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On a sunny winter’s morning, Etienne Griffaton walked around the Graines de Soleil urban farming project, near Marseille airport.“It’s hard work here, people have to do a lot of different things,” said Griffaton. “But I think people are happy to have their hands in the soil.”Graines de Soleil is part of a network of non-profit organisations fighting food poverty around France’s second city, Marseille, where around 26% of the population live below the poverty line compared to the French average of around 14%.Across Graines de Soleil’s three hectares (7 acres), 18 employees and around 30 ‘apprentices’ grow fresh produce, which is then sent to grocery co-operatives, restaurants, food banks, and to Colibri, a ‘social grocery’ in the industrial town of Gardanne, north of Marseille.The apprentices include recently arrived immigrants and prisoners on day release. Graines, with funding from the state, prepares them for the labour market, French society, or both.On this day, there is a mix-up with a delivery to Colibri and Caroline Plas, project director with the NGO La Cite de l’agriculture, has been drafted in to help.“I’ve actually never been the delivery guy before,” said Plas, loading several boxes with cabbages, pears, leeks and parsnips into her car. “But I’m glad we can help.”The Covid-19 outbreak made things worse: as the informal economy was hit by lockdowns and energy prices rose, food aid systems were overwhelmed.With Covid, “suddenly, food insecurity became so big, nobody could ignore it,” said Plas, as she drove to Colibri.Addressing stigmaLa Cite de l’agriculture, along with Graines De Soleil and Colibri, is part of Territoires à Vivres, an umbrella organisation set up to fight food insecurity.Since the pandemic, collectives like Territoires a Vivres have developed new ways to provide food while addressing the stigma associated with food banks and what critics describe as a paternalistic attitude towards aid recipients.“With Covid we noticed that the groups working in this field adapted their behaviour... in order to provide people with the food they needed,” said Aicha Sif, a city councillor and deputy mayor in charge of urban agriculture and food sustainability.One of the initiatives, spearheaded by Sif and local NGOs, delivered food to families directly. Another saw the development of social groceries like Colibri.With support from the Catholic Church, Colibri stocks its shelves from urban farms like Graines de Soleil and buys subsidised food from supermarket chains. The staff are all volunteers and each item has two prices.Its members, typically people living just above the poverty line, pay 30% of the retail price, while others pay a full or ‘solidarity’ price.Members include single mothers, retirees as well as immigrants without secure status. They are also “often poor workers who are right on the line despite a small salary, with no help from the state,” said volunteer Pascale Michel.The dignity of choiceUnlike food banks, where people take what they get, Colibri consults its members on what they want to see on the shelves.“If people can choose what they want to eat, it’s for their dignity,” said Michel. “They can buy what they want and feel they’re not begging.”Emmy Barbier is a single mother with a part-time job. Rising food and energy prices mean she struggles to pay her bills.“I live alone with my child, in a fairly old home that isn’t well insulated. Now it’s starting to get cold, we need to heat it. It’s the same problem every year,” she said.Another regular is Giuseppe Zammataro, an Italian chef in his 60s. He lives off a small French pension while awaiting his Italian one, which has been held up by bureaucratic issues.“The food here is good quality and it’s not expensive for me,” said Zammataro. “The other associations that give out food, like food banks, the quality is not very good. Here I have choice.”Zammataro said when he gets his pension, he will keep coming to Colibri to pay the full price.“There are a lot of people who need help like this. This shop is a good way to help.”‘Food desserts’In Marseille’s central Third District, where the poverty rate is over 50%, members of the Racines social grocery can buy limited quantities of food at reduced prices.On Fridays, people living in or near absolute poverty can collect pre-prepared food boxes, paid for by the non-profit Groupe SOS Solidarités.Many immigrant families from the Maghreb and other parts of Africa shop here, including single mothers like Nisrine, who fled Algeria after becoming pregnant while she was unmarried. Now she is undocumented in France.“Here in France it’s very expensive, I need to be careful. I have a three-month-old baby to take care of and so I can’t work. (Racines) is very important for us,” she said.Audrey Boyer, a dietician who works with the local government, said nutrition was also a problem in Marseille with obesity a common issue among poor and immigrant families.“There’s not enough vegetables and fresh food, and the infrastructure is not well-equipped for sport and other activities,” said Boyer. “You also have violence in the streets, so mothers don’t want to go out with their children.”Inequality in Marseille was exacerbated by the pandemic-era collapse of the informal economy, which deprived poor and immigrant families of income.Councillor Sif is working to increase the land available to urban farming projects and relocalise food production.“Food scarcity and precarity are a door to other vulnerabilities within these communities,” said Sif. “When people get access to food aid, we discover afterwards that they are also in need of many other things - energy, appliances, housing.”Back at Racines, volunteer Hayat is finishing for the day.A former beneficiary herself, Hayat, who asked to be identified only by her first name, has been out of work for two years after an accident-related disability.“I want to be useful and active. I want to find a new job, but it’s hard with this handicap. Being here gives me some meaning.” - Thomson Reuters Foundation

