proposal to revive the premier-meets-the-people talk show is a promising idea, if it is honestly and effectively implemented.
Who pays the price?
Oped, Postbag, Published on 18/05/2024
» Re: "Clean air comes before animal feed", (Editorial, May 12).
The popular decimation of India's democracy
Oped, Pranab Bardhan, Published on 18/05/2024
» India's ongoing parliamentary election, in which nearly a billion people casting their votes over a six-week period, should represent an extraordinary exercise of democracy. The bleak reality, however, is that the election appears poised to consolidate a decade-long process of democratic decay, which has included the decimation of liberal institutions and practices and weakening of political competition. After all, the leader who has presided over this process -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- remains wildly popular.
Climate change poses health threat
Oped, Published on 17/05/2024
» It is widely believed that climate change is the single biggest threat to human health. A global temperature increase of 2C -- a threshold that will likely be exceeded by the end of the century -- could claim as many as one billion lives, with extreme weather events, heatwaves, droughts, flooding, infectious disease outbreaks, and food shortages among the causes of death. But the situation may, in fact, be far worse because the current forecasts fail to account for the inevitable increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Stark reality behind economic figures
Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 16/05/2024
» At the time of writing this, the official Q1 GDP has not been announced by the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC). I expect the growth figure will be around 1.2%. My own estimation, using the Output Approach and actual sectoral production index, gives a growth figure of 0.98%. Detailed data are in the below table.
A turning point for clean cooking
Oped, Published on 15/05/2024
» For most of her life, Florence Auma Ode cooked over an open fire in her Kenyan home. The resulting smoke coated the walls with a layer of soot and filled her lungs -- and those of her family members -- with particulate matter.