USA Today (August 20)
“From the earliest days of the pandemic, public health officials told Americans that vaccination was the way back to normal life, but the path forward has become less clear. While COVID-19 vaccines were delivered in record time, the promise of vaccine salvation was upended by entrenched hesitancy, waning immunity and a wildly contagious mutation of the enigmatic virus that causes the disease.”
Tags: COVID-19, Hesitancy, Immunity, Normal, Officials, Pandemic, Promise, Public health, U.S., Upended, Vaccination, Vaccine salvation
Los Angeles Times (August 19)
“With more than a million acres burned fairly early in the fire season, California is entering uncharted territory as the record dry conditions that have fueled so much destruction will soon combine with seasonal winds that fire officials fear will bring unprecedented dangers.” Many experts fear for the *fire-prone state” as the *impending arrival of strong Santa Anas and Diablos — which typically move in around mid-September — could mark even more misery for weary residents and beleaguered fire crews.”
Tags: Beleaguered, Burned, California, Dangers, Destruction, Dry, Early, Fire crews, Fire officials, Fire season, Million acres, Misery, Seasonal winds, Uncharted, Unprecedented, Weary
Washington Post (August 18)
“Just as Afghanistan refuted the Soviet delusion that communism was the future, it has rebutted the American fantasy that there is a functional liberal democracy inside every theocracy or dictatorship, just waiting for us to let it out. Ethnicity, culture and religion are fundamental elements of human nature that have to be acknowledged, not engineering problems that can be solved.”
Tags: Acknowledged, Afghanistan, Communism, Culture, Delusion, Dictatorship, Ethnicity, Fantasy, Future, Human nature, Liberal democracy, Rebutted, Refuted, Religion, Soviet, Theocracy, U.S.
BBC (August 17)
“Unprecedented levels of dam building and water extraction by nations on great rivers are leaving countries further downstream increasingly thirsty, increasing the risk of conflicts.” During the 20th Century, “global water use grew at more than twice the rate of population increase.” As a result, water crises have consistently ranked high in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks and look poised to become an increasing source of conflict.
Tags: Conflict, Conflicts, Crises, Dam building, Downstream, Extraction, Population, Risk, Rivers, Thirsty, Unprecedented, Water, Water use
Radio New Zealand (August 17)
Going into a national lock down “buys us some time to see results of testing and contact tracing to assess how widely the outbreak has spread.” So far, there’s only one case, but he may have infected others. “One thing we’ve learned from watching Sydney over the past two months is that half-measures can quickly lead to disaster…. Our best option is to go hard now and then relax later if it turns out we have avoided the worst…. With Delta there are no second chances.”
Tags: Contact tracing, Delta, Disaster, Half-measures, Lock down, Outbreak, Relax, Second chances, Spread, Sydney, Testing
The Economist (August 14)
Japan’s “financial heft in South-East Asia” is vastly understated. It still ranks as the biggest “investor in the region’s infrastructure projects.” While “China’s financial reach overseas attracts enormous attention, when it comes to infrastructure in South-East Asia, Japan is still very much the leader…. In total, it has $259bn invested in unfinished projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam…compared with China’s $157bn.”
Tags: China, Financial heft, Indonesia, Infrastructure projects, Investor, Japan, Leader, Malaysia, Overseas, South-east Asia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam
San Francisco Chronicle (August 13)
“The wildly infectious delta variant that has raged across the world and forced the United States into a fourth—and in some places unprecedented—surge has reshaped the coronavirus pandemic into a plague that may take many more years to come to an end.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Delta, Infectious, Pandemic, Plague, Raged, Surge, U.S., Unprecedented, Variant
Bloomberg (August 13)
“It seems like Japan’s big recovery is always a quarter away.” The economy may just barely manage growth in the second quarter, but the slow vaccination rollout and ongoing surges mean “the bounce in consumer spending that analysts had been forecasting will have to wait even longer.” Japan has earned “the dubious distinction of being the only G-7 economy to have its growth outlook for this year cut by the International Monetary Fund.”
Tags: Analysts, Bounce, Consumer spending, Economy, G-7, Growth, IMF, Japan, Outlook, Q2, Recovery, Surges, Vaccination
New York Times (August 12)
The fires ravaging Evia, Greece’s second-largest island “seem less a random act of God than another inevitable episode of Europe’s extreme weather brought on by the man-made climate change that scientists have now concluded is irreversible.”
Tags: Act of God, Climate change, Europe, Evia, Extreme weather, Fires, Greece, Inevitable, Irreversible, Man-made, Random, Scientists
Wall Street Journal (August 12)
“The rapidly-spreading coronavirus Delta variant and its impact on the global economy mean the world will consume less oil this year,” Lowering its forecast, the IEA’s latest market report notes that “the worsening of the pandemic, as well as revisions to historical data, mean its global oil demand outlook has been “appreciably downgraded,” with some of this year’s forecast recovery shifted to 2022.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Data, Delta variant, Demand, Downgraded, Forecast, Global economy, IEA, Impact, Oil, Outlook, Pandemic, Recovery, Worsening
