NEW DELHI — Many people around the world already consider the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow a disappointment. That is a massive understatement.

NEW DELHI — The Apocalypse is now. That is the glaring message of the perfect storm of COVID-19 and climate change that has now broken. The pandemic is unlikely to end for years, as the novel coronavirus mutates into increasingly transmissible, drug-resistant variants.

NEW DELHI — Once again, emerging markets are on the capital-flows roller coaster — one no less dizzying for being so familiar. And once again, the highs and lows of financial-market swings in these economies are mostly generated by external forces, not national policies.

NEW DELHI — The Biden administration’s decision to stop opposing a proposed COVID-19 waiver of certain intellectual-property rights under World Trade Organisation(WTO) rules is a welcome move.

NEW DELHI — One of the most significant socioeconomic changes accelerated by COVID-19 must surely be the rise of digital labour platforms. Of course, platform-based employment had already been growing exponentially before the pandemic.

NEW DELHI — On March 10, the credit-rating agency Moody’s placed Ethiopia on review for a downgrade. The problem is not violence and repression in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region.

NEW DELHI  —  The European Union has changed its economic policy for the better by agreeing on a 1.8 trillion euros post-pandemic stimulus plan to be financed directly through the EU budget.

NEW DELHI  —  On January 6, when a mob of US President Donald Trump’s supporters breached the Capitol with shocking ease, the world’s already-low expectations of the United States plummeted.

NEW DELHI — The American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have announced that the COVID-19 vaccine they are jointly developing was more than 90 per cent effective in early clinical trials.