Washington Post (March 4)
“Cities across the nation face a dilemma: Downtown office buildings are empty as workers prefer to stay home.” Office-to-apartment conversion is an essential “part of the solution,” but “city leaders aren’t doing enough…. The longer cities wait to get conversions underway, the more tax values drop and crime goes up, and the more people see no value in living in the heart of the city — or even visiting.”
Tags: Apartment, Cities, Conversion, Dilemma, Downtown, Empty, Home, Leaders, Office buildings, Solution, Tax values, Workers
Oil Price.com (September 6)
“The leadership of the European Union has been hard at work these days, trying to find a lasting solution to an energy crisis that is worsening by the day. Yet the way they are approaching the solution is unlikely to produce any lasting results…. It has been compared to a Ponzi scheme.”
Tags: Energy crisis, EU, Lasting, Leadership, Ponzi scheme, Produce, Results, Solution, Unlikely, Worsening
New York Times (April 20)
“The World Health Organization concluded last year that air pollution is ‘the single largest environmental threat to human health and well-being.’” Recognizing “the low quality of the air that we breathe” is a crisis would help bring greater immediacy to “the existential threat of climate change…. The solution to both threats is the same: We need to stop burning fossil fuels, preferably yesterday.”
Tags: Air pollution, Climate change, Crisis, Environmental threat, Existential, Human health, Immediacy, Solution, Well-being, WHO
Reuters (November 27)
Europe is struggling “to find a common solution for the upcoming Christmas winter sports season.” Germany and France want the resorts closed while Austria doesn’t. A total closure “would be costly: Austria wants EU compensation for 2 billion euros of expected losses. But allowing people to squeeze into cable cars and enjoy apres-ski may pile pressure on national health systems as Europe fights a second wave of Covid-19. Without a coordinated and strict EU approach, a post-Christmas virus resurgence could be on the cards.”
Tags: Austria, Cable cars, Christmas, Compensation, COVID-19, EU, Europe, France, Germany, Second wave, Ski resorts, Solution, Strict, Winter sports
Washington Post (January 5)
“Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy.” That is both the root of the problem and the key to the solution. “What led Saudi Arabia to take these risky actions, and what U.S. policies might reduce the danger that the Middle East mess will get even worse? You can’t answer these questions without examining the Saudis’ insecurity, which has led them to make bad choices.”
Tags: Danger, Frightened, Insecurity, Middle East, Monarchy, Risky, Saudi Arabia, Solution, U.S.
Institutional Investor (October Issue)
“Six years ago the common threat of a global financial collapse inspired a collective response that averted a depression. Today the threats seem to be coming from everywhere, and they are geopolitical as much as economic.” This makes any coordinated solution “hard to imagine.”
Tags: Collective response, Depression, Economic, Financial collapse, Geopolitical, Global, Solution, Threat
Washington Post (November 1)
The dysfunctional relationship between Japan and South Korea “threatens to undermine U.S. security interests, including dealing with a rising China and an aggressive North Korea.” Relations between the two countries “have descended to another low, fueled by issues of wartime history and the still-poisonous legacy of Japan’s harsh colonial rule over Korea from 1910 to 1945. The two countries’ leaders have not met since May 2012, and polls show that three times more Koreans view China favorably than Japan.” The U.S. is going to have to abandon neutrality and encourage a solution. “The reality is that neither Japan nor South Korea seems capable of finding a path toward reconciliation on its own.”
Tags: China, Japan, North Korea, Reconciliation, Relationship, Security interests, Solution, South Korea, U.S.
The Economist (January 7)
Hopes that Bashar Assad might step aside, making room for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria, evaporated after a defiant speech on January 6. The war has claimed an estimated 60,000 Syrian lives. With the opposition determined not to “negotiate a political solution to the crisis until Mr Assad is out of the picture, both sides are still trying for a military victory.” Mr Assad’s “speech provided no reason to believe the bloodshed will end soon.”
Tags: Bashar Assad, Crisis, Diplomacy, Military, Opposition, Solution, Syria
Washington Post (April 13)
“The European ‘crisis’ is back. Actually, it never went away — and won’t for many years. The problems are so deep and pervasive that there is no easy or obvious solution…. Europe is caught in a trap that promises more political and social unrest.”