Wars are expensive and destructive, affecting long-term economic growth through population changes, fewer investments, and worsening educational outcomes.Global gross domestic product (GDP) would have been 12% higher on average had there been no violent conflict since 1970, according to a report published in the Journal of Peace Research.Armed conflict is the top risk in 2025, a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey released ahead of the Annual Meeting in Davos showed, a reminder of the deepening global fragmentation.Nearly one in four of the more than 900 experts surveyed across academia, business and policymaking ranked conflict, including wars and terrorism, as the most severe risk to economic growth for the year ahead.“Rising geopolitical tensions and a fracturing of trust are driving the global risk landscape,” WEF Managing Director Mirek Dusek said in comments accompanying the report. “In this complex and dynamic context, leaders have a choice: to find ways to foster collaboration and resilience, or face compounding vulnerabilities.”The threat of misinformation and disinformation was ranked as the most severe global risk over the next two years, according to the survey, the same ranking as in 2024.As for conflicts, the statistics are grim, according to the WEF survey.There were close to 60 armed conflicts raging in 2023, the highest number ever recorded. Civilian fatalities surged by more than 30% between 2023 and 2024, mostly due to escalating armed conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.In the past year, at least 200,000 people were killed and over 120mn are currently forcibly displaced – more than half of them within their own borders.Today, roughly 2bn people – one quarter of humanity – live in conflict-affected countries. Meanwhile, global military spending has skyrocketed, reaching an all-time high of more than $2.4tn in 2023.In many of the Middle Eastern countries, poverty is projected to remain elevated, partly reflecting higher inflation, especially for food, according to a World Bank report last week.Risks to the outlook for the region are tilted to the downside. An escalation of armed conflicts in the region and heightened policy uncertainty, particularly unexpected global policy shifts, are major downside risks, the World Bank said.Global growth is expected to increase slightly this year while remaining stuck below its pre-pandemic average, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, flagging the growing economic divide between the United States and European countries.In an update to its flagship World Economic Outlook report, the IMF said it expects global growth to hit 3.3% this year, up 0.1 percentage point from its previous forecast in October, and to remain at 3.3% in 2026.But the proportion of the world engulfed by conflict has grown 65% – equivalent to nearly double the size of India – over the past three years, according to a new report.Ukraine, Myanmar, the Middle East and a “conflict corridor” around Africa’s Sahel region have seen wars and unrest spread and intensify since 2021, according to the latest Conflict Intensity Index (CII), published by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft early last month.While there was a lull in the levels of conflict globally during the Covid-19 pandemic, experts say there has been a rising trend of violence for at least a decade, while many longstanding crises continue unabated.Angela Rosales, CEO of SOS Children’s Villages International, which helps children separated from their families, said 470mn children worldwide are affected by wars, including in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and Lebanon, with serious impacts that go beyond death and injury.“Children in conflict-affected areas are at risk of losing family care if their homes are destroyed, parents are killed or if they become separated when fleeing violence,” she said. They are especially vulnerable to exploitation, enslavement, trafficking and abuse.”

US President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons yesterday to former Covid pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley and close family members to shield them from “politically motivated prosecutions” under the Trump administration.In an extraordinary move in his last hours in the White House, Biden gave similar pardons to members and staff of the US House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters.Biden also commuted to home confinement the life sentence of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, 80, who has been imprisoned for nearly 50 years for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents.“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Biden said in a statement announcing the pardons of Fauci, Milley and the members of the January 6 committee.“But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” he said.“These public servants have served our nation with honour and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”Trump has repeatedly promised “retribution” against his political opponents and threatened some with criminal prosecution.Fauci, who led the country’s fight against the Covid pandemic during Trump’s first term, has become a hated figure for many on the right, including Trump ally Elon Musk, who has called for the scientist to be prosecuted.Trump was enraged after Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told journalist Bob Woodward that the Republican was “fascist to the core” and a “dangerous person”. Milley also revealed he had secretly called his Chinese counterpart after the Capitol attack to reassure Beijing that the United States remained “stable” and had no intention to attack China.Trump subsequently wrote on his Truth Social network that “in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” for Milley. Milley thanked Biden for his executive action.“I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” he said in a statement.Fauci also thanked Biden for the pardon, according to US media reports, but stressed “I have committed no crime.”Just minutes before Trump was sworn in as president, Biden announced he was issuing pardons to his brother James Biden, James’s wife Sara Jones Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, Valerie’s husband John Owens, and his brother Francis Biden.“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”The members of the January 6 committee receiving pardons include former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney and a fierce Trump critic.In his statement, Biden said “baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families”.The Democrat added that the pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offence”.Trump has regularly complained of being the victim of “lawfare” under the Biden administration after being criminally prosecuted for offences, including trying to subvert the 2020 election.Yesterday’s moves were the latest in a slew of pardons and clemencies Biden has granted in his final days in office, including commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people in one day — and the controversial pardon of his son Hunter.Trump has described jailed supporters who took part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol as “patriots” and “political prisoners” and said he plans to issue pardons for some of them.Former president Richard Nixon received a preemptive pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford, after resigning in disgrace in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal.

