Opinion

The rapid pace of development in the world of tech, particularly in AI, spurred a judge’s cautious approach to curbing Google’s online search monopoly, revealing a hurdle for US antitrust enforcers’ efforts to win their other cases against Big Tech. US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Alphabet’s Google holds an illegal monopoly, saying its dominance in online search “has gone unchallenged for well over a decade”. But he declined on Tuesday to impose stringent requirements that the government had called for, saying the rise of AI companies in the past two years has already created competitive pressure. He noted that tens of millions of people use generative AI programs like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude in nearly the same way they look for information they previously found on Google. “Innovation is a hare while antitrust law is a tortoise,” said Adam Kovacevich, head of the Big Tech-funded industry group Chamber of Progress. Courtney Radsch, director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly group, said the ruling sends the wrong signal to the AI sector. “It’s really problematic. Because it means antitrust as it is being wielded now is too backward-looking, and it’s not looking at how to prevent illegal anticompetitive behaviour,” she said. Of the five high-profile ongoing antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech, several of which were initiated by investigations during the first Trump administration in 2019, the Google search case was seen as one of the strongest for US antitrust enforcers. Now, Big Tech companies facing antitrust lawsuits are likely to use the ruling to their advantage, said John Kwoka, an economics professor at Northeastern University. Antitrust regulators have homed in on the tech industry because they saw it as a crucial juncture between entrenching the dominance of big players and allowing startups to thrive. The US sued Google in 2020 and 2023, Meta Platforms in 2020, Amazon in 2023 and Apple in 2024, and opened probes last year into Nvidia and Microsoft. In a process that takes years, antitrust cases typically proceed in two phases: a judge first decides whether the company engaged in anticompetitive conduct, and next tackles the question of what it should do to restore competition. Tuesday’s ruling was the first of the cases to impose requirements on a Big Tech company. Mehta largely adopted Google’s proposal. “The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,” Mehta said in the ruling, calling it “astonishing” how quickly billions of dollars have flowed in to the nascent industry. ChatGPT was not released until 2022, two years into the case. A year later, when Google faced its first trial on the question of whether it held a monopoly, no witness cited AI as a near-term threat to search, the judge wrote. Now, AI companies are such a factor that the judge said they should be allowed to access Google’s data to help boost competition with its search engine. Meta Platforms and Apple are likely to highlight the ruling in their own cases. For example, the US Federal Trade Commission is seeking to make Meta sell off Instagram and WhatsApp, saying the acquisitions were aimed at neutralising upstart competitors to Facebook’s supremacy in the market for platforms where users share updates with friends and family. Meta has argued that the scene has shifted in the past five years since the case was brought, through the explosion in TikTok’s popularity and users’ growing preference for sharing in group chats instead of posting on social media platforms. Apple, which faces allegations of using restrictions on third-party developers to make it harder for iPhone users to switch, has argued antitrust enforcers are threatening innovation by seeking control of its product design. To be sure, even where judges are leery of going too far, pressure from antitrust cases has precipitated change.

The global health landscape is marked by fundamental contradictions. Scientific innovation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, yet many of the world’s most urgent health needs remain unmet. New drugs, diagnostics, and therapies are constantly being developed, but they remain largely inaccessible to the countries and communities that need them most. This is a crisis of equity, leadership, and imagination, and addressing it demands nothing less than an overhaul of the dominant model of medical research.As matters stand, medical-research agendas and standards are largely dictated by funders in the Global North. Breakthroughs often depend on data from lower-income countries – which bear the brunt of the global disease burden – but credit for them is typically awarded to elite Western institutions.But researchers, clinicians, and institutions in the Global South possess deep firsthand knowledge of the diseases afflicting local populations. They know which diagnostics and treatments can work in low-resource settings, and how to navigate local health systems. When they lack the opportunity to bring their expertise and insight to bear in setting research priorities or guiding research and development strategies, outcomes suffer.Consider diagnostics, which is essential for disease management and surveillance. Global health experts often advocate expanding access to molecular diagnostics, which use in vitro techniques to analyse markers in the genome and proteome. But these approaches are costly and impractical in resource-limited settings, especially during disease outbreaks.Global medical research and development must be reoriented toward equity and impact. This means not just giving countries a seat at the table, but letting them lead the research that primarily affects them. One of the most powerful levers for such a transformation is the public-private partnership (PPP) model, including not-for-profit product-development partnerships (PDPs) to advance the delivery of health products for poverty-related and neglected diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis.Over the past two decades, PDPs have played a crucial role in improving global health, by bringing together governments, philanthropies, industry, academia, and NGOs to tackle diseases for which there were no market incentives to develop solutions. Organisations like the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, and the Medicines for Malaria Venture have proven that collaborative, public-interest-driven models can fill gaps left by the for-profit sector.But this model appears to have lost its way. Nowadays, PDPs often appear to be entwined with large multinational companies, disconnected from countries’ health priorities and focused on the needs and demands of the Global North, with many using development pipelines and regulatory approaches designed for North American or European markets.Meanwhile, ballooning overhead costs are being met with shrinking funding. It does not help that many PDPs remain headquartered in expensive Western cities like Geneva or London, with staffing that does not reflect the communities being served. To remain relevant, PDPs must be led by the countries they serve and headquartered in the Global South, with both cost structures and regulatory pathways being adapted to local realities.Fortunately, such models are already emerging. In Malaysia, the International Affordable Diagnostics and Therapeutics Alliance (IA-DATA), a locally driven initiative, recently began clinical trials on a repurposed antimalarial drug called artesunate for use against cervical pre-cancer and colorectal cancer, which represent a significant disease burden in developing countries. By combining existing medicines with regional clinical expertise, IA-DATA bypassed the need for expensive new chemical entities, thereby accelerating progress.IA-DATA and its platform for global collaboration, the South-South Diagnostic Alliance (SSDxA), are also seeking to democratise access to diagnostics – the often-neglected sibling of therapeutics – by decentralising research and development. Already, SSDxA (one of the authors is Director) is connecting scientists, manufacturers, and regulators from across Malaysia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.The SSDxA’s recent analysis of dengue diagnostics revealed that, while molecular assays can be useful, lateral flow tests are more accessible and affordable in affected regions. As developing-country researchers have often pointed out, these rapid tests, which were critical in managing the Covid-19 pandemic, offer a viable and scalable solution in low-resource settings.The role of regulators must not be underestimated. Malaysia’s National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency was among the first in the world to approve the use of ravidasvir, a hepatitis C drug developed through South-South co-operation. Instead of waiting for endorsement from Western regulatory authorities, Malaysia worked with partners from the Global South to approve this low-cost treatment. The drug has since been added into the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medicines.Many countries in the Global South, including Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Jordan, and South Africa, have what it takes to lead this transformation in medical research, including robust public-health systems, internationally accredited regulatory bodies, political will, and cost advantages. But they will need to introduce policy reforms that facilitate the registration and operation of organisations with a regional or global nonprofit mandate – not least so that they can attract sufficient foreign investment, including from the Global North.A global rebalancing of medical research does not mean excluding Western partners, which still have a vital role to play, directing not only resources, but also expertise toward locally driven R&D agendas. This vision aligns with the Yamoussoukro Consensus on South-South Co-operation, adopted by the G77 in 2008: While North-South co-operation remains essential, developing countries must set their own priorities for collaboration and evaluate progress on their own terms.Empowering countries to lead medical research is not charity; it is a strategic necessity. Beyond righting historical inequities, it would unlock the next frontier of equitable and effective healthcare for all. – Project SyndicateSanjeev Krishna is Professor Emeritus of Molecular Parasitology and Medicine at City St George’s University of London and a visiting professor at the Universiti Malaya Affordable Diagnostics and Therapeutics.Jean-Michel Piedagnel is Director of the South-South Diagnostic Alliance (SSDxA).

