Articles in English

Tariff Man’s Bark Is Worse than His Bite

WASHINGTON, DC – Late last month, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico in ten days if it did not halt the flow of migrants from Central America. The tariffs would start at 5% and then increase by five percentage points monthly until reaching 25% in October. The announcement came as a shock, especially given that the United States and Mexico (plus Canada) had reached an agreement on a revised North American Free Trade Agreement just months earlier, at Trump’s insistence. Ratification of the new trade deal, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), is now in jeopardy

17 июня 2019 5 мин. 9963

The World's Highest-Paid Athletes

Elite athletes are earning more than ever thanks to soaring salaries driven by ever-richer TV contracts. The cutoff to crack the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes is $25 million this year, compared with $17.3 million five years ago

14 июня 2019 34 сек. 7145

The Energy Revolution Must Be Nuclear

OXFORD – Demonstrators around the world are demanding that carbon-based energy supplies be curtailed for the sake of the environment. Yet, in Germany, the Energiewende (energy transformation) policy that was supposed to meet those demands is failing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. A big part of the problem is that, in response to long-standing anti-nuclear sentiment, policymakers aim to phase out nuclear energy, while investing in renewables like wind and solar

13 июня 2019 5 мин. 6967

Blame US Trade Policy for Sky-High Drug Prices

NEW DELHI – Sharp price increases for essential and life-saving medicines have generated a political backlash against the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. In February, the US Senate Committee on Finance scolded industry representatives for pursuing policies that are “morally repugnant.” Since then, 44 US state governments have filed a lawsuit against Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals and 19 other companies, alleging conspiracy to stifle competition for generic drugs and illegal profiteering from over 100 different medicines

12 июня 2019 5 мин. 7585

Deng Xiaoping’s Victory

China’s massive protest movement in the spring of 1989, centered in (but not confined to) Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, seems to have been the anti-Communist revolt that failed. As the brutal crackdown on and following June 3-4 played out, political freedom was being won in Central Europe – first in Poland and Hungary, and then, beginning that fall, in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and, albeit violently and rather undemocratically, Romania. Within the next two years, the Soviet Union, cracked open by Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, finally imploded

11 июня 2019 5 мин. 7110

As Populists Rise, Latin America’s Economies Will Fall

LONDON – Though US President Donald Trump tends to grab most of the headlines, he is hardly a global exception. Populist autocrats have enjoyed a breathtaking rise to power in countries around the world, and nowhere is the trend more pronounced than in Latin America following the elections of Mexico’s leftist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), and Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro. Americans are right to complain about Trump’s autocratic tendencies, but, as former Chilean Finance Minister Andrés Velasco would remind them, Trump is a mere apprentice compared to Latin America’s populists

10 июня 2019 5 мин. 8241

Women and Girls Hold the Key to Universal Health Coverage

NEW YORK – Health care is a human right, yet roughly half of the world’s population – 3.5 billion people – forgoes essential health services due to financial constraints or lack of accessible facilities. Universal health coverage (UHC) could change this worrying statistic. But if its promise is to be fulfilled, sexual and reproductive health services must be included