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The Qatar Foundation (QF) launched its Alumni Chapter for the UK, in the presence of HE Vice Chairperson of Qatar Foundation Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al-Thani.The Qatar Foundation Alumni Chapter for the UK - launched at a London gathering - is a platform aimed at helping its members support each other as their journeys continue to unfold, as well as to retain their ties with Qatar.It is the second international Alumni Chapter to be established by Qatar Foundation's (QF) Alumni Program, following the launch of its US and Canada equivalent in 2024.Reflecting the global reach and impact of QF's ecosystem of education, 137 of its alumni are currently working or pursuing further advanced studies in the UK, in fields including Artificial Intelligence, healthcare and medical research, policy, sustainability, communications, and humanitarianism."The true legacy of Qatar Foundation - and its schools, partner universities, and Hamad Bin Khalifa University - lies not in rankings or research output, but in the lives of our alumni," said Francisco Marmolejo, President of Higher Education and Education Advisor, QF."Graduates of Qatar Foundation-supported institutions are now driving positive change in over 120 countries - living proof of our mission to unlock human potential."Speaking at the launch of the Chapter, diplomat and economic strategist Sheikha Alanoud H. Al-Thani, who currently serves as the Counselor for Economic Affairs at the Embassy of the State of Qatar in the UK and is a graduate of QF's Qatar Academy Doha and QF partner university HEC Paris, Doha, said: "This Chapter deepens the longstanding Qatar-UK partnership in education and innovation - not just through institutions, but through the living bridge of our alumni."Across the UK, graduates of QF schools and universities are now harnessing the skills, knowledge, and values they gained through their years of study and discovery at Education City in Doha, as government economists, data scientists, software engineers, doctors, neuroscientists, climate strategists, and legal experts, among other roles. Others are pursuing postgraduate and doctoral studies in fields such as AI, public health, cancer research, and global affairs.Among them is Dr. Basil Mahfouz, a data scientist at University College London and a graduate of QF partner university Georgetown University in Qatar. His projects focus on harnessing Artificial Intelligence to unlock knowledge and drive inclusive innovation, and he co-founded SynSapien, an open science platform that united global researchers during the Covid-19 pandemic.Ulan Seitkaliyev, an alumnus of QF partner university Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and now a London-based software engineer for Bloomberg, said: "What stood out most for me during my time at QF was the incredible support we received, as well as the wide range of projects and opportunities available to explore our interests and pursue our own initiatives - it was an environment that truly encouraged creativity, independence, and innovation."Asmaa Alkuwari, Alumni Engagement Manager, QF, said: "This Chapter represents more than just a gathering, it's part of a broader strategic effort by the QF Alumni Engagement Office to foster lasting, global connections among QF graduates."We are proud of the distinguished alumni based in the UK who hold influential roles across sectors and continue to carry QF's values into the world through their work, leadership, and impact."

Conflict and instability are exacting a devastating toll on 39 economies worldwide, accelerating extreme poverty, intensifying hunger, and pushing key development goals further out of reach.These stark warnings come from the World Bank’s first comprehensive assessment of conflict-affected economies in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.The report finds that as conflict has become more frequent and deadly in the 2020s, these economies are falling behind on nearly every major development indicator.Since 2020, per capita GDP in these countries has contracted by an average of 1.8% annually — while other developing economies have seen average growth of 2.9%.This year, some 421mn people are surviving on less than $3 a day in economies afflicted by conflict or instability — more than in the rest of the world combined. That number is projected to rise to nearly 435mn by 2030, representing nearly 60% of the world’s extreme poor.“For the last three years, the world’s attention has been focused on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. That focus has now intensified,” said Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group.“Yet more than 70% of those suffering from conflict and instability are in Africa. When left unaddressed, these conditions become entrenched — half of the countries currently facing conflict or instability have been in such circumstances for 15 years or more. Misery on this scale is inevitably contagious,” Gill noted.The findings help explain why the global goal of eradicating extreme poverty remains out of reach. Poverty is now increasingly concentrated in places where progress is most difficult.Of the 39 economies classified as conflict-affected or unstable, some 21 are currently experiencing active conflict.While the extreme poverty rate in developing economies has declined to just 6%, the rate stands at nearly 40% in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Their average per capita GDP remains stagnant at around $1,500 — unchanged since 2010 — compared to $6,900 in other developing economies, where it has more than doubled.Labour markets, too, are under severe strain. These economies are failing to generate enough jobs to keep up with population growth. In 2022, of the more than 270mn people of working age in these countries, fewer than half were employed.The impact of conflict and instability is evident across the development spectrum. On average, life expectancy is seven years lower than in other developing economies. Infant mortality is more than twice as high.Acute food insecurity affects 18% of the population — 18 times the rate in other developing economies. Sadly, 90% of school-age children do not meet minimum reading proficiency.Yet, the report also highlights untapped potential. Natural resource wealth — including minerals, forests, oil, gas, and coal — represents over 13% of GDP on average in these economies, three times the share found elsewhere in the developing world.Several countries — including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe — are rich in the critical mineralsneeded for renewable energy technologies like electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines.Moreover, these countries have one of the world’s youngest and fastest-growing populations. While working-age populations are stabilising or shrinking in many parts of the world, they are projected to expand in conflict-affected economies through at least 2055.By then, nearly two out of every three people in these countries will be of working age — the highest share globally!Realising this demographic dividend, however, will require substantial investment — in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and in fostering a dynamic private sector capable of generating sustainable, quality employment, the World Bank emphasised.Undoubtedly, extreme poverty is surging in conflict-affected economies with their development gains getting reversed amid most widespread conflict in a period of nearly 25 years!