In July, the Trump administration held an event titled “Winning the AI Race,” where it unveiled its AI Action Plan. The plan is meant to enhance American leadership in AI. But since neither the plan nor those earlier announcements mentioned human rights, it’s fair to question what it even means for the US to “win” the AI race.Many in Washington and Silicon Valley simply assume that American technology is inherently – almost by definition – aligned with democratic values. As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Congress this past May, “We want to make sure democratic AI wins over authoritarian AI.” This may be a good sentiment, but new technological systems don’t protect human rights by default. Policymakers and companies must take proactive steps to ensure that AI deployment meets certain standards and conditions – as already happens in many other industries.Recent reports from the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Freedom Online Coalition have called attention to the fact that governments and companies alike bear responsibility for assessing how AI systems will affect people’s rights. Existing international frameworks require all businesses to respect human rights and avoid causing or contributing to human-rights abuses through their activities. But AI companies, for the most part, have failed to acknowledge and reaffirm those responsibilities.These calls to action reaffirm obligations already shouldered by other industries. Most large companies know that they must conduct human-rights impact assessments before procuring or deploying new systems; integrate human-rights due diligence into product design and business decisions; include contractual safeguards to prevent misuse; and provide meaningful remedies when harms occur.The challenge with AI is not that the standards are unclear. It is that too many companies – and governments – are acting as if the standards do not apply.Unlike traditional goods or infrastructure, AI systems can be transferred digitally and deployed with little public scrutiny. Under a sovereign AI plan, whereby a government develops and controls the AI systems available to its people, such systems can rapidly be turned into instruments of state power. As US companies ramp up their international dealmaking – with strong backing from the Trump administration – the failure to include human-rights commitments marks a dangerous turn.It is also a missed opportunity. Access to America’s world-leading technologies could be used as leverage, both to advance human rights-respecting applications and to protect the technology from abuse. There is no need to start from scratch here. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – which have been endorsed by the US and many allies – require companies to avoid infringing on human rights and to address any harms they may cause.The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises go even further, requiring due diligence across operations and supply chains. And the Global Network Initiative (GNI), launched by leading tech companies 17 years ago, has established principles for protecting users’ privacy and free expression in high-risk markets, with member companies regularly assessed for compliance (our organisation was a founding partner).Companies like Coca-Cola, Volkswagen, and Estée Lauder already apply these frameworks or submit to independent oversight, as do some tech firms. But the tech industry, for the most part, has failed to endorse these responsibilities explicitly for AI, even though the need is even greater there. As a first step, leading AI companies that are not yet part of GNI could benefit from its framework and network.If AI companies end up in a race to the bottom, what hope will there be for basic human-rights protections? If winning the AI race means abandoning the values that set us apart from authoritarian rivals, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Our future will not be secured just because the technology is American.It is not too late for governments and companies to commit to applying long-established human-rights standards to AI. The tools are already available; there is no excuse not to use them. – Project SyndicateAlexandra Reeve Givens, former director of the National Artificial Intelligence Office, is Head of the Center for Democracy & Technology.Karen Kornbluh, former US ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is Senior Fellow and Director of the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund of the US.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has become a full-scale technological conflict, where 70-80% of casualties are now caused by unmanned aerial drones. After three and a half years, the war has become a nonstop cat-and-mouse game, where every new weapon system offers only a brief two- or three-month advantage before the other side develops countermeasures.That means the age of robotic warfare is here. We are witnessing its first stage in Ukraine’s skies, on the ground, and at sea. The fastest military-tech development in the world is happening in Ukrainian garages, basements, and factories, where hundreds of small teams are building new-model drones and interceptors.Many have been working nonstop since February 2022, without weekends or vacations. As soon as a new product is ready, it is deployed to the front line. Soldiers test it the next day, and within 24 hours, combat feedback is sent to developers, starting a new cycle. Some defence-tech teams even hand deliver their products to combat zones and work directly with soldiers on integration and iteration.But Russia’s war machine is also operating at full speed, with many factories running around the clock. A clear sign of how quickly Russia can scale up effective weapon systems came on July 9, when it launched 728 Shahed drones in a single day. By the end of the month, more than 6,200 Shaheds had been deployed – 14 times more than in July 2024, and 16% more than in June. To address this threat, at least two Ukrainian defence companies have developed AI-powered interceptor drones that use machine learning to identify and destroy Shaheds. On the best nights, they have achieved 60-70% success rates.But the fight is evolving quickly. The Shaheds, too, are getting smarter. When Ukraine deployed machine guns for air defence, Shaheds responded by flying above 3km (1.9 miles) – well out of range. Then, in late July, Russia launched a jet-powered Shahed that can fly up to 700kmph, faster than most known interceptors. Moreover, some Shaheds are now equipped with thermal imaging, advanced processors, and even autonomous swarm co-ordination. They appear to sense when they are being hunted, swerving and dodging to escape their pursuer.Such is the nature of the first-ever robot-on-robot war. The conflict is being waged by two autonomous systems, each trying to outsmart the other in real time. Similar breakthroughs are happening on the ground. FPV (first-person view) drones with optical cable connections (meaning their signal cannot be jammed) can now strike targets up to 30 kilometres from the frontline – making any movement in that zone extremely dangerous. Both sides have begun using “sleeping drones” that wait on the ground for hours until a target appears.As a result, unmanned ground vehicles are now being deployed at scale – mostly for logistics, resupply, evacuation, mining, and even attacks. For now, Ukraine appears to be ahead in this area. In July, its 3rd Assault Brigade carried out a historic fully autonomous operation, combining FPV drones and ground robots to force Russian troops to surrender in Kharkiv Oblast without any Ukrainian soldiers participating directly in the assault.One of Ukraine’s biggest successes has been the use of maritime drones to push Russian ships out of the Black Sea. These units, too, have been upgraded over time. On December 31, 2024, a Ukrainian Magura V5 sea drone armed with a surface-to-air missile destroyed a Russian Mi-8 helicopter over the Black Sea. Never before had an unmanned surface vehicle shot down a manned aircraft. And now, some maritime drones are being used as launch platforms or communication relays for smaller drones, expanding both range and capability.These are not isolated cases. They confirm that we have entered a new era of warfare, in which autonomous systems are central to battlefield success. Ukraine’s top drone units operate like high-performance tech startups, each with its own recruitment, training, funding, and team culture. One advanced brigade includes more than 70 data architects analysing live intelligence around the clock. These units build rapid learning loops, adapting to battlefield changes faster than traditional military units.The most successful new player in the Ukrainian conflict is former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s defence company Swift Beat, which plans to deliver hundreds of thousands of drones this year. The company has developed one of the most effective Shahed-interceptor drones, and is developing systems capable of intercepting cruise and ballistic missiles. But, remarkably, many of the new technologies are being developed not by large defence contractors, but by thousands of volunteers and civil society.These kinds of innovations help to explain how Ukraine has managed to hold off a military superpower for so long. Nato and its allies urgently need to study and bolster their support for Ukraine. Robotic warfare is here, and Ukraine is writing the field manual. — Project SyndicateRagnar Sass, an Estonian tech entrepreneur and angel investor, is Co-Founder of Pipedrive, a developer of customer relationship management software, and Founder of the Darkstar Coalition, which launched the first pan-European defence fund focused entirely on combat-proven military products.

