Opinion

After years spent driving many conventional retailers into bankruptcy, Amazon just announced plans to open its own physical “department stores” that would sell both its own private-label good as well as brand-name apparel, housewares and other items. The move may seem counterintuitive, even self-defeating. But in pursuing this strategy, Amazon is merely following a playbook developed by its forerunners, particularly ...

So much for a changing of the guard in Malaysia. The new governing coalition looks a lot like the one that collapsed last week amid defections, record Covid-19 cases and a diminished outlook for economic recovery. The resemblance doesn’t bode well for the durability of PM Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s administration. Ismail Sabri, a former deputy premier, was sworn in by ...

Central bankers and journalists will assemble for the virtual Jackson Hole conference later this week. Their agenda will be broad. The future path of quantitative easing, the health of the labour market, and other critical monetary and regulatory matters will command center stage. But we can also expect pronouncements on issues once considered the domain of elected politicians, including climate ...

Taliban leaders ask us to believe that they will not return to the oppression of their pre-2001 rule, when they persecuted women, violated the basic rights of girls and denied them education. Sadly, actions on the ground do not yet bear this out. Conquering fighters have reportedly seized young girls as “wives.” Women are afraid to leave their homes unless ...

A year and a half into the Covid-19 pandemic, schools are reopening amid more uncertainty than ever. Just about the only thing districts know for sure is that last year’s lockdowns and online learning were a disaster for the emotional health and academic progress of school-aged children — especially the poor — and that in-person instruction is beginning amid the ...

Everything old is new again. Witness fintech giant Square’s recent acquisition of Afterpay, a company that enables consumers to buy now and pay later via regular payments administered by the Australia-based company. Afterpay appeals to young millennials eager to move beyond conventional forms of financing such as credit cards. This may seem cutting edge to the youngsters, but it’s nothing ...

China won’t be rushing into Afghanistan any time soon — not to fill the political and security void left by the US and not to expand President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road project. However decisive the Taliban’s victory looks right now, the country is far too fragile for Beijing to contemplate anything other than a pragmatic diplomatic engagement with ...

No sooner had the Taliban taken Kabul than questions began to be asked about how they would manage Afghanistan’s economy. Do the insurgents-turned-rulers have the skills to run, say, a modern finance ministry and central bank? Will foreign donors trust them with aid? Can they do business with investors interested in the country’s mineral wealth? Throughout their two decades in ...

It has been a rough few weeks for Amazon.com Inc shareholders. Since the company’s disappointing July earnings report, its share price has fallen by a double-digit percentage and its market value has dropped by a couple hundred billion dollars. Investors are worried about slowing e-commerce sales growth and profitability pressures at its key Amazon Web Services cloud-computing unit. And the ...

Danny, the political theorist, aspiring lawyer and purveyor of rare herbs in the British cult film Withnail and I, understood the problem of Chinese real estate. “If you’re hanging on to a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision,” he observes. “Let go before it’s too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: How long ...