The World Bank warned of worsening conditions in the world's most conflict-affected and fragile countries, where crises are becoming increasingly deadly and frequent.In a comprehensive study of 39 countries classified as fragile and conflict-affected since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Bank found that economic stagnation has become the norm in these regions. Since 2020, the 39 countries, stretching from Marshall Islands in the Pacific to Mozambique in sub-Saharan Africa, experienced an average annual decline of 1.8% in per capita economic output. In contrast, other developing economies grew at an average rate of 2.9% annually over the same period.The study highlighted that more than 420 million people in these fragile economies live on less than $3 a day, well below the poverty line. This figure represents the largest concentration of extreme poverty globally, despite the fact that these 39 countries account for less than 15% of the world's population.The report also noted that many of these nations face long-standing challenges, including crumbling infrastructure, weak governance, and poor education systems. On average, individuals in these countries receive only six years of schooling - three years less than the average in other low- and middle-income countries. Life expectancy is five years shorter, and infant mortality rates are twice as high.Among the 39 countries, 21 are currently experiencing active conflict, including Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Gaza Strip. The study pointed out that in countries embroiled in high-intensity conflict, defined as those with more than 150 conflict-related deaths per million people, their economies contract by a cumulative 20% within five years of the conflict's onset. As conflicts escalate, hunger rises in tandem.According to the World Bank's estimates, around 18%, roughly 200 million people, of the populations in these 39 countries are facing acute food insecurity, compared to just 1% in other low- and middle-income countries. The report also emphasized that some nations managed to escape the cycle of fragility and conflict, citing Nepal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka as examples.

The drama of April, in which the US President Donald Trump unveiled, and later suspended, high import tariffs affecting most of the trading world, has given way to a slower-moving but equally significant set of events in the US and world economy.The reduction of proposed tariffs between China and the US, the two biggest economies in the world, has been significant. In mid-May the two governments agreed after talks in Geneva that US tariffs imposed on China would be 30%, down from 145%, while earlier smartphones and related technologies were exempted. China’s tariffs on US imports were agreed to be 10%, reduced from 125%. Many tariff reductions, however, are temporary, for 90 days, they are still at a significant level. The Yale Budget Lab calculated the effective tariff rate to be 17.8%, compared with just 2.5% at the start of President Trump’s second term.Although the trade war appears to have died down, tariffs are still relatively high and a real war has erupted in the Middle East. These developments contribute to inflation becoming ‘sticky’ at an elevated levelOn 10-11 June, Chinese and US trade negotiators met again, this time in London, and agreed to continue the reduced tariffs. In addition, China agreed to relax export restrictions on rare earth metals – of strategic importance for several US industries including batteries, medical devices and in the defence sector – while the US eased restrictions on export of hi-tech chips for AI, and visas for Chinese students.Much attention has been diverted to the fiscal position, following a downgrading of US sovereign credit by Moody’s in mid-May from AAA to Aa1. The credit agency cited the very high debt of $36tn, little indication that it was set to be curbed, and that the sheer amount of debt was not fully compensated for by the substantial strength and depth of the US economy and global use of the dollar.Yields on 30-year Treasury bonds have touched 5%. They have also risen in other major currencies. This is a sign of low confidence generally in economic and fiscal management. It intensifies difficulties of fiscal management in the US by increasing the already-high proportion of spending taken up by servicing the debt.Alongside these trends there is a closely related feature: Elevated inflation. In May Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, stated that the giant US retailer has not been able fully to absorb the higher costs of imported goods caused by tariffs.For much of the past two decades, goods inflation has been kept low by the integration of east Asian economies, with cheap manufactured exports, into the global economy. This was interrupted by the disruption to supply chains caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Goods inflation had started to fall since 2023, but now there is the upward pressure from tariffs and tensions over trade. Inflation is becoming ‘sticky’.Inflation has not risen significantly yet, nudging up 0.1% to 2.4% in May. But many companies front-loaded imports ahead of the scheduled 2 April announcement of high tariffs, and that effect will wear off. There are other factors contributing to elevated inflation. With an ageing population, and curbs on immigration in the US, wage inflation is likely to remain an issue; similarly, commodity prices face upward pressures.The rise in value of physical assets such as gold is a sign of weakening confidence in paper money and an expectation of higher inflation.Interest rates will likely have to be kept at a moderately high level, given inflationary pressures, and may even be increased. Jay Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, in a speech in mid-May, referred to the possibility that ‘inflation could be more volatile going forward.’While sticky inflation does erode the effective level of the public sector debt, amounting to a soft default, it comes with costs. Those responsible for setting interest rates will find it difficult either to contain inflation or to encourage growth, resulting in a risk of stagflation.Meanwhile in geopolitics, military matters have started to outweigh trade and tariff issues. Just two days after the London talks, conflict between Israel and Iran escalated with exchange of missile fire, with the Israeli government convinced that Iran was accelerating its plans to develop atomic weapons. On 18 June reports emerged that US President Donald Trump was preparing a massive strike with a ‘bunker-busting’ bomb, more powerful than anything possessed by Israel, to take out a suspected nuclear weapons site in Iran. This may be a negotiating tactic, and shortly after he announced a two-week delay on strikes to allow for talks.The oil price has risen since the escalation of the Israel-Iran conflict, from below $65 a barrel at end May to above $75 by mid-June, adding to inflationary pressures. The intensity and duration of this conflict, and the wider political and economic impacts for the region and beyond, are impossible to project, and they add to already heightened global uncertainty.The author is a Qatari banker, with many years of experience in the banking sector in senior positions.