There are multiple competing theories about what drives the anti-green policies embraced by US President Donald Trump. Perhaps they reflect the influence of carbon-heavy industries in Republican-controlled states. Or perhaps they channel ideological hostility to the notion that the state should play any kind of planning role in the economy.Whatever the case, it is increasingly apparent that the Trump administration wants to halt decarbonisation not only in the United States but globally. Viewed from this perspective, much of the recent US policy incoherence starts to make more sense – albeit in a dangerously regressive way.The US sits atop vast reserves of fossil fuels, which have underpinned its national prosperity for decades. They have lit cities, powered factories, stimulated postwar job growth, and forged broad regional political coalitions among labour, agriculture, and corporations. They are also highly profitable commodities, with exports creating global dependence on US supplies (which is especially true for liquefied natural gas following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine). Fossil fuels are a core component of the country’s political economy – and a key factor in US domestic and foreign policymaking.The Trump administration recognises this. It includes ideological realists who understand that energy transitions make hegemons – that energy is power. Just as coal drove the industrial revolution in England, oil and gas fuelled America’s postwar dominance. Whoever controls energy controls the future.Unfortunately for the US, if the next energy transition is a green one, the future surely belongs to China, whose green-tech dominance is so firmly established that it does not really matter which metric you look at. In terms of the critical minerals used for such technologies, China supplies the majority of the world’s refined lithium (70%), cobalt (78%), graphite (95%), rare earths (91%), and manganese (91%). In terms of green-tech manufacturing, China accounts for 80% of solar panel production, 50-70% of the wind turbine market, and over half of electric vehicles. And in terms of deployment, it is undertaking three-quarters of the world’s renewable-energy projects.This is all good news for those who care about decarbonisation; but it is bad news for those hoping to extend US hegemony. If the US wants to preserve its global primacy, then realist logic dictates that it needs China to fail. And the US can engineer that outcome by continuing to do exactly what it is doing.Since Trump returned to office, his administration has been reshaping American consumption by imposing massive import tariffs and abandoning the previous administration’s programme of domestic decarbonisation incentives and investments. The Inflation Reduction Act was an explicit attempt to compete with China in green tech. But now Americans are being weaned off the renewables that they were just beginning to enjoy.Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill spells disaster for the future of US green-tech investment, and his administration is further deregulating fossil fuels and adding more hurdles for clean-energy projects. While the Environmental Protection Agency works to extinguish its own ability to regulate carbon emissions, Nasa satellites that track US emissions are being targeted for self-destruction. All these moves, coupled with 30% tariffs on imports from China, signal to green-tech producers that the world’s top consumer no longer wants their wares.Moreover, the US is trying to undercut global demand for Chinese green tech by compelling its largest trading partners to import US fossil fuels instead. China’s own top trading partner, the European Union, just committed to purchase $750bn of US oil and gas by 2028 – an amount that far exceeds current US output. And the rest of China’s top trading partners are following suit. Japan and Taiwan have agreed to invest billions in US LNG, and South Korea is poised to join them.These moves come straight from the US postwar playbook: By ensuring that European markets would be dependent on US oil, the Marshall Plan prevented the Soviet Union from wielding its own energy influence over the continent.The current US government is not just trying to rebalance trade. It is obstructing global decarbonisation as a matter of policy. Cratering American demand for green technologies decreases global demand by a non-trivial amount. And manipulating the terms of bilateral trade deals to favour US fossil fuels abroad further undercuts demand for green tech, impeding the clean-energy transition in key blocs like the EU and East Asia.

The fiercest struggle in American politics today is not between two presidential contenders. It is happening between states, which control the electoral maps that determine who sits in Congress. Though Republicans and Democrats are relying on redistricting campaigns instead of armies, their conflict is best understood through the lens of geopolitics. After all, they are not fighting over ideas or specific policies, but over territory. Gerrymandering has become the decisive tool in this struggle, allowing state-level authorities to create maps that neutralise opposition voters. By clustering such voters into a handful of districts so that most districts go to your party, or by scattering them across many districts so that they cannot prevail anywhere, parties can translate cartography into control. Ballots are still cast, but the outcome has been predetermined. Texas offers the clearest example. Republicans just passed a congressional map designed to yield them as many as five more seats in the House of Representatives. When Democratic lawmakers fled the state to deny a quorum, Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to send troopers to bring them back. California – a heavily Democratic state – then responded in kind. Governor Gavin Newsom wants to override his state’s independent redistricting commission to secure a Democratic advantage, arguing that if Texas tilted the battlefield, California must not remain idle. Where will all this lead? Polling shows that most Americans see such partisan map-drawing as a threat to democracy. California’s redistricting commission is constitutionally independent. By mirroring Texas, it is showing how easy it is for partisan imperatives to override democratic guardrails. Mainstream commentators are increasingly describing the clash as a kind of “war”. With other states considering their own mid-decade redistricting efforts, and with major figures like former President Barack Obama endorsing California’s move as a responsible counter-strategy, the stakes are rising fast. Though there will undoubtedly be legal challenges to the new maps, the Supreme Court already ruled, in 2019, that partisan gerrymandering is a “political question” that lies beyond federal courts’ reach. With that decision, the last national safeguard vanished. Each state is free to redraw its map unchecked, and the results are not subtle. In 2024, a Brennan Center for Justice analysis showed that current maps already tilt the field by about 16 congressional seats in the Republicans’ favour – enough to decide control of the House. Of course, gerrymandering is not the only distortion in American democracy. The Senate, the Electoral College, campaign finance, and media bias also warp representation. But no tool so directly tilts the playing field as the partisan electoral map. That is why the issue is best understood through the lens of geopolitics. Borders decide who controls territory, and control of territory confers power. Redistricting is not only about defending ground already held. It is also about expansion, pushing lines outward to absorb allies and to cut off opponents from strategic corridors (where votes might otherwise flow together). Once drawn, these districts are defended like frontiers, and concessions are treated as strategic defeats. The Nobel laureate economist and game theorist Thomas Schelling warned that such escalatory contests do not end in victory, but in instability. Once one side redraws its front lines, the other must answer. Neither can withdraw without risking long-term defeat. What begins as a righteous act of defence spirals into permanent expansion and counter-expansion – a political arms race. Why does this tactic work so effectively, and why is it so dangerous? The answer lies in the powerful political identities that states like Texas, California, and New York cultivate. To call yourself a Texan, a New Yorker, or a Californian is to belong to a political community with its own strong sense of “we”. Gerrymandering exploits that identity, turning solidarity into guaranteed victories that feel natural, even as they deepen the divides within the republic. When representatives choose their voters through redistricting, competition evaporates. Gerrymandered election district maps turn temporary advantages into permanent frontiers. In geopolitical terms, they become fortified partisan enclaves and strategic corridors designed to secure dominance rather than invite democratic competition. True, even small states have ways to resist empires. They can form alliances, exploit shifts in the terrain, or fight unconventionally. Moreover, demographic change, grassroots mobilisations, cross-party coalitions, and court challenges can puncture even the most fortified enclaves. But while these options show that the disenfranchised are not entirely powerless, they do not deliver lasting victories. Other countries show how corrosive the spiral can be once it begins. In Poland, the Law and Justice (PiS) party changed the electoral rules after 2015 to tilt the system in its favour, deepening polarisation. Hungary offers a cautionary twist. When Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party redrew districts in 2011, the