Donald Trump was sworn in for a historic second term as president on Monday, pledging a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars as he caps his extraordinary comeback.With one hand raised in the air and the other on a Bible given to him by his mother, the 47th US president solemnly took the oath of office beneath the huge Rotunda of the US Capitol.Republican Trump and outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden had earlier traveled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was being held indoors -- and with a much smaller crowd -- for the first time in decades due to frigid weather.Earlier, they and their spouses met for a traditional tea at the White House."Welcome home," Biden said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted their successors at the front door to the presidential residence.Trump, 78, was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017 as the 45th president, but this time around he is surrounded by America's wealthy and powerful.The world's richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump's family and cabinet members.Musk, who bankrolled Trump's election campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars and promotes far-right policies on the X social network, will lead a cost-cutting drive in the new administration.While Trump refused to attend Biden's 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore the sense of tradition.Biden joined former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama pointedly stayed away.Unusually for an inauguration where foreign leaders are normally not invited, Argentina's hard-right president Javier Milei was attending, along with Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.The bitter cold weather has forced Trump's inauguration indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan's in 1985, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall.Behind the pomp and ceremony, the billionaire is kickstarting his nationalist, right-wing agenda with a barrage of around 100 executive orders undoing Biden's legacy.Trump will declare a national emergency at the Mexico border, give the US military a key role on the frontier, and end birthright citizenship, as he seeks clamp down on undocumented migrants, an official from his incoming administration said.Trump has pledged to start immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.He will also sign an order for the US government to recognize only two biological sexes and seek to eliminate federal government diversity programs as he takes office.The announcement of the hardline policies came a day after Trump had promised a "brand new day" and to end "four years of American decline.""I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump told an inauguration eve rally where he danced with the Village People band.Despite promising a new "golden era," populist Trump also campaigned on often apocalyptic depictions of the country in his victorious election campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November.At sunrise on Monday, the National Mall, where the inauguration was originally due to be held, was largely empty -- save for the Fairchild family, who traveled from Michigan to pay tribute to Trump."Ecstatic," said grandmother Barb, when asked how they were feeling, adding she thought the move indoors was made "to protect our president."With minutes left in his presidency, Biden issued extraordinary pre-emptive pardons for his brothers and sister to shield them from "baseless and politically motivated investigations."He also pardoned former Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley, and members of a US House committee probing the violent January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump's supporters.Biden said he had also restored the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor -- though he said the contents were between him and Trump.Trump will make history by replacing Biden as the oldest president to be sworn in. He is also just the second president in US history to return to power after being voted out, after Grover Cleveland in 1893.Another first is Trump's criminal record, related to paying a porn star hush money during his first presidential run -- and a string of far more serious criminal probes that were dropped once he won the election in November.For the rest of the world, Trump's return means expecting the unexpected.From promising sweeping tariffs, to making territorial threats to Greenland and Panama and calling US aid for Ukraine into question, Trump looks set to rattle the global order once again.Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump ahead of the inauguration and said Monday he was open to talks on the Ukraine conflict, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure "lasting peace".

Benedetta slid a manicured nail through the sellotape of a mystery package to unwrap a garden hoe and earbuds. Her friend discovered she had bought some sort of harness.The Italian students are among hundreds of people at this “blind sale” of unclaimed packages, where boxes large and small are paid for according to their weight at a Rome shopping centre.“Many people might say this is a good surprise,” Benedetta told AFP, holding up the wireless earphones in one hand. “But in my opinion it’s this. It’s a hoe.”“I live in the countryside. I always have to plant flowers and I use a soup spoon to dig. I would never have bought a hoe of my own volition,” she said.Organised by French startup King Colis, the event aims to reduce waste and promote sustainability.It is the company’s first event in Italy and is proving so popular that King Colis CEO Killian Denis predicts they could sell 10 tonnes of packages in six days, with an average of 800 buyers and 3,000 visitors per day.Denis said he came up with the idea during the Covid lockdown, after several things he ordered online to entertain his young daughters got lost in the post.“Each time I was reimbursed... but I started to wonder what happened to the lost, undeliverable packages,” Denis told AFP.“I discovered that they were destroyed by the logistics companies in charge of their delivery, since they’re of no use to them and the suppliers refuse to take them back because of the transport costs.”That is when he and a childhood friend decided become “parcel rescuers”, he said.Antoine Ulry manages the pop-up stand in the shopping centre, where people get 10 minutes to “take as many items as you like from the bins”.People dug through the piles, holding packages up to their ears and shaking them. The queue to join them snaked through the centre.“The only rule you have to follow is not to open the parcels before you buy them,” Ulry said.Some shoppers immediately tore into their purchases the moment the cash was handed over. As one customer wheeled away a shopping trolley overflowing with boxes, road maintenance worker Giuseppe Arancio discovered the packages he paid €123 ($126) for include a stone cooking pot.“The pot is valuable and I got other little things I needed. Out of the uncertainty came useful things”, he said with a smile.After the initial pop-up sales in France, the company has organised blind sales in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. Portugal, Spain and Sweden are to follow soon.It also sells bundles of mystery parcels online.One third of the packages sold come from European logistics giants, while the other two thirds come from Amazon resellers.Most of the latter are lost parcels, while the remainder are returned and unsold things.Such is the appetite for the blind sales that King Colis is currently out of e-commerce packages to sell, beyond the three pop-up events it has planned in January. Its website says it hopes to replenish stocks soon.An Amazon spokesperson told AFP: “We do not work with ‘mystery box’/’secret package’ retailers.”The company does “not send unopened or undeliverable customer returns to liquidators” but does use liquidations to give some returned products “a second life”.

Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi has been part of countless demonstrations over the years, but the anti-government protests that hit the country last June and July defied all expectations.Mwangi said he witnessed something unprecedented - a powerful awakening of the Kenyan youth who leveraged social media to mobilise against a finance bill which proposed a raft of tax hikes.“The biggest mobilisers of the protest were the Gen Zs. They were on TikTok, Instagram and on X. The majority of the people in the streets were young people,” Mwangi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.“For the first time in history, Kenyans were united for one purpose, to defeat the finance bill,” he said. “It was us waking up to the power we have and becoming active citizens to demand accountability and meaningful change in our country.”The nationwide protests forced President William Ruto to make a historic U-turn by scrapping his reviled law, sacking cabinet ministers and pledging a slate of measures to cut wasteful spending of public funds.Africa, home to the world’s youngest population, has seen a wave of youth-led protests fuelled by frustrations over rampant corruption, poor governance, high living costs and rising unemployment.Gen Z and millennials protested in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and Mozambique in 2024, and some analysts expect this activism to intensify in 2025 as grievances persist.Murithi Mutiga, program director for Africa for the International Crisis Group, said frustrations partly arise from Africa’s struggle to recover from economic shocks like Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, which has driven up food and fuel prices.There is also growing resentment among a generation increasingly aware of its rights, empowered by the internet to take action for change, said Mutiga.“The young want more than their parents. They are more informed. They are more politically active,” he said. “I think it’s possible that you’ll see more protests in 2025.”Youth disillusionmentAfrica has the fastest growing, youngest population of any continent, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa’s people under the age of 30.Fuelling their growing wave of disillusionment are scarce job opportunities. Some 53mn youth - more than one in five - in sub-Saharan Africa are not engaged in any form of employment, education or training, says the UN’s International Labour Organisation.A 2024 survey of African youth found three-quarters of respondents said it was difficult to find a job, and two-thirds were dissatisfied with their governments’ efforts to create employment opportunities.The survey, which polled more than 5,600 Africans ages 18-25 in 13 countries, also found that four in five were worried about corruption, most notably in the government, private sector and the police.“Most are dissatisfied with efforts to tackle corruption and there is widespread support for a range of policies to address it,” the Africa Youth Survey said.Political analysts and observers said it was not surprising to see youth beginning to push back against their governments.Aslak Orre, a senior researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute, a development research institute based in Norway, said young people across the region were exasperated with poor economic growth, few jobs, high public debt and austerity measures.“And for that, they blame the politicians from a different generation, who they see as working for themselves rather than the public good,” Orre said.In Mozambique, a disputed October election that extended the Frelimo party’s 49-year rule sparked more than three months of protests against corruption, living costs and unemployment.“We are demanding change,” said Ronaldo António, a 25-year-old street vendor in Maputo, during December protests when crowds marched, whistled and chanted, blocking traffic with trash bins, stones and tyres.“We eat chicken feet and necks while government officials are eating the chickens,” he added.In Ghana, ahead of December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections, young people mounted street protests against the nation’s debt crisis and high inflation, which have triggered the worst economic crisis in a generation.Ghanaian filmmaker Kwame Addae, 26, said he voted for businessman Nana Kwame Bediako, even though he knew the newcomer would not win against seasoned politician and former president John Mahama.“We are tired of the status quo, and I wanted someone like him (Bediako) that was thinking of the digital economy as a means to provide jobs and move us to a modern Ghana,” said Addae, adding that Bediako’s political message resonated with young voters.Activists noted that the protests across Africa had particularly significant impact because young people can skillfully wield digital activism.In Mozambique, Ângelo do Rosário, who is known as Maxh on social media, said he used his 1.2mn Facebook and more than 300,000 TikTok, Instagram and YouTube followers respectively to encourage young Mozambicans to demand their rights.“(We demand) quality education in Mozambique, the availability of a decent health service and all of this the people believe is the result of the bad governance we have in Mozambique,” said Rosário.Police killings, abductionsThe protests across the continent have not been without consequence.Hundreds of young people have been detained or killed in clashes with police, and scores of protesters remain missing.In Kenya, some prominent rights groups have accused authorities of a cover-up of dozens of alleged police killings, unexplained abductions and illegal detentions related to the Gen Z protests.Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights, a government-funded body, recorded 82 cases of enforced disappearances in the period between the protests, from June and December. Of those, 29 people remain unaccounted for. At least 40 people have been killed.In Mozambique, at least 278 people have been killed in police crackdowns against protesters, and more than 2,000 families have fled and sought refuge in neighbouring Malawi.In November, Nigeria charged 76 people, including children, with treason and inciting a military coup after deadly August protests erupted against economic hardship and spiralling inflation.Nigerian activist Rinu Oduala - one of the organisers of prominent #EndSARS protests against police brutality in 2020 - warned that youth uprisings are unlikely to die down anytime soon.“Protests by young people aren’t a crime, we are doing it out of love for our countries and hope for a better future - they must be seen as calls for change and what’s rightfully ours,” said Oduala, 24, who has more than 800,000 followers on X.“But the lesson is clear: ignoring youth voices will be a huge political risk to any government going forward,” she added. - Thomson Reuters Foundation