April marks the start of the cruellest months for residents of Solapur, a hot and dry district in western India. As temperatures soar, water availability dwindles. In peak summer, the wait for taps to flow can stretch to a week or more. Just a decade ago, water flowed every other day, according to the local government and residents of Solapur, some 40km inland from Mumbai.Then in 2017, a 1,320-megawatt coal-fired power plant run by state-controlled NTPC began operations. It provided the district with energy — and competed with residents and businesses for water from a reservoir that serves the area.Solapur illustrates the Catch-22 facing India, which has 17% of the planet’s population but access to only 4% of its water resources. The world’s most populous country plans to spend nearly $80bn on water-hungry coal plants by 2031 to power growing industries like data centre operations.The vast majority of these new projects are planned for India’s driest areas, according to a power ministry document reviewed by Reuters, which is not public and was created for officials to track progress.Many of the 20 people interviewed by Reuters for this story, which included power company executives, energy officials and industry analysts, said the thermal expansion likely portended future conflict between industry and residents over limited water resources.Thirty-seven of the 44 new projects named in the undated power ministry shortlist of future operations are located in areas that the government classifies as either suffering from water scarcity or stress. NTPC, which says it draws 98.5% of its water from water-stressed areas, is involved in nine of them. NTPC said in response to Reuters’ questions that it is “continuously striving towards conservation of water with best of our efforts in Solapur,” including using methods like treating and reusing water. It did not answer queries about potential expansion plans. India’s power ministry has told lawmakers in parliament, most recently in 2017, that the locations of coal-fired power plants are determined by factors including access to land and water and that state governments are responsible for allocating water to them.Access to land is the dominant consideration, two federal groundwater board officials and two water researchers told Reuters. India’s complex and arcane land laws have delayed many commercial and infrastructure projects for years, so power operators under pressure to meet burgeoning demand pick areas where they are likely to face little resistance, said Rudrodip Majumdar, an energy and environment professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bengaluru. “They look for areas with easy land availability — minimum resistance for maximum land — even if water is available only far away,” he said.The federal power ministry, as well as energy and water authorities in Maharashtra state, where Solapur is located, did not respond to queries. Delhi attempted to reduce its reliance on coal before reversing track after the Covid pandemic. It has invested heavily in renewable energy sources like solar and hydro, but thirsty thermal power will still be dominant for the coming decades.India’s former top energy bureaucrat Ram Vinay Shahi said ready access to power was strategically important for the country, whose per-capita power consumption is far lower than its regional rival China.“The only energy resource we have in the country is coal,” he said. “Between water and coal, preference is given to coal.”‘Nothing’ in Solapur?Solapur resident Rajani Thoke plans her life around water in high summer. On days with supply, “I do not focus on anything other than storing water, washing clothes and such work,” said the mother of two, who strictly polices her family’s water use.Sushilkumar Shinde, the federal power minister who approved the Solapur plant in 2008, when the area had already been classified “water scarce,” told Reuters he helped NTPC procure the land by negotiating payments to locals.The member of the opposition Congress party, who won election to retain Solapur’s parliamentary seat a year after the plant’s approval, defended the operation on grounds of NTPC’s sizeable investment. The $1.34bn plant generated thousands of jobs during its construction and now provides part-time employment to about 2,500 locals. “I made sure farmers got good money for the land NTPC acquired,” he said, adding that mismanagement by local authorities was to blame for water shortages.Solapur municipal official Sachin Ombase acknowledged that water distribution infrastructure had not kept up with population growth, but said that authorities were trying to address the problem.Shinde said “there was nothing” in Solapur in 2008 and that residents who received land payments had no reason to oppose the plant. Researcher Shripad Dharmadhikary, who founded environment advocacy group Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, said local politicians often supported splashy infrastructure projects to boost their popularity.Any “problems come up much later,” he said. Even before the Solapur plant started operating, there were signs of the trouble to come. The first of its two units was supposed to start generating power by the middle of 2016, but it was delayed by more than 12 months because of years of severe water shortages, according to a 2020 regulatory filing.The absence of nearby water resources meant the station ended up drawing on water from a reservoir about 120km away. Such distances can sharply increase costs and the risk of water theft, said Dharmadhikary and two plant sources.As of May 2023, the station is among India’s least water-efficient, according to the latest available federal records. It also has among the lowest capacity utilisation rates of coal-fired plants, according to data from government think-tank NITI Aayog.NTPC said its data indicates the Solapur plant has an efficiency ratio in line with the country’s norms.Indian stations typically consume twice as much water as their global counterparts, according to the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment think-tank. Solapur plant officials told reporters in March that capacity utilisation will improve with increasing demand, indicating that water consumption could surge in the future. A forthcoming survey on water use in Solapur led by state groundwater authorities and reviewed by Reuters showed that irrigation demand in the district outstrips supply by a third.Dharmes Waghmore owns farmland a few miles from the plant and said that developing it would provide more financial security than his current casual work.But he said borrowing money to develop the land by drilling a bore well is too risky: “What if there’s no water?”Kuladeep Jangam, a top local official, said authorities were struggling to draw businesses to Solapur.The lack of “water neutralises all other pull factors,” he said.Thirst for waterSince 2014, India has lost 60.33bn units of coal-power generation across the country — equivalent to 19 days of coal-power supply at June 2025 levels — because water shortages force plants to suspend generation, according to federal data.Among the facilities that have struggled with shortages is the 2,920MW Chandrapur Super Thermal Power Station, one of India’s largest. Located about 500km northeast of Solapur but also in a water-stressed area, the plant shuts several of its units for months at a time when the monsoon delivers less rain than usual, according to NITI Aayog data.Despite the challenges, the plant is considering adding 800MW of new capacity, according to the power ministry list seen by Reuters and half a dozen sources at Mahagenco, which operates the station.The document indicates the plant hasn’t identified a water source for the expansion, though it has already sourced its coal.State-owned Mahagenco did not respond to Reuters’ questions. The plant’s thirst for water has previously led to tensions with residents of nearby Chandrapur city. Locals protested the station during a 2017 drought, prompting officials such as local lawmaker Sudhir Mungantiwar to order it to divert water to homes.Mungantiwar, however, says he supports the expansion of the plant, which he hopes will lead to it retiring water-inefficient older units.But the station has already delayed a plan to decommission two polluting and water-guzzling power units with a capacity of 420MW by about seven years, citing instructions from the federal government, the company sources said. The Indian government asked power companies not to retire old thermal plants until the end of the decade due to a surge in demand following the pandemic, Reuters has reported.Chandrapur resident Anjali, who goes by one name, said she is resigned to visiting a tap installed by the station near one of its gates for drinking water.“We’re poor, we make do with whatever we can get,” she said. — Reuters

