From coronavirus to climate change, China is surging ahead of the US and its allies. Are we witnessing the slow death of liberal capitalism?
Lan Hongguang/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images
16 April 2020 (openDemocracy)* — Amidst the turmoil in global financial markets in recent weeks, something unusual has happened.
Investors, seeking shelter from the coronavirus-linked sell-off, have piled into Chinese government bonds on an unprecedented scale. These purchases have increased the total foreign ownership of Beijing’s bonds to record highs, even as much of the country is still emerging from lockdown after the viral outbreak.
15 April 2020 (UN Environment)* — As COVID-19 has expanded around the globe, many of our worlds have seemed to shrink. We see too little of nature, receive too much bad news, and settle for virtual companionship in place of actual community.
Photo by Unsplash/ Joshua Earle
A post-COVID-19 world will not be the same one we knew before, but it can be a better one. “When we get past this crisis, which we will, we will face a choice,” says United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres. “We can go back to the world as it was before or deal decisively with those issues that make us all unnecessarily vulnerable to the crises.”
The changes that we must make to create a better world after the pandemic
We will be faced with the problem of rebuilding the world after the enormous economic and human destruction which the disease will have left in its wake | Image from Wall Street International.
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15 April 2020 (Wall Street International)* — I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the changes that we must make to create a better world after the pandemic has ended. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2020 (IPS)* – President Donald Trump’s threat to abruptly cut all US funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) has been described as ‘reckless and deadly”—particularly at a time when the Geneva-based UN agency was engaged in an uphill battle against the spreading coronavirus.