Donald Trump’s inauguration as America’s 47th president will be historic in several ways. He will be America’s oldest president. He will be the first who is a convicted felon. And he will be the first Republican president in two decades who won the popular vote – an achievement that both highlights and compounds the crisis of democracy the United States is now confronting.Since George W Bush defeated John Kerry by some 3mn votes in 2004, Republican presidents have won thanks to the Electoral College, which bolsters the influence of voters in less populous states. Many of these states lean Republican, lending a significant advantage to the party’s presidential candidates. That includes Trump, who won in 2016 despite receiving about 3mn fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.In 2020, however, this Electoral College advantage was not enough. With over 81mn votes – the largest number in US history – President Joe Biden trounced Trump by 7mn votes. But this time, Trump won over 77mn votes, compared to Kamala Harris’s 75mn. While a two-million-vote difference does not amount to anything close to a landslide, Trump and his team have presented the results as a major triumph and a powerful mandate to transform America.Trump’s victory can be attributed largely to his preternatural ability, shared with all successful demagogues, to identify an issue that resonates with voters, convince them that it is an even bigger problem than they think, and then offer “solutions” that are simultaneously facile and vague.Voters fear immigration? In 2016, Trump led chants of “Build the wall!” without an effective plan for doing so, let alone showing how a wall on the US border with Mexico – which was never built – would actually address illegal immigration. In 2024, he promised the “largest deportation operation in American history,” while providing few details about logistics, mitigating the economic and social fallout, or preventing human-rights violations. Ask questions, and all you would get was an inflated figure for undocumented immigrants and tirades about “criminals” who “eat pets.”Voters are struggling economically? That one is easy: blame Biden. In late 2019, the US economy was doing relatively well, giving the impression that Trump’s tax cuts and deregulation were working. But in 2020, the economy plummeted: between April and June, US GDP fell by about 30% compared to the previous quarter. Of course, the Covid-19 crisis caused the crash, but Trump’s response – or lack thereof – undoubtedly exacerbated it.From the start, Trump downplayed the pandemic’s seriousness, with severe repercussions for public health. So, by the time Biden became president, he had a huge mess to clean up. To limit the public-health fallout, his administration supported mask and vaccine mandates and other evidence-based measures aimed at stemming transmission. And to accelerate economic recovery and support people’s incomes, he launched an audacious fiscal-stimulus program.Such spending, together with supply-chain disruptions and other factors, contributed to a spike in inflation. While inflation has since been brought under control, and the US Federal Reserve is now cutting interest rates, prices remain elevated. For ordinary voters, the fact that inflation was a global phenomenon and that the US is outperforming its peers meant little. All that mattered was whether their living standards improved under Biden, and for many, the answer was no.To be sure, Trump’s opponents – first Biden, and then his replacement, Vice President Harris – did not mount an effective defense of their record. They failed to offer a convincing plan for managing immigration or to connect with the working-class voters who feel unheard and unprotected. While the Democrats touted complex industrial strategies involving massive public investment in climate-related projects, Trump simply shouted, “Tariffs!” Never mind that those tariffs will drive up prices for US consumers; he said they would fix everything, and that was good enough for desperate voters.It did not help that for nearly three years Americans had been seeing reports of seemingly huge amounts of aid going to Ukraine, leaving many wondering why that money was not going toward improving their lives. Whereas Biden and Harris promised to support Ukraine indefinitely, Trump declared that he would end the war in a day. Meanwhile, the Democrats alienated many young Americans by eagerly supporting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which has led to a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions.Trump’s victory has set the stage for a lurch toward autocracy. But Americans need not resign themselves to the collapse of their democracy. The US, after all, has a long history of abandoning dangerous political projects when they go too far (McCarthyism is a case in point). And it cannot be stated too often that Trump defeated his opponent in the last election by only 1.5 percentage points.Contrary to the political theorist Francis Fukuyama’s famous declaration that the end of the Cold War meant we had reached the “end of history,” the work of defending democracy is never done. If Americans allow apathy to take hold, they might find themselves living in a post-democratic society, which the late Samuel P Huntington’s own Cold War postmortem warned could lead to civilisational conflict and the collapse of the international order that has underpinned relative world peace for several decades. — Project SyndicateKoichi Hamada, Professor Emeritus at Yale University, was a special adviser to former Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to reshape U.S. policy with a blizzard of executive orders within hours of taking office next week.Here is a look at what the president can and cannot do by executive order.What is an executive order?An executive order is an order issued unilaterally by the president that has the force of law. Notable executive orders issued by Trump in his first term include a ban on travel from some Muslim-majority countries and an order expanding the leasing of offshore waters for oil exploration. Trump issued 220 executive orders in his first term, more than any other president in a single four-year term since Jimmy Carter. President Joe Biden issued 155 executive orders as of Monday.How fast can an executive order take effect?Once a president signs an executive order, it can take effect immediately or not for months, depending on whether it requires formal action from a federal agency.For example, Trump’s Muslim ban took effect immediately, because it invoked a 1952 federal law that explicitly gave the president the authority to bar “any class of aliens” from the country if he deemed them detrimental. Other executive orders instruct federal agencies to take action. For example, Democrat Biden ordered health agencies to take action to safeguard reproductive rights after the US Supreme Court allowed states to ban it. This had no immediate effect, but agencies in the following months passed new rules through the usual rulemaking process, such as a regulation meant to safeguard the privacy of people who exercise reproductive rights.Where does the power to issue executive orders come from?While the extent of the president’s executive order power has been disputed, legal experts agree that it comes either from Article II of the US Constitution, which makes the president the commander in chief of the military and the head of the executive branch of government, or from powers explicitly given to the president by Congress.Laws passed by Congress typically delegate rulemaking authority to federal agencies, which ultimately report to the president. Many executive orders instruct the agencies to take actions or make rules in order to fulfil certain goals, effectively functioning as an announcement of the president’s policies.What can’t the president do through executive orders?The president cannot make new law beyond the powers specifically given to him by the Constitution or Congress simply by issuing an executive order.If an executive order instructs agencies to take action, any resulting agency rulemaking is subject to the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to allow public comment on any rules and forbids rules that are “arbitrary and capricious”.Agency rules also cannot violate basic constitutional rights, such as due process and equal protection under the law, or laws that have been passed by Congress.Can executive orders be blocked by courts?Yes. Executive orders can be challenged in court and have been blocked for exceeding the president’s authority. A judge in 2017 blocked Trump’s order meant to withhold federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities that did not co-operate with his immigration policies, finding that the president could not impose new conditions on federal spending that had been approved by Congress. A federal appeals court in 2023 blocked Biden’s executive order requiring federal workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19, finding that it overstepped his authority by interfering with personal medical decisions. On the other hand, courts have often backed the president’s executive order powers, as when the Supreme Court in 2018 upheld the Muslim travel ban.

