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Carnegie- Tsinghua Dated: April 08, 2020 By Daniel Merkey By the end of 2019, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), China’s high-profile development initiative in Pakistan, had shifted to a  new phase . Whereas the first CPEC projects were mainly devoted to building new physical infrastructure, like power plants and highways, the next iteration of CPEC will tackle a wider array of projects intended to spur economic development and job creation. Changes in CPEC were motivated by Pakistan’s political and institutional realities as well as by the broader evolution of China’s globe-spanning  Belt and Road Initiative  (BRI), of which CPEC has always been a prominent part. Yet the early stages of CPEC were themselves slowed or stymied by Pakistan’s own weak institutions and domestic political cleavages. The next phase is almost certain to yield similar if not greater frustrations. In the midst of CPEC’s transition, the administration of U.S. President Don...

The Business Line Dated: April 23, 2020 By M Ramesh Regardless of whether or not the Covid-19 virus leaked out of a Chinese lab, nobody disputes that the pandemic had its origins in China and could have been checked if only the Chinese authorities had acted in time. As this article is being written, the pandemic has affected 2.6 million people, of whom 184,200 have been dispatched to Heaven. So, one would expect China to be contrite, accept responsibility and talk of suggestions to make up for the pandemic. On the contrary, the country is nonchalant, aggressive and in a hit-back mode. This is clear from a perusal of articles and blogposts written by Chinese academics, journalists and Chinese-American experts — people whom China uses for its public relations. There is a big army of them engaged in this activity. The language and tone — which is often pontificating — may differ, but the central message is the same: ‘we are a powerful country, don’t mess with us’. Take...

The Guardian Dated : April 23, 2020 By Helen Thompson When the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil price for May futures contracts – an agreement to buy or sell the commodity at a predetermined price at a specified future date – tumbled to  -$38 a barrel , the Covid-19 economic crisis appeared to have taken a turn to the surreal. Traders, some of whom buy oil not to use but as a financial asset, were paying people to take oil from them because only a few had the capacity to take delivery in  Cushing, Oklahoma , where storage space is virtually full. What happened in oil trading on Monday 20 April was an epiphenomenon conjured by oil as a financial commodity. Nobody thought that oil demand had permanently cratered, and indeed the WTI price for June delivery stayed just above  $20 a barrel , as did the price of Brent crude, the benchmark for European, Middle Eastern and African oil. However, this does not mean there isn’t trouble brewing in the oil markets, and ...

Business Standard Dated: April 24, 2020 By: BS Web Team   and   Agencies   US President Donald Trump has favoured safe and phased reopening of the American economy, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 50,000 people and infected over 800,000. More than 95 per cent of the country's 330 million people are under stay-at-home order as a result of the social mitigation measures including social distancing till May  1. Trump on Thursday indicated that this might be extended beyond May 1, but forcefully advocated the need to gradually open up the economy that is safe. In the past few weeks, more than 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits and the figure is soon likely to cross 40 million. Unemployment in the US is swelling to levels last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with one in six American workers thrown out of a job by the coronavirus, according to ...