War, tariffs and the Air India crash will cast a shadow over the Paris Air Show as the aerospace industry’s biggest annual gathering opens on Monday.More than 2,400 companies from 48 countries are showing off their hardware at the week-long event at Le Bourget airfield on the outskirts of Paris.The sales rivalry between Airbus and Boeing usually drives the headlines as the world’s top civilian planemakers announce many of their biggest orders at the air show.But this year’s event “is much more complex”, said Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury, who also chairs the board of the Gifas association of French aerospace firms that organises the biennial event.The list of challenges is growing.Russia’s war in Ukraine is stretching into its fourth year and there are fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East after Israel launched strikes on Iran yesterday, disrupting commercial flights across the region.The world economy is expected to slow sharply after US President Donald Trump launched his tariff blitz in April.And Boeing is facing a new crisis after Thursday’s crash of a 787 Dreamliner operated by Air India in the city of Ahmedabad, which killed at least 265 people on board and on the ground.Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg cancelled plans to attend the Paris Air Show to focus on the investigation into the crash.Prior to the tragedy, Boeing had been making progress under a new leadership as the US company sought to restore trust after a series of safety and quality lapses.Boeing and its European rival, Airbus, have also been dealing with delays in delivering aircraft due to supply chain issues.Trump’s tariff onslaught has added to the issues facing the industry, which relies on a global supply chain.Trump imposed 10% tariffs on US imports of goods from nearly every country in April, and steeper levies on dozens of countries could kick in next month.The Trump administration is also mulling whether to impose sector-specific tariffs of between 10 and 20% on civil aircraft and parts.The heads of Airbus and Boeing have both called for tariffs to return to zero as had been the case since a 1979 agreement.“The entire Western aerospace industry considers that would be the best that could happen,” said Faury.In a recent interview with trade journal Aviation Week, Ortberg warned that that tariffs are an added cost for Boeing, which has been financially weakened in recent years by production problems.We’re “not in a position to pass those (costs) along to our customers,” he told Aviation Week. “I’m hopeful that, as each of these country-by-country negotiations resolve, those tariffs will go away in the long run.” The tariff problems come as the industry has yet to fully recover from effects of the Covid pandemic on its supply chain.Airbus is having trouble getting enough fuel-efficient engines for its top-selling A320 family of single-aisle jets, holding back the delivery of around 40 aircraft.The main bottleneck is a lack of toilets for widebody aircraft, said Christian Scherer, the head of Airbus’s commercial aircraft division. The Paris Air Show is also about showing off the latest military hardware, at a time of conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. European countries are boosting defence budgets in the face of the Ukraine war and fears about Trump’s commitment to the Nato alliance.“The geostrategic environment has led us to bolster this aspect which was in the background in previous years,” said Gifas head Frederic Parisot. Some 75 companies related to weapons production will be participating at the show, with military jets, helicopters and drones to be displayed.Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fifth-generation stealth multirole fighter will be featured, along with the Rafale produced by France’s Dassault Aviation.

While the Covid-19 pandemic is firmly in the past for many Americans, US households continue to bear the costs of infectious-disease outbreaks. A few months ago, the price of eggs in the United States soared to a record high, largely owing to the spread of H5N1 bird flu. Since March 2024, the virus has ravaged US chicken farms, leading to tens of millions of poultry deaths from infection or culling.More ominously, at least 70 human cases of bird flu have been identified in the US, with one death reported in Louisiana. In a recent report about enhancing the response to H5N1 in America and globally, the Global Virus Network, a consortium of the world’s top virologists, warned of “the terrible consequences of underreacting to current threats.”But while bird flu poses the most immediate risk to Americans, it is by no means the only one. Virulent infectious-disease outbreaks in other countries, such as mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ebola in Uganda, Marburg in Tanzania, and multi-country outbreaks of cholera, do not respect borders, and thus are a threat to people everywhere – including in the US.Without the efforts of the World Health Organisation to contain these outbreaks, the risks of wider transmission would be much greater. This underscores the need for a global agency like the WHO to supervise cross-border co-operation – and the shortsightedness of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the organisation. Despite being the world’s richest and most powerful country, America is not immune to another Covid-style calamity, and abandoning multilateralism and neglecting pandemic preparedness (such as the stockpiling of treatments and vaccines) will make it all the more vulnerable.One might think that the deadly spread of Covid-19, prolonged by the emergence of new virus strains, would convince policymakers to strengthen the world’s public-health architecture – especially as experts warn that future pandemics could be even worse. But with other leaders indicating that they may follow Trump’s example and leave the WHO, the resources for pandemic prevention and control could dwindle to the point that global outbreaks become more frequent and difficult to overcome.If Trump follows through with the move, his administration will become increasingly isolated and impotent. American officials, including at US military installations abroad, will lose access to the WHO-led and -facilitated global networks that collect and share information about infectious-disease threats and respond to outbreaks. Moreover, the US government will have no say in developing new solutions (which will almost invariably be less effective) for controlling the spread of diseases across borders – including its own.Trump has suggested that he may change his mind, presumably if the grievances set out in his executive order to withdraw the US from the organisation are addressed. This implies that the WHO should apply pressure on China to identify the pandemic’s origins. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for his part, has refused to accept the Chinese government’s prevarications. If Trump can propose a way to determine the cause of Covid-19, I am sure that the WHO’s leadership would gladly hear it.Trump’s second condition is that the WHO undertake reforms and use its resources more effectively at the local level, with a greater focus on stopping the spread of infectious diseases. This is a demand that can and should be met. To that end, Tedros has already promised more targeted use of funds and implemented other measures to transform the organisation. In addition, under Tedros, the WHO has transformed the way it raises funds. Its member states have sharply increased their annual contributions, and it has diversified its donor base to share the funding load more widely.This is all part of the WHO’s drive to be more sustainably financed, a plan launched as part of Tedros’s effort to transform the organisation’s operations after he took office in 2017. Back then, he and member states assessed that the departure of a major donor could leave the WHO’s programmes and independence vulnerable to funding shocks. Who knew it would be the US. But, had those changes not been made, we can only imagine how much more challenging the WHO’s current financial situation would be.The Trump administration should welcome these changes, not least because it benefits from having a seat at the table. If the US ultimately abandons the WHO, developing evidence-based guidance and regulations for chronic-disease prevention and management will be significantly harder, undermining the administration’s goal of addressing America’s chronic-disease epidemic.The US will also no longer be a part of the WHO’s medicine prequalification process, a programme that opens a host of new markets for drug producers in a cost-effective manner. Instead, US pharmaceutical companies will be forced to sell their prequalified products to each country individually, putting them at risk of losing access to highly profitable multibillion dollar markets.Twenty-first-century trends – including more mobility and international travel, greater urbanisation, and increasing human encroachment on nature – fuel the global spread of infectious diseases, to the detriment of everyone. US officials would be better positioned to protect their citizens if they joined – and perhaps even led – a discussion on how the WHO and other global health organisations, such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, can meet the world’s needs.One such initiative, in which the US had been a strong partner until Trump took office, was to negotiate a WHO Pandemic Agreement, which WHO member states adopted by consensus at the World Health Assembly on May 20. This historic compact, based on the principles of equity, collaboration, and the reaffirmation of national sovereignty in public-health decision-making, will make the world safer from future pandemics.The US, bolstered by its world-class medical professionals and substantial public investment in medical research, has long exerted considerable influence on global health priorities. But withdrawing from the WHO places America on the outside, unable to shape the agency’s policy agenda and reforms. When the next pandemic strikes, the US will be left watching from the sidelines, as the WHO and its remaining member countries manage the global response and pick up the pieces as they see fit. — Project SyndicateGordon Brown, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, is UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of Education Cannot Wait.

The General Secretariat of the League of Arab States, the Arab Labor Organization, and the Arab Council for Childhood and Development have jointly affirmed that the children of Gaza are enduring one of the gravest humanitarian tragedies, with their fundamental right to life being flagrantly violated. They stressed that the ongoing situation in Gaza places the international community before an urgent moral and legal responsibility to protect Palestinian children and safeguard their rights to health, education, and a safe and dignified life.In a joint statement issued on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labour, observed annually on June 12, the organizations revealed that recent statistics indicate the martyrdom of nearly 18,000 children in Gaza, while thousands of others have been deprived of the most basic necessities of life.The statement emphasized that the forthcoming Second World Summit for Social Development, scheduled to take place in Qatar this November, represents a pivotal opportunity to address mechanisms for promoting decent work and combating poverty, the primary driver of child labour. The summit's outcomes are expected to contribute to the deliberations of the Sixth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, to be held in Morocco in 2026, thereby strengthening the synergy between national, regional, and international efforts.The statement urgently called on all relevant stakeholders to act swiftly to protect children from all forms of exploitation and to uphold their rights as enshrined in international charters and agreements. It particularly underscored the plight of working children, who have been stripped of their childhood and innocence, subjected to harm both physically and psychologically, and denied their basic rights to education, development, and a life of dignity, humanity, and justice.The statement further called for intensified Arab and international attention and reiterated the need to reinforce regional and global commitments to eliminating all forms of child labour. It also pointed out that this year's observance of the World Day Against Child Labour comes while the global goal of eradicating child labour in all its forms by 2025 remains far from reach.It noted that the latest global estimates, issued in 2021, revealed that approximately 160 million children are engaged in child labour worldwide, 63 million girls and 97 million boys. This alarming figure is attributed to a succession of global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, ongoing conflicts and wars, rapid technological advancement, and widening social and economic disparities.The joint statement affirmed the unwavering commitment of the participating organizations to continue collaborative efforts to combat child labour and to support international movements and UN-led initiatives in this regard.It is worth noting that the International Labour Organization (ILO) designated June 12 as the World Day Against Child Labour in 2002, aiming to raise global awareness about the prevalence of child labour and to mobilize efforts towards its eradication. (