changes gave it a short-term edge, but later created distortions that became liabilities. Winning too heavily in some areas meant wasting votes in others. Gerrymanders may deliver certain wins today; but over time, the skewed maps can create unforeseen vulnerabilities. When maps dictate outcomes, elections risk becoming hollow rituals. The real battles shift to party primaries, where candidates cater to the most committed voters. Extremists thrive, moderates vanish, and polarisation deepens. Minority communities bear the greatest cost. Packed into a few districts or diffused across many, they are stripped of effective representation. With fewer resources for long legal fights, they are easy marks for mapmakers. The true danger is not that elections will cease, but that they will cease to matter. A party can lose the statewide popular vote but still control most of the seats. Representation no longer reflects the will of the electorate. The result is government chosen not by the people, but by those who were in power when the maps changed. America’s gravest threat is not an external rival but collapse from within: an internal geopolitical implosion. — Project Syndicate Carla Norrlöf is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Norway’s general election on September 7-8 is expected to be a close race between a centre-left bloc led by the incumbent Labour Party, and a centre-right bloc dominated by the populist Progress Party and centre-right Conservatives. Among the issues that could decide the vote are inequality and taxation, while the outcome could have an impact on energy and power supplies to Europe and the management of Norway’s huge sovereign fund.Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere’s Labour is looking to extend its rule after returning to power in 2021, following eight years of Conservative-led governments. Labour has led a minority government, supported by the Socialist Left and the rural-based Centre Party. Inequality tops voters’ list of concerns, according to an August 7-13 survey by Respons Analyse for daily Aftenposten, replacing defence and national security, which slipped to sixth place since a similar poll in April. Cost of living and pocketbook issues have been central to the campaign, with food price inflation at 5.9% in the last 12 months. The economy, jobs and taxes are also high priorities for voters, the survey showed. While Labour favours broadly stable taxes, some of its allies seek stiffer rates for the wealthy to finance tax cuts for low-income families and expanded public services. Progress and the Conservatives both advocate large tax cuts.Norway’s $2tn wealth fund, built on vast oil and gas income, allows governments to spend much more freely than fellow European countries, though the need to control inflation and interest rates are constraining factors. A debate over investments in Israel took centre stage at the beginning of the campaign, sparking an unusually public debate over how the world’s largest sovereign fund operates. The Socialist Left last week said it would only support a future Labour government if it divested from all companies involved in what it called “Israel’s illegal warfare in Gaza”. Labour rejected the demand, but it may be difficult to rebuff such calls after the election.Norway is Europe’s top gas supplier, replacing Gazprom after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Its role is set to grow as the European Union plans to phase out use of Russian gas by 2027, but exploiting new oil and gas reserves is critical to slowing down an expected production decline.The election could decide whether Norway opens new areas for exploration, or if oil companies will remain restricted to existing ones, depending on the influence wielded by the Greens, Liberals and other small parties.More radical proposals to stop exploration completely are unlikely to gather sufficient support.Norway produces more power than it consumes and exports the surplus to Europe. Still, some left-wing and right-wing parties are campaigning on limiting exports to the continent.If that happened, it would be a problem for Norway’s neighbours and Brussels. Norway is not in the EU but is part of the single European market and must respect its rules. Restricting power exports would breach them. Parties are also divided over how to meet growing domestic demand that is eroding Norway’s surplus, with little generation capacity added in recent years. Wind on land, solar and new hydropower are relatively cheap and quick to build, but face local protests over their ecological impact. Offshore wind is controversial due to its high costs.Norway has a system of proportional representation whereby 169 lawmakers are elected from 19 geographical districts for a fixed, four-year term. Any party scoring above 4% support nationwide is guaranteed representation, although a strong showing in individual districts can also yield one or more seats. No party is expected to win the 85 seats required for an outright majority, so continued minority rule under Labour or the formation of a coalition are the likeliest outcomes. Polls show nine parties are expected to win seats. On the left, Labour, the Socialists, the Greens, Centre and the Reds; and on the right, the Conservatives, Progress, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.If the centre-left wins, Labour’s Stoere is expected to remain in office, while a centre-right win could see either Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug or Conservative Party head Erna Solberg become prime minister.The ballot ends on September 8 at 1900 GMT, when the first exit polls are expected. Results could become clear late that evening, though the final outcome may not be known until the following day. The exact combination of parties in the cabinet will depend on post-election negotiations. — Reuters

The world is on the cusp of a historic global health accord. On April 16, 2025, World Health Organisation (WHO) member states forged a draft Pandemic Agreement after more than three years of negotiations. Adopted at the World Health Assembly in May, the agreement aims to make the world safer from future pandemics by strengthening global health infrastructure and collaboration. It also outlines clear targets and timelines to bolster health systems and prevent catastrophic health disasters like Covid-19. As WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted, this “generational accord demonstrates that even in a divided world, countries can unite for a shared response to shared threats”. Lessons learned from Covid The devastation wrought by Covid-19 was the undoubted catalyst for this agreement. In December 2021, amid the pandemic’s peak, WHO member states created an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to develop a convention, agreement or other international instrument for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Over 13 formal rounds, countries gradually built consensus on a legally binding framework. These negotiations took place against a backdrop of high stakes and tensions as countries grappled with mistrust in the aftermath of Covid-19, geopolitical frictions, rampant misinformation, and even the withdrawal of the United States from the process. Despite the challenges, this marks only the second time in WHO’s 75-year history that member states have created a binding international health accord. After adoption by the WHA, the agreement will require signatures and ratifications from 60 countries to enter into force. Reaching this point was far from straightforward. One major sticking point was how to ensure fair access to vaccines, medicines, and other tools during pandemics, so that wealthy countries do not hoard supplies at the expense of poorer ones. Article 11 of the draft (on tech transfer) proved especially contentious, with hours spent debating how to help developing countries produce vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments. The final text encouraged countries to promote tech transfer on mutually agreed terms — an outcome some poor nations worried may be too weak. Ambitions on intellectual property waivers were tempered by opposition from some wealthy nations and industry, illustrating the delicate balance struck in the draft. Another obstacle was the question of Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS). This refers to rules for rapidly sharing outbreak samples and data in addition to ensuring countries providing those pathogens receive benefits (like vaccines). Countries agreed in principle to a framework ensuring that 20% of pandemic supplies will be set aside for equitable distribution. However, the detailed PABS annex is yet to be finalised, meaning further negotiations will continue even after the main agreement’s adoption. This unresolved issue underscores how complex questions of equity and trust still need to be ironed out. What the draft Pandemic Agreement proposes The draft WHO Pandemic Agreement is ambitious in scope. It establishes priorities and targets for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and commits signatories to a range of supporting actions. For the first time ever, a global health treaty explicitly embraces a “One Health” approach that recognises the interconnected health of humans, animals, and environment. This means countries will co-ordinate across sectors to better detect and curb diseases that jump from animals to humans – the source of most new pandemics. From there, the draft agreement underscores that strong national health systems are the foundation of pandemic preparedness, and countries should therefore fully invest in public health infrastructure, workforce training, and service delivery so they can respond swiftly to emergencies. It also envisions mobilising a skilled global health emergency workforce and financial