France was the last western European country to abolish capital punishment. West Germany abolished it in 1949, the UK in 1965, yet it took France until 1981. Amazingly, the last person to be guillotined in France was as recently as 1977. Nevertheless, Macron wants to celebrate the fact that it …
Read More »Global debt will be nearly three times bigger than global GDP by year-end, but there is no reason to panic – S&P
Global debt rose to a record high of nearly $300 trillion in the second quarter of this year, data from the Institute of International Finance (IIF) shows. Total debt, including government, household, corporate and bank debt, soared $4.8 trillion to $296 trillion at the end of June, $36 trillion above …
Read More »Will Beijing be worried by the CIA setting up a special unit to focus solely on ‘the global challenge’ China poses?
America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has announced a new group that will focus solely on China and the strategic challenges posed by it. In a statement released on Thursday, the agency said the new China Mission Center has been formed “to address the global challenge posed by the People’s Republic …
Read More »Global trade to recover faster than expected from Covid crisis – WTO
The WTO is now predicting a global merchandise trade volume growth of 10.8% in 2021 (up from 8.0% forecasted in March), followed by a 4.7% rise in 2022. Growth should moderate as merchandise trade approaches its pre-pandemic long-run trend, the report said. According to the WTO, supply-side issues such as …
Read More »Global thirst for oil won’t diminish until 2045, OPEC says
According to the report, oil use will rise by 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) to 101.6 million bpd in 2023, along with the robust growth already predicted for 2021 and 2022. “Energy and oil demand have picked up significantly in 2021 after the massive drop in 2020,” OPEC Secretary …
Read More »Global energy crunch could soon send oil prices to $100 & spur another economic crisis, Bank of America warns
The possibility of soaring oil prices and high inflationary pressure could become the trigger for a global crisis, the analysts warned in a note carried by Bloomberg. According to the multinational, gas-to-oil switching with record-high natural gas prices could cause additional oil demand. Moreover, energy demand is expected to grow …
Read More »Semiconductor chip shortage to cost global automakers $210 billion this year – report
That’s almost double the company’s previous forecast, in May, of $110 billion. It had initially projected some $60.6 billion in lost revenues at the beginning of the year, when automakers started cutting production at plants. “Of course, everyone had hoped that the chip crisis would have abated more by now, …
Read More »Global Citizen Live’s message to society from mega-rich celebs is ‘make do with less.’ And that really sticks in my throat
On Saturday night, the BBC devoted hours of programming to Global Citizen Live: Music Festival for the Planet – a collection of pop concerts and performances from London, New York, Paris, Lagos, Mumbai, Seoul and Sydney in support of the Global Citizen movement. Up to a billion people around the …
Read More »‘US didn’t want to face the truth that it’s no longer the global hegemon,’ Russian spy chief tells RT after Afghanistan debacle
“What happened in Afghanistan with the rushed withdrawal and fleeing of the puppet government is a consequence of America’s destructive policies, as it tried to impose its social development model on Afghanistan,” Naryshkin said in an interview with Oksana Boyko on Worlds Apart. The spy chief said the blame for …
Read More »Bitcoin leads cryptocurrency market meltdown amid concerns over global equity markets
The digital asset lost as much as 10% during the day’s trading, falling to $43,692.57, according to Coin Metrics. Other cryptocurrencies were also in the red, with ether losing 9% to $3,038.74 and XRP becoming the worst performer, down 14% on Monday. “This sell-off is the continuation of a well-established …
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