Kyoto authorities announced yesterday plans to hike lodging taxes, as Japan’s ancient capital seeks to assuage grumbles from locals about too many tourists. Lured by its myriad sights and a weak yen, Japan has seen foreign tourism numbers explode in recent years, with arrivals in 2024 expected to have hit a record of more than 35mn.But like other hotspots worldwide such as Venice in Italy or Maya Bay in Thailand, this is not universally welcome, particularly in tradition-steeped Kyoto. The city, which is a modest bullet train ride away from Tokyo - with a view of Mount Fuji on the way - is famed for its kimono-clad geisha performers and Buddhist temples.Residents have complained of disrespectful tourists harassing the geisha like paparazzi in their frenzy for photos, as well as causing traffic congestion and littering. For rooms costing between 20,000 and 50,000 yen ($127-317) per night, visitors will now see their tax double to 1,000 yen ($6.35) per person per night, under the new plans.For accommodation over 100,000 yen per night it will soar tenfold to 10,000 yen. The new levies will take effect next year, subject to approval from the city assembly. “We intend to hike accommodation tax to realise ‘sustainable tourism’ with a high level of satisfaction for citizens, tourists and businesses,” a statement said. Tensions are highest in the Gion district, home to teahouses where “geiko” - the local name for geisha - and their “maiko” apprentices perform traditional dances and play instruments.Last year authorities moved to ban visitors from entering certain narrow private alleys in Gion after pressure from a council of local residents. One council member told local media about an instance of a maiko’s kimono being torn and another who had a cigarette butt put in her collar.In 2019, the Gion district council put up signs saying “no photography on private roads” warning of fines of up to 10,000 yen. “I appreciate tourists visiting the city, but there are also some downsides like the impact on the environment,” resident Daichi Hayase told AFP, welcoming the new taxes.“But it doesn’t mean the city should impose excessive taxes. Tourists are coming despite painful inflation,” the 38-year-old photographer said. “If there’s a burden on the infrastructure, I do think taxing tourists is a good idea,” said Australian tourist Larry Cooke, 21. But he said that the city had to find the “right balance”.Tourism has been booming for over a decade in Japan, with foreign arrivals rising five-fold between 2012 and when the Covid pandemic torpedoed foreign travel in 2020. Since restrictions were lifted, and the government is hoping to welcome 60mn tourists per year by 2030, almost double last year’s expected total. Authorities have also taken steps beyond Kyoto, including introducing an entry fee and a daily cap on the number of hikers climbing Mount Fuji.Last year a barrier was briefly erected outside a convenience store with a spectacular view of the famous snow-capped volcano that had become a magnet for photo-hungry visitors. And in December Ginzan Onsen, a Japanese hot spring town with made-for-Instagram snowy scenes began stopping anyone arriving after 8pm if they don’t have a hotel booked.

Qatari Businessmen Association (QBA) received HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Faisal bin Thani bin Faisal al-Thani and HE the Minister of State for Foreign Trade Affairs, Dr Ahmed bin Mohamed al-Sayed, at the association headquarters here on Monday. "The visit was aimed at enhancing communication with the Qatari business community and entrepreneurs, listen to their views, and discuss with them the ministry's initiatives dedicated to serving and developing the national economy" a QBA statement said. The two dignitaries were received by HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani, QBA Chairman, and Hussain Ibrahim Alfardan, First Deputy Chairman, along with QBA board members, Sheikh Hamad bin Faisal al-Thani, Sheikh Nawaf bin Nasser al-Thani, Sherida al-Kaabi and Saud al-Mana. The meeting was attended by QBA members, Sheikh Mansour bin Jassim al-Thani, Khalid al-Mannai, Salah al-Jaidah, Moataz al-Khayyat, Ibrahim al-Jaidah, Ashraf Abu Issa, Abdul Salam Issa Abu Issa, Faisal al-Mannai, Abdullah al-Kubaisi, Maqbool Habib Khalfan, Rashid al-Mansouri, Mohammed Althaf, Ihsan al-Khyiami and Abdulrazzaq al-Kuwari. The meeting was also attended by HE Mohammed Hassan al-Malki, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry; HE Saleh Majid al-Khulaifi, Assistant Undersecretary for Industry and Business Development Affairs; HE Ayedh Munahi al-Qahtani, Assistant Undersecretary for Trade Affairs; Sultan bin Ali al-Falasi, Office Manager of the Minister of Commerce; and Sarah Abdallah, QBA Deputy GM. QBA Chairman and members expressed their appreciation to the minister for this initiative and emphasised the "importance of close collaboration" between the public and private sectors in serving the national economy. They highly praised the effective economic initiatives, including policies, legislation, and diverse projects, implemented under the guidance of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. These initiatives aim to empower national institutions and encourage entrepreneurs to engage in the industrial sector. QBA members also congratulated HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry on the launch of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Strategy and Qatar National Manufacturing Strategy 2024–2030. The Minister expressed his happiness to the Chairman and members of the QBA for their warm welcome. He praised the association's prominent role and the business community's efforts in promoting Qatar as a regional investment hub and attracting investors and expertise through various economic activities such as conferences and workshops. He also praised QBA's initiatives to strengthen collaboration with economic institutions and business associations worldwide, as well as its organisation of delegations led by Qatari business leaders to international markets. These efforts contribute to raising awareness of the Qatari market and opening new opportunities for co-operation with global markets. HE Sheikh Faisal said his "ministry places great importance on supporting the private sector as a key partner in achieving sustainable economic development". He pointed out that Qatari institutions and companies have gained global competitiveness and are present in major international markets through successful investments that have contributed to the development of the national economy and the transfer of expertise and knowledge to the local market. QBA members shared several economic ideas and aspirations with the minister, all aimed at enhancing the role of Qatar’s private sector and facilitating its operations. Several joint initiatives were discussed, through which economic initiatives will be examined. These initiatives will focus on facilitating joint collaboration to support the implementation of the Ministry's programmes and initiatives and ensure they are communicated effectively to the business community. During their discussions, business leaders expressed concerns related to the private sector across various areas, including investment facilitation, financing, and legislative procedures. QBA