“We don’t say the last word because we are right. We are right because we say the last word” (A US Supreme Court Justice). The UN Human Rights Committee has ruled that Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón did not have “access to a fair trial in the Franquismo case – where he was acquitted – and the Gürtel case,” the corruption case affecting the Partido Popular (PP), which, Garzón, then judge…
Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | The Commonwealth Fund, a century-old foundation dedicated to improving health care, places the United States behind Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom in its latest report. The Netherlands and Norway share first place. America is the world’s top innovator of new medications and treatments. The best medical schools are in the United States. The country spends…
Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | The United States Senate is expected to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill this week with funding for everything from broadband Internet to road safety. The bill, which is believed to have the support of enough Republicans to overcome a forty-senator filibuster, falls short of the $2 trillion President Joe Biden had proposed to spend on (green) infrastructure over four years. The compromise bill has…
WisdomTree | The Bloomberg Commodity Total Return (BCOM TR) Index posted its third consecutive month of gains in June 2021, capping the quarter with a 13.3% q-o-q gain, the strongest since Q4 2010. Demand for commodities is rising as pandemic era restrictions are being lifted, while bottlenecks are providing supply challenges. Not all commodity sectors performed equally in the reporting month (which ended 16th July), with precious metals sliding 3.6%,…
Schroders | The world economy is set for its fastest year of growth in the 21st century this year, according to our latest forecasts. We now think global GDP is set to expand by 5.9% in 2021, having upgraded our previous forecast of 5.3%. As lockdowns ease, the service sector – which includes businesses such as restaurants and hotels – is driving the recovery in economic growth.
At the end of the first half of 2021, world GDP had already recovered end-2019 levels – after a decline of 3.5% in 2020 – thanks to the strong growth of the Chinese and US economies, according to calculations made in May by the OECD. Analysts at Oxford Economics agree in their calculations, which also talk about a GDP of 100.1% of 2019 in June 2021 and of a global…
Simon Chadwick & Paul Widdop | Even before it begins, holding the Olympic Games in Tokyo has felt like an energy-sapping endurance event. Originally scheduled for last summer and postponed due to the pandemic, the decision to go ahead has been widely questioned. As the action unfolds, Japan’s capital city will be under a state of emergency. The whole world will be watching a government seeking to manage the most…
Citi GPS | Much of the focus on the Energy Transition has been on how quickly renewables could take over, but reducing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors and places complicates the outlook. In this context, is natural gas a transition fuel, a soon-to-be stranded asset, or is it an energy source that could be part of the Energy Transition? Our report identifies five key demand areas where the proposition for natural gas is strong.
Peter Isackson | When nearly all incremental wealth is tied up in assets that may come tumbling down at any moment, nobody is secure. After the crash, the rich will lament their losses and their inability to rebuild. Millions will lose their gig work and below-survival wages in real jobs with no hope for a rebound. And with COVID-19 still creating havoc and climate change more and more visibly aggravating its effects, the problem of inflation we should be most worried about is the verbal inflation of experts who believe their discourse is capable of shoring up a failing system.
“Cuba is not a democracy”, the Spanish Prime Minister replied when asked if Cuba is a dictatorship. The debate, in Spain, was sparked by a leader of UN Podemos, partners in Sánchez’s government, who denied that Cuba was a dictatorship. When asked, the new government spokeswoman, Isabel Rodriguez, declined to answer… Until Sánchez went off on a tangent, as he has done so many times before, claiming that “it is…