mechanisms to fund preparedness efforts. In essence, nations recognise that preparedness requires sustained political and financial investment – something the agreement seeks to galvanise. At its heart, the treaty is about ensuring a more equitable and effective global response when the next pandemic hits. The draft obligates governments to attach conditions to publicly funded Research and Development (R&D) requiring vaccines or drugs developed with taxpayer money be made accessible and affordable globally. Additionally, the agreement would establish a global supply chain and logistics network to co-ordinate allocation of critical supplies and prevent crippling bottlenecks or hoarding of items like masks and personal protective equipment. Notably, the agreement takes care to affirm national sovereignty and dispel concerns about overreach. It explicitly states that nothing in the treaty gives WHO authority to dictate countries’ domestic health measures or laws. It cannot impose lockdowns, travel bans, or vaccine mandates. Such clauses were included to reassure governments and sceptics that the accord will respect each nation’s right to implement health policies as it sees fit. Challenges and opportunities While the agreement’s drafting is a diplomatic triumph, significant challenges lie ahead. Despite being formally adopted in May 2025, states will have 18 months to decide whether to formally join (ratify) the treaty. This process could take several years — more than enough time for another pandemic to strike. As former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark urged, leaders “should be investing now in pandemic preparedness... We can’t afford another pandemic, but we can afford to prevent one”. Achieving the treaty’s vision will therefore require continuous political commitment and funding starting immediately. Implementation also faces significant geopolitical and financial headwinds. The United States’ absence casts an alarming shadow. Many worry that without the world’s biggest economy - not to mention the WHO’s largest donor - on board, funding and compliance could suffer. Others nevertheless see the wider consensus as a show that with or without the US, countries are committed to working together. Washington’s stance could evolve with political changes. In the meantime, however, the rest of the world’s commitment underscores a broader point: the WHO’s reliance on a few major donors has been a vulnerability, and diversifying support is crucial. A policy breakthrough, but not a panacea On reflection, the agreement represents a major policy breakthrough in global health governance. For the first time, the world will have a comprehensive framework dedicated to pandemics, treating them as existential global security threats requiring a unified response. The agreement’s adoption reaffirms the WHO’s coordinating role and provides a platform for holding countries accountable to improve their capacities. It embodies hard-won consensus on principles like solidarity, fairness, and the notion that no country should be left behind when a health emergency strikes. Yet no treaty alone can guarantee global health security. Implementation will be the real test. Countries must follow through on investing in their healthcare systems, training health workers, building vaccine manufacturing hubs, and sharing data transparently. The treaty provides mechanisms for financing and other tools, but these need political will to function. Another critical factor is sustained funding and donor confidence in WHO and global health initiatives. The pandemic agreement arrives at a time when multilateral agencies have been battered by funding uncertainties – not least due to the US funding cutbacks and withdrawal. The hope is that this new agreement, by demonstrating global unity and a clear plan, will improve relations between donors and inspire increased investment in pandemic preparedness. A successful pandemic accord could convince both wealthy countries and philanthropies that their money will be used effectively to build a safer world — potentially unlocking more generous contributions. The example of Qatar’s flexible funding and growing roster of mid-sized donors show a trend of broader support that needs to continue. Realising the entire draft’s aspirations ultimately requires continued political resolve, resources, and inclusive collaboration. The involvement of all nations – big and small – will be necessary to operationalise the agreement’s provisions and keep momentum. Multilateral success stories like this treaty are rare, and thus precious. As Dr Tedros said, the agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. Now the world must translate words on paper into action. Dr Esmat Zaidan is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic AffairsDr Diana AlSayed Hassan is Assistant Professor, both at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Public Policy. (This piece has been submitted by HBKU’s Communications Directorate on behalf of its authors. The thoughts and views expressed are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect an official University stance). About Hamad Bin Khalifa University Innovating Today, Shaping TomorrowHamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), is a leading, innovation-centric university committed to advancing education and research to address critical challenges facing Qatar and beyond. HBKU develops multidisciplinary academic programs and national research capabilities that drive collaboration with leading global institutions. The university is dedicated to equipping future leaders with an entrepreneurial mindset and advancing innovative solutions that create a positive global impact. For more information about HBKU, its colleges, research institutes, and initiatives, please visit www.hbku.edu.qa

India’s growth momentum faces significant headwinds as the surprise pickup in economic growth last quarter comes amid rising concern over US President Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs imposed on the Asian nation.Gross domestic product growth accelerated 7.8% in the three months to June, the fastest pace in more than a year and well above economists’ forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.But the surprisingly strong economic growth was likely exaggerated by statistical factors. While growth was stronger than expected, a lower deflator — used to strip out inflation from economic output — may have boosted the headline figure, according to economists from Goldman Sachs, HSBC Holdings, and Nomura Holdings.The reading assumes significance as the market is closely watching for signs of the economy’s ability to absorb the pressure from the 50% US tariffs that kicked in last week. The US is India’s biggest export market, and Trump’s tariffs could severely hurt labour-intensive industries such as textiles and footwear.Overall exports from India to the US, its biggest market, may more than halve. India exported more than $20bn of textile products, jewellery and diamonds to the US in 2023.Job losses in those sectors could hurt sentiment and weigh on growth. Citigroup economists estimate the tariffs could reduce India’s annual growth by 0.6–0.8 percentage points.Trump’s move to penalise India for buying oil from Russia will increase economic risks for the South Asian nation and test its longstanding ties with Moscow.Indian exports to the US were already hit with a 25% duty as part of Trump’s broader “reciprocal tariffs.” On August 27, he followed through on a threat to impose so-called secondary tariffs to punish India’s purchases of Russian crude, applying an additional 25% levy on Indian goods.The US and its partners see India’s imports of Russian oil as a form of tacit support for Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, weakening the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy.The Indian government has called the extra tariffs “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,” and defended its consumption of Russian oil as necessary for energy security.India has had a strong and stable relationship with Russia for seven decades.India’s relations with the US have improved in recent decades, and New Delhi has reduced its overwhelming reliance on Russian weapons by acquiring more arms from the US and European nations.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained his country’s longstanding ties to Moscow, while pursuing deeper links with the US, which it sees as a partner in standing up to a more assertive China. Trade between India and Russia reached a record-high $68.7bn in the year to March 31. India’s exports to Russia totalled $4.9bn, while its imports from Russia amounted to $63.8bn, according to a Bloomberg report.Tariff worries pushed India’s rupee to a record low on Friday of 88.21 against the dollar.To cushion the tariff hit, Modi’s government is rolling out measures to boost private consumption, which makes up about 60% of the economy. He announced a reduction in consumption taxes earlier this month, which will likely take effect from October, giving a boost to spending and helping to drive down prices.If India continues to trade with Russia, a 50% duty on its goods shipped to the US — the combined hit of the reciprocal and secondary tariffs — could reduce its exports to America by 60% and lower its gross domestic product by 0.9%, according to Bloomberg Economics.The economic impact may be cushioned by the fact that India’s economy is largely driven by domestic demand, rather than exports.Modi must now walk a geopolitical tightrope.If he allows India’s refiners to keep buying Russian oil, he risks a direct blow to the economy and damage to the ties with his country’s top trade partner.On the other hand, yielding to US pressure could undermine India’s long-standing relationship with Moscow.