As the climate crisis escalates, the European Union and the United Kingdom are moving forward with their Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, promoting it as a landmark tool linking trade and climate policy. But the CBAM’s ambitious aims are now meeting a growing backlash.The CBAM puts a price on the carbon content of emissions-intensive imports like steel, aluminium, and cement. The goal is to reinforce the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) and create a level playing field between domestic and foreign producers, thereby incentivising greener production practices worldwide.Despite the European Parliament’s support for recent proposals to simplify the CBAM, its current design and pace of implementation risk undermining its legitimacy. Rather than advancing a fair and equitable energy transition, it could stoke trade tensions and fuel economic fragmentation, exacerbate inequality, and deliver only limited climate benefits.The transition phase, which began in October 2023, requires importers to report carbon dioxide emissions associated with their goods, but does not require them to pay. That will change in January 2027, when the CBAM’s levies on carbon-intensive imports take effect.Most countries in the Global South – particularly major exporters to the EU – are unprepared for this shift, because they lack the technical capacity to track and report embedded CO2 emissions, the institutional infrastructure to verify them, and the fiscal space to absorb the costs of compliance. These are some of the symptoms of a deeply unequal global system in which the burdens of climate action have not been fairly distributed.However commendable the CBAM’s stated goals may be, its inherent asymmetries must not be overlooked. Applying a uniform carbon-pricing regime to countries with vastly different capacities undermines the principle of a just energy transition and erodes the legitimacy of global climate action by placing a disproportionate burden on those least responsible for the crisis. Many developing economies are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and struggling with rising public debt, in addition to being acutely vulnerable to climate shocks. Now, they are expected to comply with EU and UK standards despite lacking access to robust emissions data systems, clean technologies, regulatory infrastructure, and adequate climate finance.Compounding the problem, revenues generated through the CBAM will be directed to the budgets of the EU and the UK rather than to international climate finance or support for affected countries. This design flaw reinforces the perception that the CBAM is not a genuine effort to advance global climate goals but an instrument of trade protectionism. Many countries, particularly outside Europe, have voiced such concerns, viewing the mechanism as a unilateral trade measure cloaked in green rhetoric.The geopolitical consequences could be dire. The CBAM has emerged at a time of fraying multilateralism and escalating trade tensions. Without broader participation and tangible support for affected exporters, it risks fuelling economic fragmentation and undermining global trust – just when international climate cooperation is most critical and official development assistance is being slashed. But the CBAM is not beyond repair. With thoughtful reforms, it can evolve from a rigid policy tool into a catalyst for an equitable climate transition. To achieve this, the EU and the UK should consider postponing the start of financial enforcement until at least 2028, thereby giving developing countries time to prepare and adapt.This pause must be anchored in a strategic partnership framework that directs resources toward establishing emission-tracking systems, strengthening regulatory capacity, developing carbon-credit markets, and accelerating green industrial investment in climate-vulnerable economies.Moreover, a portion of CBAM revenues should be allocated to international climate partnerships. This would make the mechanism more equitable, build trust with developing countries, and ensure that carbon pricing serves as an incentive rather than a penalty. Most importantly, the CBAM must not be framed as a final destination, but as a step toward a more coordinated and inclusive carbon-pricing framework. Mutual recognition of national systems, policy flexibility, and transitional thresholds could help prevent fragmentation and promote international alignment.While the EU and the UK have both the capacity and the influence to help shape global standards, climate leadership demands more than bold policy ambitions; it requires solidarity, partnership, and the recognition of shared but differentiated responsibilities. Rather than simply decarbonising imports through a transactional approach, policymakers must focus on facilitating low-carbon development.That goal cannot be achieved through border measures alone. If rushed, the CBAM could become just another divisive international levy.The fight against climate change will not be won through exclusion. A sustainable future depends on building systems that bring others along. A well-designed CBAM could play a vital role in that effort.

Elon Musk once famously wielded a chainsaw on stage in a theatrical demonstration of his effort to drastically cut US federal spending under President Donald Trump. As he leaves government amid bitter acrimony, official data shows he achieved something closer to a trim with scissors.In the four months since Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began slashing federal spending and staffing, a handful of the agencies he has targeted trimmed their combined spending by about $19bn compared with the same period last year, according to US Treasury Department summaries reviewed by Reuters.That is far below Musk’s initial goal of $2tn in savings and amounts to about a half of 1% of total spending by the federal government. Musk said last late last month he is leaving the administration but that its cost-cutting work will “only strengthen over time.” It remains to be seen, however, how enthusiastically Trump’s cabinet secretaries will continue to downsize their departments. DOGE says it pulled the plug on more than 26,000 federal grants and contracts that are worth about $73bn, while more than 260,000 government workers have been bought out, taken early retirement or been fired. But the DOGE tallies have been riddled with errors, according to reviews by numerous budget experts and media outlets, including Reuters. That has made them difficult to verify, and some of the announced cuts are not saving the government any money because judges have reversed or stalled them.That leaves the Treasury Department’s daily reports on how much the government is spending as the clearest window into the scope of the administration’s cost-cutting.The view they offer so far is modest: The government has spent about $250bn more during the first months of Trump’s administration than it did during the same period of time last year, a 10% increase. And even some parts of the government Trump has cut the most deeply are, for now at least, spending more money than they did last year.One big factor driving costs is largely outside Trump’s immediate control: interest payments on the United States’ growing pile of debt, which amount to about $1 in every $7 the federal government spends. Debt interest payments are up about 22% from a year ago.Spending on Social Security, the safety-net programme for the elderly and disabled, totalled about $500bn since Trump’s inauguration, up 10% from a year earlier.To be sure, the view offered by the Treasury Department’s daily reports is incomplete.Many of the cuts DOGE has made to the federal workforce, grants and contracting will reduce what the government will spend in the future but do not show up in its checkbook today.For example, while thousands of workers have taken buyouts, the government will continue to pay their wages until October. So far, the Labour Department has estimated there were only about 26,000 fewer people on federal payrolls in April than were on the books in January, after adjusting the figures for typical seasonal swings.Tallying savings from future cuts, however, is seldom straightforward.