Chairman HE Sheikh Faisal pointed out that the private sector has become the "fundamental pillar" of national economies worldwide. He emphasised that Qatar’s Third National Strategy reinforces this concept by granting a more significant role to the Qatari private sector in the local economy. QBA First Deputy Chairman Hussein Ibrahim Alfardan highlighted the significant progress made by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in recent years, highlighting the Minister's initiative to meet with the business community, noting that it will contribute to enhancing effective communication in a collaborative manner QBA Board Member Sheikh Hamad bin Faisal al-Thani emphasised that the association is a “national supporter of the State and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.” QBA Board Member Sheikh Nawaf Nasser bin Khaled al-Thani, highlighted the success of the Obstacle Resolution Committee, established between the private sector and the Ministry, in resolving several outstanding issues. He also emphasized the importance of forming a joint committee with the Prime Minister's Office in the near future, as such a committee would play a significant role in facilitating business operations and addressing challenges faced by both local and foreign investors. QBA Board member Saud al-Mana addressed the issue of industrial land, opening factories, and the Ministry's role in attracting foreign investors. Moataz al-Khayyat addressed challenges in the construction sector, which has faced significant difficulties over the past five years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, rising global shipping costs, and increased fuel prices. An agreement was reached to hold a dedicated meeting to find appropriate solutions for this vital sector. Several other QBA members also discussed topics such as e-commerce, trade exhibitions, and protecting local products.

In August 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued $209bn to developing countries in the form of special drawing rights (the IMF’s reserve asset). SDRs are much like cash, because recipient governments can convert them to hard currency. As such, they are a highly effective tool, and the IMF can and should make greater use of them.While the 2021 issuance helped billions of people around the world, hundreds of thousands of Americans also benefited – and would do so again. Exports of US goods and services to developing countries total around $1tn, and if these countries get an infusion of reserves, they will import even more.This effect can be quite significant. An SDR distribution the size of the 2021 issuance would be expected to create about as many jobs in the United States in one year as the $740bn Inflation Reduction Act did in its first year. We are talking, conservatively, about 111,000-191,000 new jobs, most of which would be in export-related areas such as manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing.In fact, the total number of jobs created could be substantially more, since we also must account for the role of SDRs – as reserves – in stabilising developing economies. This effect would be even more important if the world economy slowed, as it seems to be doing now. (The global growth rate has declined sharply since the last SDR distribution, from a record 6.6% in 2021 to half that today.).Nor is this the only compelling reason to favour another SDR issuance. With so many countries facing tight budgetary constraints in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, it could help countries make the investments needed to mitigate climate change.And even if one puts these considerations aside, it is obvious that the world needs another SDR issuance. Many countries are facing debt crises, with the result that some 3.3bn people live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health care, while 2.1bn people live in countries that spend more on interest than on education.So why hasn’t a new issuance already happened? It turns out that the US Treasury Department is the biggest hurdle. Under IMF rules (which were written in 1944), the 190-member organisation does not follow the principle of “one country, one vote.” Instead, the US has 16.5% of the votes, and any decision to authorise a new SDR issuance requires 85% approval. The Treasury Department, which represents the US at the IMF, thus wields a veto, and as long as it brings along other high-income countries, it can push through almost any measure it wants.What is needed for another SDR issuance, then, is America’s support. Though the Treasury Department would be required to give Congress a 90-day notice, a 2021-size issuance would not actually require a congressional vote. The outgoing Biden administration could start the process today, and Donald Trump’s incoming administration need only concur with the decision.Would Trump go along with this? It is certainly possible, considering that a new issuance would create jobs in the US. If it happens quickly, without any slowdown in Congress, it could even be distributed as early as April.While US organised labour has already voiced support for a new issuance, Wall Street also has a big stake in the matter. US financial firms are holding tens of billions of dollars in debt-distressed developing countries’ sovereign bonds, and a fresh infusion of cash into those economies could save them from potentially massive losses on their investments. As global economic growth has slowed, the bonds they are holding are more at risk than they were three years ago. Moreover, like the 2021 issuance, a new one would have zero cost to the US budget.Of course, the biggest impact would be on the developing world. Globally, 282mn people are at risk of starvation, up from 135mn before the pandemic, and from 258mn in 2022. The additional reserves created by new SDRs would enable more imports of food and medicine, as well as investments in badly needed public-health equipment and infrastructure.In 2021, the $209bn SDR issuance exceeded all official development aid that developing countries received that year. Issuing SDRs can save hundreds of thousands of lives around the world, and, unlike most aid, it comes with no debt and no strings attached. For all of these reasons, the Catholic Church and other religious organisations have consistently supported new SDR allocations.No economists, including at the US Treasury, have offered any plausible argument that a new issuance would carry significant downside risks. The IMF’s own assessment concluded that the last issuance “contributed to global financial stability,” with “no evidence that allocation materially contributed to global inflation.”The Biden administration should take the advice of virtually all the economists who have looked at this question and initiate a new issuance of SDRs. Doing so would steer the IMF onto a path toward creating hundreds of thousands of US jobs and saving countless lives around the world. — Project Syndicate• Joseph E Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank and former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author, most recently, of The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.•Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is the author of Failed: What the ‘Experts’ Got Wrong About the Global Economy.