With GDP and employment figures dominating political debates, it is easy to forget that they are hardly timeless truths. In fact, how we measure progress has shifted dramatically over time. The Physiocrats – eighteenth-century French economists who saw agriculture as the source of all wealth – regarded farms’ output as the most important economic indicator. The Soviet Union, for its part, focused exclusively on goods production and ignored services altogether.What has remained constant, however, is that statistics – true to their name – have always been tools of the state. The Domesday Book of 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror, served as an early economic survey cataloguing the land, property, and resources of his newly acquired English realm. Centuries later, William Petty’s 1690 book Political Arithmetick sought to demonstrate that Britain’s tax base was strong enough to sustain its war against France.The modern concept of GDP was developed in the 1930s and became firmly established during World War II, as it served a national purpose. While Germany was working on its own methods for gauging economic capacity, the United States and the United Kingdom gained a decisive strategic edge by being the first to define total output and compile reliable statistics. This enabled the Allies to maximise production and manage the sacrifices required of their citizens more effectively.Greece’s 2012 debt crisis underscores the dangers of unreliable economic data. For years, the country relied on inflated GDP figures and understated debt levels to borrow cheaply on international markets. Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical arm, and others cautioned that Greece’s statistics were misleading, but their warnings were largely unheeded – not least because banks were eager to profit from loan commissions.The outcome was inevitable: an emergency International Monetary Fund bailout, severe austerity measures, a deep recession, and political upheaval. A decade later, Greece’s GDP – now measured accurately – was barely higher than it was in 2012.One lesson from this episode – and from others, such as Argentina’s manipulation of inflation data in the mid-2000s – is that international investors should treat any attempt to undermine the integrity of official statistics as a red flag. History shows that while governments reap short-term political benefits by manipulating economic figures, the long-term costs can be enormous.That is why economists have been alarmed by US President Donald Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump’s decision to replace her with E J Antoni, an inexperienced loyalist, has only fuelled these concerns. The threat that such moves pose to investor confidence is especially acute in the US, which relies heavily on foreign capital and depends on the reliability of its national statistics as a key selling point. But an equally grave, if subtler, threat is that undermining the credibility of economic data weakens government effectiveness. Even an administration focused on shrinking the government and cutting taxes must understand the country’s productive capacity and tax base, especially amid rising geopolitical tensions and growing security demands.Trump’s partisan campaign against nonpartisan statistics, marked by dramatic cuts to data-collection programmes, will therefore limit his administration’s ability to craft effective policies and demonstrate their success. While claims of “evidence-based policy” are sometimes overstated and often clash with political priorities, knowing whether government actions are working remains invaluable.Moreover, when governments start believing their own distorted numbers, the consequences can be disastrous. In 1987, a CIA study concluded that, contrary to what many Western observers believed, the Soviet Union’s reported growth figures were generally accurate. Yet after the USSR’s sudden collapse, it became clear that those numbers had been severely inflated. Corrupted by political considerations, Soviet statistics overlooked critical indicators, such as the scarcity and poor quality of consumer goods, masking the communist regime’s deep vulnerabilities. While we should not be naive about the political pressures surrounding sensitive figures like inflation and employment, independent and competent statistical agencies keep governments grounded in reality and enable businesses and investors to make informed decisions.Unfortunately, official statistics across the OECD are in poor shape. Faced with shrinking budgets, agencies are struggling to keep up with rapid technological and structural shifts. Given that no government is going to shower them with more resources, statisticians are left with no choice but to modernise their data collection and processing procedures. In that sense, there is a silver lining to Trump’s assault on America’s statistics infrastructure: it may prompt officials to rethink how they measure economic performance and to embrace new technologies that make it easier to sift through massive amounts of information.