“It could be that in the future we never replace these workers and we save billions of dollars, or it could be that they come back and it’s even more expensive than before,” said Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan budget analysis organisation at Yale University.The White House declined to offer an explanation for DOGE’s figures. Spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement that “DOGE is working at record speed to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, producing historic savings for the American people.”Reuters estimated the administration’s impact by tallying outlays at agencies that had been targeted for cuts and whose spending had dropped from the same time last year.Among the agencies hardest hit are the Department of Education, State Department, US Agency for International Development, National Institutes of Health, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and other independent agencies.Rachel Snyderman, an expert on fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the spending declines at agencies could be reversed if the Trump administration doesn’t get congressional approval to cancel outlays from this year’s federal budget, as required by law.The most obvious sign that the Trump administration is making a dent in federal spending is in the Education Department, which Trump has ordered shut down.The administration cut the department’s staff by about half in March. DOGE’s website lists 311 Education Department grants and contracts it says it has eliminated for a savings of about $1.6bn, though it is not clear how it arrived at those figures. Some cuts have not stuck. A federal judge in March ordered the administration to restore some of the grants it had cut, and another judge this month ordered it to rehire 1,400 workers.Still, the Education Department under Trump has spent close to $11bn less than it did over the same period last year, the Treasury reports show, far more than what DOGE says it has cut. One reason could be that layoffs have made it harder for the government to process payments for special education and low-income schools. School districts that have sued over the cuts alleged that states were already experiencing slowdowns in receiving money.Another factor for the reduced outlays: The department has stopped handing out the $4.4bn that remains to be distributed from the hundreds of billions of dollars approved in previous years to help schools weather the Covid-19 crisis.The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.Other agencies targeted in Trump’s overhaul are also starting to show declines in their spending compared with the same time last year.Spending is down about $350mn at the CDC and about $1bn at the National Institutes of Health.The Trump administration has moved to slash spending across those agencies, cancelling grants and ending leases for office space.The Department of Health and Human Services has reported terminating close to 2,000 grants that planned to disperse more than $20bn.Many of the grants were to boost labs that fight new infectious diseases, or to fund state mental health programmes. Some $14bn of the grant money had already been spent prior to the termination, with roughly $7bn effectively frozen, according to a Reuters analysis of the government’s tallies.The administration has effectively dismantled USAID, which handled most US foreign assistance, firing nearly all of the agency’s employees and cancelling most of its humanitarian aid and health programmes, though federal courts have forced the government to continue making some payments.USAID spending is down about 40%, to about $4.6bn, from last year. Spending at the State Department — where DOGE says it has cut nearly $1bn in grants and contracts — is also down about 20% from 2024.Measuring the impact of the administration’s actions is difficult because many cuts will not yield savings for months or years even as spending elsewhere increases. Spending on federal employee salaries, for example, is up by more than $3bn under Trump.Some of the grants and contracts DOGE cut were due to be paid out over several years, and many remain the subject of lawsuits that will determine whether they can be cut at all.DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175bn, but the details it has posted on its website, where it gives the only public accounting of those changes, add up to less than half of that figure. It says the figure includes workforce cuts, interest savings and other measures it has not itemised.It is also hard to know exactly how much the government would have spent if the administration had not started cutting. — Reuters

Former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, informant for M16Said he never intended to become a writerBooks sold more than 75 million copiesBritish novelist Frederick Forsyth, who authored best-selling thrillers such as "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Dogs of War," has died aged 86, his publisher said.A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for Britain's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to pen the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle."The Day of the Jackal", in which an English assassin, played in the film by Edward Fox, is hired by French paramilitaries angry at de Gaulle's withdrawal from Algeria, was published in 1971 after Forsyth found himself penniless in London.Written in just 35 days, the book was rejected by a host of publishers who worried that the story was flawed and would not sell as de Gaulle had not been assassinated. De Gaulle died in 1970 from a ruptured aorta while playing Solitaire.But Forsyth's hurricane-paced thriller complete with journalistic-style detail and brutal sub-plots of lust, betrayal and murder was an instant hit. The once poor journalist became a wealthy writer of fiction."I never intended to be a writer at all," Forsyth later wrote in his memoire, "The Outsider - My Life in Intrigue". "After all, writers are odd creatures, and if they try to make a living at it, even more so."So influential was the novel that Venezuelan militant revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez, was dubbed "Carlos the Jackal".Forsyth presented himself as a cross between Ernest Hemingway and John le Carre - both action man and Cold War spy - but delighted in turning around the insult that he was a literary lightweight."I am lightweight but popular. My books sell," he once said.His books, fantastical plots that almost rejoiced in the cynicism of an underworld of spies, criminals, hackers and killers, sold more than 75 million copies.Behind the swashbuckling bravado, though, there were hints of sadness. He later spoke of turning inwards to his imagination as a lonely only child during and after World War Two.The isolated Forsyth discovered a talent for languages: he claimed to be a native French speaker by the age of 12 and a native German speaker by the age of 16, largely due to exchanges.He went to Tonbridge School, one of England's ancient fee-paying schools, and learned Russian from two emigre Georgian princesses in Paris. He added Spanish by the age of 18.He also learned to fly and did his national service in the Royal Air Force where he flew fighters such as a single seater version of the de Havilland Vampire.Impressing Reuters' editors with his languages and knowledge that Bujumbura was a city in Burundi, he was offered a job at the news agency in 1961 and sent to Paris and then East Berlin where the Stasi secret police kept close tabs on him.He left Reuters for the BBC but soon became disillusioned by its bureaucracy and what he saw as the corporation's failure to cover Nigeria properly due to the government's incompetent post-colonial views on Africa.It was in 1968 that Forsyth was approached by the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, and asked by an officer named "Ronnie" to inform on what was really going on in Biafra.By his own account, he would keep contacts with the MI6, which he called "the