As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes economies and societies, business leaders must consider how they will work with policymakers to govern the technology’s development. In the European Union, the recently adopted AI Act requires businesses to take precautionary measures depending on the risks associated with different use cases. Thus, using AI to engage in “social scoring” is deemed “unacceptable”, whereas AI-augmented e-mail filters come with “minimal risk”.The success of this approach will depend on businesses contributing technical expertise and practical insights to strike a balance between promoting innovation and addressing societal concerns. Leaving regulation entirely to policymakers and a few powerful companies risks creating rules that serve only Big Tech’s interests, while sidelining other industry perspectives.In the case of the EU’s AI Act, a lack of business participation in the drafting process has already left critical implementation details unresolved. For example, the law could be construed as regulating conventional statistical techniques such as linear regression, which is commonly used in the financial sector. If so, that would add an unnecessary compliance burden. Similarly, the law is ambiguous about which standard tools in drug development fall under its scope; such uncertainty could slow development and increase costs in an already heavily regulated industry.Such issues can be avoided if CEOs from these sectors get more involved. Although the text of the AI Act is finalised, questions of interpretation, implementation, and enforcement are still evolving. The precise list of high-risk AI systems – the most important category for sectors ranging from health care to banking – may change over time, based on industry feedback.Moreover, with rules and frameworks being formulated in the United States and other countries, as well as through international collaborations, business leaders need to broaden their scope. They could make valuable contributions to what is quickly becoming a complex, multi-jurisdictional regulatory landscape.Historically, public-private collaboration has been key to managing transformative technologies. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it ensured a proper balance between innovation and safety in achieving accelerated vaccine development. Similarly, the nuclear energy industry’s early engagement with regulators yielded rules for small modular reactors that reduced costs, streamlined licensing, and harmonised standards, enabling companies to expand into new markets, attract investment, and improve their competitive position – a notable departure from the sector’s traditionally burdensome regulatory landscape.In both cases, regulatory frameworks benefited from real-world input. Yet in the case of AI, too many companies remain on the sidelines, heightening the risk of poorly designed rules that hinder progress. This absence of business engagement does not reflect a lack of opportunity. Only 7% of corporate participants invited to the EU’s drafting process for its General-Purpose AI Code of Practice turned up, leaving NGOs and academics to dominate the discussions. Meanwhile, a recent BCG survey found that 72% of executives say their organisations are not fully prepared for AI regulation.If you are a CEO, what should you do? Since AI regulation and deployment are primarily sector-specific processes, a first step is to align with your industry so that you are all speaking in unison. That is the best way to make yourself heard alongside tech giants that are spending more than $100mn per year lobbying policymakers in Brussels (with Meta leading the pack).But AI regulation is not only about erecting guardrails and setting limits. In addition to building industry coalitions and agreeing on common AI standards, CEOs need to contribute to the full set of digital regulations that may affect their industries.As part of its broader digital strategy, the European Commission has implemented four other major laws and introduced the concept of “data spaces”. These are supposed to allow data to flow securely within the EU and across sectors, while maintaining compliance with EU laws. It now falls to industry to build these channels (with public funding). CEOs that align their corporate strategies with this emerging regime will be best positioned to capitalise on sector-specific opportunities.Executives also should identify and establish relationships with top policymakers and other influential stakeholders in their respective sectors, and at all levels of governance. These include the European Data Protection Board and national AI regulatory bodies in Europe, as well as agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in the United States. In each case, it is best to play the long game by building stable relationships based on expertise and trust, not transactional exchanges.To support these efforts, CEOs should have a specialised team dedicated solely to regulatory engagement. Simply rejecting proposed regulations is not an option, so defining fair trade-offs is key. Corporate leaders should be prepared to respond with clear, actionable alternatives presented in policymakers’ language, not industry jargon. For example, banks could propose that assessments of creditworthiness be exempted from the AI Act’s high-risk designation, on the grounds that these assessments strike an appropriate balance between innovation and accountability, and could reduce costs and make financing more available to consumers.AI regulation is not merely a compliance exercise. Industry leaders have an opportunity to shape rules that directly affect innovation and operations. By remaining disengaged, businesses risk allowing regulations to evolve without their input, leading to frameworks that are disconnected from operational realities. We do not want an environment in which regulators have overreacted to theoretical risks at the expense of practical progress.Just as the Industrial Revolution demanded new rules to govern transformative technologies, advances in AI call for guardrails. Business leaders have always had important contributions to make at such moments, and this one is no different. — Project Syndicate• Sylvain Duranton is Global Leader of BCG X. Kirsten Rulf is a partner and associate director at Boston Consulting Group.