With GDP and employment figures dominating political debates, it is easy to forget that they are hardly timeless truths. In fact, how we measure progress has shifted dramatically over time. The Physiocrats – eighteenth-century French economists who saw agriculture as the source of all wealth – regarded farms’ output as the most important economic indicator. The Soviet Union, for its part, focused exclusively on goods production and ignored services altogether.What has remained constant, however, is that statistics – true to their name – have always been tools of the state. The Domesday Book of 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror, served as an early economic survey cataloguing the land, property, and resources of his newly acquired English realm. Centuries later, William Petty’s 1690 book Political Arithmetick sought to demonstrate that Britain’s tax base was strong enough to sustain its war against France.The modern concept of GDP was developed in the 1930s and became firmly established during World War II, as it served a national purpose. While Germany was working on its own methods for gauging economic capacity, the United States and the United Kingdom gained a decisive strategic edge by being the first to define total output and compile reliable statistics. This enabled the Allies to maximise production and manage the sacrifices required of their citizens more effectively.Greece’s 2012 debt crisis underscores the dangers of unreliable economic data. For years, the country relied on inflated GDP figures and understated debt levels to borrow cheaply on international markets. Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical arm, and others cautioned that Greece’s statistics were misleading, but their warnings were largely unheeded – not least because banks were eager to profit from loan commissions.The outcome was inevitable: an emergency International Monetary Fund bailout, severe austerity measures, a deep recession, and political upheaval. A decade later, Greece’s GDP – now measured accurately – was barely higher than it was in 2012.One lesson from this episode – and from others, such as Argentina’s manipulation of inflation data in the mid-2000s – is that international investors should treat any attempt to undermine the integrity of official statistics as a red flag. History shows that while governments reap short-term political benefits by manipulating economic figures, the long-term costs can be enormous.That is why economists have been alarmed by US President Donald Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump’s decision to replace her with E J Antoni, an inexperienced loyalist, has only fuelled these concerns. The threat that such moves pose to investor confidence is especially acute in the US, which relies heavily on foreign capital and depends on the reliability of its national statistics as a key selling point. But an equally grave, if subtler, threat is that undermining the credibility of economic data weakens government effectiveness. Even an administration focused on shrinking the government and cutting taxes must understand the country’s productive capacity and tax base, especially amid rising geopolitical tensions and growing security demands.Trump’s partisan campaign against nonpartisan statistics, marked by dramatic cuts to data-collection programmes, will therefore limit his administration’s ability to craft effective policies and demonstrate their success. While claims of “evidence-based policy” are sometimes overstated and often clash with political priorities, knowing whether government actions are working remains invaluable.Moreover, when governments start believing their own distorted numbers, the consequences can be disastrous. In 1987, a CIA study concluded that, contrary to what many Western observers believed, the Soviet Union’s reported growth figures were generally accurate. Yet after the USSR’s sudden collapse, it became clear that those numbers had been severely inflated. Corrupted by political considerations, Soviet statistics overlooked critical indicators, such as the scarcity and poor quality of consumer goods, masking the communist regime’s deep vulnerabilities. While we should not be naive about the political pressures surrounding sensitive figures like inflation and employment, independent and competent statistical agencies keep governments grounded in reality and enable businesses and investors to make informed decisions.Unfortunately, official statistics across the OECD are in poor shape. Faced with shrinking budgets, agencies are struggling to keep up with rapid technological and structural shifts. Given that no government is going to shower them with more resources, statisticians are left with no choice but to modernise their data collection and processing procedures. In that sense, there is a silver lining to Trump’s assault on America’s statistics infrastructure: it may prompt officials to rethink how they measure economic performance and to embrace new technologies that make it easier to sift through massive amounts of information.

The problem with European regulators, a German businessman recently told me, is that they are too scared of downside risks. “In any innovative new business sector, they overregulate and stifle any upside potential.” In contrast, he argued, Americans care more about the upside potential, and thus hold off on regulation until they know much more about the consequences. “Not surprisingly, the United States has much more of a presence in innovative industries.” AI is a case in point. The European Union enacted the world’s first comprehensive AI regulation in August 2024, establishing safeguards against risks such as discrimination, disinformation, privacy violations, and AI systems that could endanger human life or threaten social stability. The law also assigns AI systems different risk levels, with different treatments for each. While AI-driven social scoring systems are banned outright, higher-risk systems are heavily regulated and supervised, with a list of fines for non-compliance. But Europe has little presence in the burgeoning AI industry, especially relative to the US or China. Those leading the charge in generative AI are US-based firms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google; no European firm meets the mark. Such a glaring gap seems to speak for itself. For now, the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan, which seeks to limit red tape and regulation in AI, looks like the better approach. The problem with the European way is that it burdens fledgling firms with the costs of regulatory compliance before the technology’s potential has become clear. A chatbot that spreads falsehoods or discriminates against certain ethnic groups is certainly not desirable, but there must be some tolerance for such errors in the early stages of a system’s development. Moreover, when developers can explore a system’s positive possibilities more freely, they also have time (and possibly resources generated from successful but error-prone launches) to figure out cost-effective ways to address issues that undermine the system’s reliability. Demanding near-perfection from the outset does not safeguard society so much as it stifles the trial-and-error process through which breakthroughs emerge. Of course, errors such as racial discrimination can be extremely costly, especially if made by chatbots that interact with millions of people. Recognising this risk, some regulators allow new products to be tested only in tightly controlled settings. Innovators can experiment with a limited group of users, and always under the regulator’s watchful eye. This “sandbox” approach helps to contain any harms from spilling over to the broader public – Europe’s main concern. But sandboxes might also limit what can go right. Trials with small, restricted groups cannot capture the benefits of network effects, whereby products become more valuable as more people use them. Nor can they reveal unexpected breakthroughs that come when the “wrong” people adopt a product (for example, online pornography drove early innovations in web technology). In short, sandbox trials may keep disasters at bay, but they also risk stifling discovery. They are better than outright bans, but they may still cause innovators to bury too many promising ideas before they can scale. What then are the costs of the laissez-faire American approach? Most obviously, the system can blow up because of rogue products, as happened with subprime mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 global financial crisis. Today, one hears similar fears about generative AI and the crypto industry (with FTX’s implosion cited as an early warning signal). Historically, the US, with its deep fiscal pockets, may have been more willing to take such risks, while the fragmented EU may have been more cautious. But with fiscal space shrinking in the US, a rethink may be in the offing. Even if the US wants to regulate more, though, can the authorities really pull it off? The American way is to wait until an industry is large enough to matter. But by that point, the industry will have grown powerful enough to shape any rules meant to rein it in. Consider crypto: flush with cash, armed with lobbyists, and laser-focused on its interests, it has proven adept at swaying politicians – and public opinion – in its favour. The consequence invariably is under-regulation, even when the risks to the public are glaring. Risk-averse Europe, by contrast, steps in early, when an innovative sector is still small and its voice barely audible. At this stage, it is the incumbents – the banks threatened by crypto, for example – who dominate the debate. Their influence pushes the needle toward excessive caution and heavy-handed rules. The US tends to regulate too little, too late, whereas Europe does too much, too soon. Neither gets the balance quite right. Even though there is a case for each side moving toward the other, it is worth emphasising that regulation does not stop at national borders. In fact, the world may benefit from having somewhat different approaches. US chatbots can thrive in a relatively unregulated environment, experimenting and scaling quickly. But once they seek a global presence, they will run into Europe’s stricter standards. With sufficient resources and strong incentives, they will find creative, low-cost ways to comply, and those risk-reduction strategies may eventually flow back into the US, leaving the world with more, safer innovation. That is the ideal scenario, anyway. Reality is likely to be messier. American firms could cause global harm before European regulators catch up. Europe may continue discouraging innovation before it starts, leaving the world with too little. But perhaps the greatest danger is if regulators on either side of the Atlantic export their own rulebook, forcing the other to fall in line. The world may be best served if US and European regulators keep seeing regulations differently. — Project Syndicate Raghuram G Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the co-author (with Rohit Lamba) of Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity.