Firm", for many years. His novels showed extensive knowledge of the world of spies and he even edited out bits of The Fourth Protocol (1984), he said, so that militants would not know how to detonate an atomic bomb.His writing was sometimes cruel, such as when the Jackal kills his lover after she discovers he is an assassin."He looked down at her, and for the first time she noticed that the grey flecks in his eyes had spread and clouded over the whole expression, which had become dead and lifeless like a machine staring down at her."After finally finding a publisher for "The Day of the Jackal," he was offered a three-novel contract by Harold Harris of Hutchinson.Next came "The Odessa File" in 1972, the story of a young German freelance journalist who tries to track down SS man Eduard Roschmann, or "The Butcher of Riga".After that, "The Dogs of War" in 1974 is about a group of white mercenaries hired by a British mining magnate to kill the mad dictator of an African republic - based on Equatorial Guinea's Francisco Macias Nguema - and replace him with a puppet.The New York Times said at the time that the novel was "pitched at the level of a suburban Saturday night movie audience" and that it was "informed with a kind of post‐imperial condescension toward the black man".Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. But he lost a fortune in an investment scam and had to write more novels to support himself. He had two sons - Stuart and Shane - with his first wife.His later novels variously cast hackers, Russians, al Qaeda militants and cocaine smugglers against the forces of good - broadly Britain and the West. But the novels never quite reached the level of the Jackal.A supporter of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, Forsyth scolded Britain's elites for what he cast as their treachery and naivety.In columns for The Daily Express, he gave a host of withering assessments of the modern world from an intellectual right-wing perspective.The world, he said, worried too much about "the oriental pandemic" (known to most as Covid-19), Donald Trump was "deranged", Vladimir Putin "a tyrant" and "liberal luvvies of the West" were wrong on most things.He was, to the end, a reporter who wrote novels."In a world that increasingly obsesses over the gods of power, money and fame, a journalist and a writer must remain detached," he wrote. "It is our job to hold power to account."

Despite the sharp rally in recent months, there is still further upside for gold over the medium-term, according to QNB.This is supported by strong momentum across different macro regimes, long-term geopolitical trends with central bank portfolio rebalancing, and foreign exchange (FX) movements, QNB said in an economic commentary.Gold occupies a unique role in modern investing. It generates no cash flow, incurs storage costs, and has limited industrial utility – yet it continues to hold enduring appeal among households, sovereigns, and institutional investors.Gold’s historical legacy as a monetary anchor has recently intersected with a more contemporary function: risk mitigation. This demand for gold has been supported by the idea that the yellow metal provides a key utility as a portfolio diversifier protecting against inflation, financial crisis, international conflicts and civil strife.Importantly, gold’s resilience in the face of economic shocks, such as the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008-09 or the Covid-19 pandemic, underscores its role as a hedge against systemic risks and macroeconomic instability.In recent years, gold has rallied significantly, a process that has accelerated over the last few months. In fact, before the most recent pullback, gold prices reached $3,500 per ounce, making sequential all-time highs for months.After such significant rally, which amounts to 114% in price appreciation since the pandemic and 92% since the Russo-Ukrainian conflict began, it is natural that analysts and investors would question whether there is still more upside for gold over the coming years.In fact, gold has decisively outperformed all major asset classes, challenging the perception that it merely serves as a defensive hedge. A sustained outperformance highlights that gold, while traditionally valued for its safety during crisis, can also generate robust returns under different macroeconomic conditions.Gold’s consistent gains relative to equities, bonds, and commodities since early 2020 suggest that it merits consideration not only as protective allocation but as strategic, return-enhancing asset within a diversified portfolio.This dual characteristic – providing resilience during uncertainty while also delivering meaningful capital appreciation during periods of higher investor risk appetite – further strengthens the case for gold as a core holding.This is especially valid for environments of elevated inflation, currency de-basement, foreign exchange depreciation, or systematic market volatility.In QNB’s view, despite the surge in prices, there is still further upside for prices over the medium-term, as global macro conditions are favourable for gold. Two main factors sustain its position.First, gold’s appeal has been further bolstered by secular or long-term geopolitical trends, including the intensifying economic rivalry between West and East, a decline in international co-operation, escalating trade disputes, increasing political polarisation, and the “weaponisation” of economic relations via sanctions.This has particularly intensified after the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and the US-driven “trade wars”. In an era marked by more geopolitical instability, gold’s status as a tangible, jurisdictionally neutral asset that can serve as collateral in various markets becomes increasingly significant.Reflecting this movement, central banks globally have been accumulating gold at a rate unseen in generations.According to the World Gold Council, after the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, central bank additional demand for gold more than doubled from 450 tons per year to more than one thousand tons per year.Surprisingly, despite the increase in official demand for gold from central banks, there is still a lot of room for a much longer process of gold accumulation or portfolio rebalancing towards the precious metal.While large advanced economies tend to hold around 25% of their foreign exchange (FX) reserves in gold, large EM-based central banks hold only less than 8% of their FX reserves in gold.Given that these EM-based central banks hold around $6tn in FX reserves, there is scope for a continued multi-year process of portfolio rebalancing from these reserve managers. This supports a steady long-term institutional demand for gold.Second, foreign exchange (FX) movements are poised to lend additional support to gold prices.Historically, gold has shown a strong inverse correlation with the USD – typically rising when the USD weakens and falling when it strengthens.The USD has already depreciated by more than 6.9% against a basket of major currencies so far this year. Moreover, despite this sharp depreciation, currency valuations still suggest that the USD remains overvalued by more than 15%, indicating further room for depreciation ahead.A softer USD is likely to support gold prices going forward, as it enhances global purchasing power for USD-denominated commodities like gold, stimulating demand and providing an additional tailwind for prices.Moreover, as investors seek protection against the erosion of purchasing power associated with USD depreciation, they often turn to gold as an alternative store of value. Consequently, a declining USD typically drives higher demand and upward price momentum for gold, QNB noted.