South Pacific

Daily Memo: EU Vaccine Threats, Conte’s Resignation

Conte resigns. Discussions on forming a new Italian government will begin on Wednesday after Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigned on Tuesday. Conte has been under pressure since losing his Senate majority over the government’s pandemic response. Vaccine delays. The European Union is threatening export controls on vaccines, days after pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca told Brussels […]

Daily Memo: Chinese Exports Surge, Iranian Moves Escalate Tensions

Chinese trade. Chinese exports in December jumped a whopping 18.1 percent compared with the same month a year earlier – a month that, looking...

The World in 2021

Introduction Our 2020 global forecast began as follows: Economic dysfunction will remain the main driver of the international system in 2020. Economic stress does not simply...

Forecast Tracker: 2020 Year-End Review

(click to enlarge) Scale: Hit, Partial Hit, Inconclusive, Partial Miss, Miss Global Economic dysfunction will be the main driver of the international system in 2020. Economic stress...

Daily Memo: Duterte’s Threats, Pakistani Attacks

Philippine threats. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is threatening, yet again, to scrap Manila's pivotal Visiting Forces Agreement with Washington if the U.S. doesn't deliver...

Daily Memo: Brexit Buzz, Deceptive Economic Data

Hope for a deal. Optimism is growing that the European Union and the United Kingdom will reach a post-Brexit free trade deal, potentially by...

Daily Memo: Threats of Retaliation in the Middle East

Israel prepares for attack. Israel successfully carried out a series of air defense tests involving its short-range Iron Dome system, medium-range David’s Sling, and...

Daily Memo: Trade Deals, from Europe to Asia

EU still united on Brexit. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will travel to Brussels within days to meet with European Commission President Ursula von...

Daily Memo: Assemble the Fleet

Revived 1st Fleet. The United States has confirmed plans to establish a naval fleet dedicated to the Indian Ocean basin and peripheral chokepoints in...

Daily Memo: US Tariffs on Chinese Goods, Russian Weapons in the Kurils

U.S. tariffs. U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday that he won’t quickly do away with U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods – and rather that...

Daily Memo: US Liquidity, Chinese Manufacturing

U.S. liquidity. The U.S. Federal Reserve will extend until March 31 four emergency liquidity programs that were set to expire at the end of...

The Geopolitics of Vaccine Distribution

The American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, in collaboration with German firm BioNTech, surprised the world when it announced that its coronavirus vaccine showed 90 percent...

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