David Bakradze, RCWorld
In early March, the governing and opposition parties in the nation of Georgia came together in a historic agreement to reform the country’s electoral laws, and, to once again, affirm the country’s commitment to Western values and to democracy.
Andrew Green, WPR
Governments across Africa are taking drastic steps to try and slow the spread of the coronavirus, from implementing strict curfews to releasing prisoners from overcrowded jails. This week, Ethiopia became the first African country to postpone an election over concerns that holding the vote would worsen the pandemic. Its highly anticipated general election is now delayed indefinitely.
Jacob Shapiro
William Pesek, Nikkei
With US, Europe and Japan all struggling, there is no one to buy Chinese goods.
HKS PolicyCast
Adam Tooze, New Statesman
How the crises of our times pose fundamental questions about the role of the nation state in our survival
Gavin Mortimer, Spectator
What with the wall-to-wall media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic it had rather slipped one's mind that there are other serious issues confronting Europe, but France got a bloody reminder at the weekend.
Orville Schell, Foreign Policy
ashington’s policy of engagement toward Beijing has been embraced, with a few bumps along the way, by eight successive U.S. presidents—an incredible record of continuity. The approach was born in 1972, when the fervently anti-communist President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, set off for Beijing to make a game-changing proposal: The United States and China should end their decades-long hostility by allying against the Soviet Union. Читать дальше...
Nadia Schadlow, The Atlantic
Critics are letting their disdain for the president blind them to geopolitical realities.
Manuel Brug, Worldcrunch
In classical music capitals like Vienna, Salzburg and Berlin, and around the world, artists find themselves in precarious positions with COVID-19 shutdowns. But maybe there's a sweeter tune tomorrow?
Karen Young, Al Monitor
If the late 2014 decline in oil prices and subsequent hit to GCC fiscal revenues is any guide to the current oil glut, the signal now to Gulf labor markets is a siren. When oil revenues declined sharply in late 2014, the structural fundamentals were similar to what OPEC+ members thought they saw in early March 2020. They saw declining demand in China and persistent supply from US producers. OPEC, with new partners like Russia and Mexico (the "plus"), responded in late... Читать дальше...
Ana Palacio, Project Syndicate
Even if Western leaders manage to limit the COVID-19 outbreak's immediate fallout, it will mean little without forward-looking efforts to strengthen liberal-democratic systems from within. Such a failure would could well amount to handing China victory in the global contest of ideas that is now underway.
Heather Stewart, Guardian
With the PM in hospital for his coronavirus symptoms, we look at who will fill the void at the head of the UK government
Joseph Nye, National Interest
Doyle Hodges, WOTR
In 1983, when Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, it was Ronald Reagan’s official duty as president to commission these new officers. The commission Modly received, along with the rest of his classmates, noted that Reagan had “special trust and confidence” in his “patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities.” Nine years later, President...
Ferdinando Giugliano, Bloomberg View
Tracy Wen Liu , ChinaFile
Dr. Li, a heart specialist at Wuhan No. 4 Hospital, spent the third week of March preparing for the reopening of the hospital’s general clinics, which closed on January 22, when No. 4 became a key facility for treating COVID-19 patients. After working for two months on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak, Li is mentally and psychologically at a loss about what to do next. He can’t sleep or eat, he often feels dazed, and sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, he weeps. Читать дальше...
Miles Johnson, Sam Fleming & Guy Chazan, Financial Times
Furious at their plight being ignored and over resistance to coronabonds, Italians’ sense of betrayal deepens