Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Insurers must embrace AI tools
Oped, Pierre du Rostu, Published on 09/04/2025
» Over the past year and a half, insurers have been pulling out of high-risk areas at an alarming rate. Nowhere has this been more obvious than in California, where wildfires have become more frequent and intense -- the Los Angeles conflagration in January being only the latest in a series of devastating blazes. And it's not just wildfires: the Golden State is also prone to large, damaging floods.
LA fires reveal limits of California's utility fund
News, Mark Chediak & Eliyahu Kamisher, Published on 21/01/2025
» Financial losses from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires are mounting after the blazes incinerated entire neighbourhoods and destroyed thousands of homes. And now, investors are growing increasingly concerned that a US$21 billion (720 billion baht) state fund crafted to backstop utilities will fall far short of what's needed if companies are found liable.
With Israel and Iran it's tit for tat for tit for tat...
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/10/2024
» It's more like a courtship ritual between exotic birds than a 21st-century war. First the Israelis assassinate Revolutionary Guard generals in an Iranian embassy on foreign soil. Tag. You're it.
Trillions at risk in Gulf investments
News, Mike Dolan, Published on 25/10/2024
» Fears that Middle East instability would create an energy price shock have proven unfounded over the past year. But investors may be thinking about this crisis' potential risk premium in the wrong way. Instead of focusing solely on energy prices, they should consider what could happen if an escalating conflict impacts Gulf states' trillions in global investments.
Handle Myanmar influxes with care
Oped, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Published on 19/04/2024
» 'Preparedness" and "humane response" offer keywords for handling the various mass influxes from Myanmar. Those influxes might range from civilians in search of refuge to fighters ("combatants") in flight, all the more poignant today because of the armed conflagration in that country and the precarious border situation.
An Israel-Palestine conflict explainer
News, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Published on 23/10/2023
» The armed attacks by militants from the Gaza Strip, an area controlled primarily by the Hamas group, into southern Israel in early October and the subsequent armed responses from Israel deserve to be put in a historical and political context. Gaza is one of the two parts of Palestinian territory, the other part being the West Bank, both of which are part of an age-old conflict which has not been resolved but regrettably has been left to fester.
Risks of effectively aiding people
News, Emmanuel Jimenez, Published on 20/06/2022
» At the end of December 2019, as I was moving from New Delhi to what I thought would be a leisurely retirement in Manila, I was complacent. The events that have buffeted the world since then, if I even thought of them, would have seemed to be total fantasy.
Covid-19 and the structural crises of our time
Oped, Lim Mah Hui & Michael Heng Siam-Heng, Published on 07/09/2021
» The Covid-19 pandemic devastating as it is not simply a health crisis. It is the product of an interlocking web of diverse problems that have been building up over time. Given the structural nature of this crisis, even as the embers of the immediate fire of infections and deaths burn out, the fallout from the conflagration will continue, taking different forms in its wake, including the rise of yet another pandemic.
Stench of anti-Chinese racism is deeply ingrained
Oped, Hsuan L Hsu, Published on 20/03/2021
» Since the arrival of Covid-19, people assumed to be Chinese have been stared at, yelled at, coughed on, spat on, sprayed with air freshener, beaten, splashed with acid, pushed, stabbed, and murdered -- sometimes for simply occupying public space. I have thought twice about spending time in public on days when allergies to cats, pollen or wildfire smoke might make me susceptible to the hazards of "coughing while Asian".
Against all odds, young demonstrators persevere
News, Phil Cunningham, Published on 20/10/2020
» Youthful demonstrators across Thailand loosely linked by smartphones and smart-aleck attitudes have found a way to gather, taunt and disperse with subterfuge and speed.