President Donald Trump’s push for Republican-led states to redraw their US House of Representatives districts to protect their majority in next year’s midterm elections could set the stage for Republicans to dominate the chamber in decades to come, political analysts and experts said. Republicans hold a 219-212 House majority and Trump is looking to break the streak of midterm House losses for the sitting president’s party — as happened to him in 2018 and to Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 — by pushing states starting with Texas to aggressively redistrict. Democratic states, led by California, have threatened to retaliate by redrawing their own districts for partisan gain, a longstanding feature of US politics known as gerrymandering that has grown far more potent thanks to modern data analysis tools. But Republicans hold the advantage, with control of the state legislatures and governorships of 23 states, compared with 15 for Democrats. Further, independent analysts say, population shifts could create as many as 11 new congressional seats in Republican Southern and Western states after the 2030 US Census. Democrats enjoyed 40 years of unbroken House control beginning in 1955 and ending in 1995 as conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party in earnest. The current redistricting battle has raised concerns about a new era of gerrymandering, with Republicans and Democrats jockeying for advantage and further dividing an already polarised nation. “I feel like it’s cheating,” said Adam Kinzinger, a Trump critic and former Republican congressman who lost his Illinois seat to redistricting after the 2020 census. “Every time we break a norm in politics now, that norm never comes back. It’ll be an avalanche of constant redistricting. I worry about that.” The Republican-controlled Texas state legislature last week passed a new map meant to provide five more Republican seats. The Democratic-led California legislature responded by proposing a map that would give Democrats five more seats, though the state’s voters will have to approve that move in a November special election. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that most Americans oppose partisan gerrymandering, to the degree that many worry about American democracy itself being in jeopardy. Few competitive seats Nonpartisan election analysts currently rate just three dozen of the nation’s 435 House districts as competitive in the 2026 midterm elections, pushing the real contests to party primaries that select more partisan lawmakers less interested in compromise. “That would be another way of saying that the will of the voters is not being reflected in the outcome of the election,” said Thomas Kahn, acting director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “If Republicans build institutional advantages, whether through fundraising ... or through gerrymandering, then essentially they will be creating a lock on the House. And I don’t think that’s good for democracy,” he added. Democratic strongholds including New York and California are already losing population to Florida, Texas, Idaho and other Republican-led states, a trend that many Republicans view as an endorsement of their party’s policies. “A lot of the voters who are moving from California — the Bay Area — to Austin or Dallas or Boise, Idaho, are the more conservative-leaning folks who want to live in a red state for a variety of reasons: cost of living, laws and regulations, how the state’s run, business environment, stuff like that,” said Will Kiley, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of the House Republicans. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 21% of Republicans and 14% of Democrats have considered moving to a different state where taxes are lower. The US Census data that underlies redistricting expectations shows that nearly all of the population growth in states such as Texas and Florida since 2020 has occurred in minority communities. In Texas, which is expected to pick up three to four House seats after 2030 according to party redistricting committees, nearly 97% of newcomers are Hispanic, Black or Asian. In Florida, which could add two to four seats, the same groups account for more than three-quarters of the growth, US Census data shows. “What we know to be true is that growth is almost completely within communities of colour. And those are the very communities that these changes are attempting to curtail,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president at New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Minority voters have shifted toward Republicans in recent elections. Trump saw a 14 percentage-point improvement among Hispanic voters from his 2020 performance, though he still lost the demographic group overall to Democratic rival then-vice-president Kamala Harris. The new congressional map unveiled by Texas Republicans at Trump’s behest appears to cater to Hispanic voters. But Democrats say Republicans have eroded the group’s electoral power in some Hispanic-majority districts by minimising the number of voting-age Latinos and adding high-turnout white conservative communities. Partisan rancour in Congress has intensified since Trump began his second term in January, driving out moderate Republicans including Representative Don Bacon, who drew Trump’s ire after disagreeing with the administration over proposed funding cuts and security gaps at the Pentagon. Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher, once seen as a rising Republican star, left office in early 2024 after a firestorm of criticism for opposing the impeachment of former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “We have major issues to solve. We’re not solving them,” said former Representative John Duarte, who was rated the least conservative House Republican by Heritage Action for America before losing his California seat to Democrat Adam Gray last year. “We can do a lot. But right now, everyone’s running away from the ball.” — Reuters

In an age when digital addiction has emerged to be a global menace, cutting across generations and causing massive loss of productivity, a bill passed by South Korea last Wednesday banning the use of mobile phones and smart devices during class hours in schools could be described as an attempt to claw back lost ground. The law, which comes into effect from the next school year in March 2026, is the result of a bi-partisan effort to curb smartphone addiction, as more research points to its harmful effects.Most South Korean schools have already implemented some form of a smartphone ban. Some countries like Finland and France have banned phones on a smaller scale, applying the restriction only to schools for younger children. Others like Italy, the Netherlands and China have restricted phone use in all schools. But South Korea is among the few to enshrine such a ban in law.It’s not just children though. Nearly a quarter of the country’s 51mn people depend on their phones too much, according to a 2024 government survey. But that figure more than doubles - to 43% - for those between the ages of 10 and 19. And it has been rising over the years. More than a third of teens also say they struggle to control the amount of time they spend scrolling through videos on social media. Parents fear this is getting in the way of everything else they could be doing with their time. This concern can find echoes across the world.Cho Jung-hun, an MP from the opposition People Power Party who introduced the bill, says he was encouraged to act as other countries made similar moves. He says there is “significant scientific and medical proof” that smartphone addiction has “extremely harmful effects on students’ brain development and emotional growth”.Although it only bans phone use during class hours, the law gives teachers the power to stop students from using their phones on school premises. It also asks schools to educate students about the proper use of smart devices. There are some exemptions. The bill allows students with disabilities or special educational needs to use assistive devices, and permits use for educational purposes or during emergencies.Bans on smartphones in Dutch schools have improved the learning environment despite initial protests, according to a study commissioned by the government of the Netherlands. National guidelines, introduced in January 2024, recommend banning smartphones from classrooms and almost all schools have complied. Close to two-thirds of secondary schools ask pupils to leave their phones at home or put them in lockers, while phones are given in at the start of a lesson at one in five.In the US, parent-led movements to limit children’s use of smartphones, social media and the internet have sprung up over the recent years. For example, the Phone-Free Schools Movement in Pennsylvania was launched in 2023, and Mothers Against Media Addiction started in New York in March 2024. These organisations, which empower parents to advocate in their local communities, follow in the footsteps of organisations such as Wait Until 8th in Texas and Screen Time Action Network at Fairplay in Massachusetts, which were formed in 2017.The concerns of these parent-led organisations were reflected in the best-selling book The Anxious Generation, which paints a bleak picture of modern childhood as dominated by depression and anxiety brought on by smartphone addiction. Phone-free schools are one of the four actions the book’s author, Jonathan Haidt, recommended to change course. The other three are no smartphones for children before high school, waiting until 16 for social media access, and allowing more childhood independence in the real world.Some research has suggested that when children have access to a smartphone, even if they do not use it, they find it harder to focus in class. Initial research has found that academic performance improves after the bans go into effect.