Opinion

Janet Yellen knows a deep recession and a patchy recovery from the inside. She’ll need all that policy prowess and a healthy dollop of political nous to steer the US, and by default the rest of the world, through this epic slowdown. The former Federal Reserve chair is Joe Biden’s pick for Treasury secretary, according to people familiar with the ...

The Christmas lights are on, but few are coming to see them. That was the scene last week on Oxford Street, London’s leading retail thoroughfare, as non-essential shops in England remained closed. It’s hardly the run-up to Black Friday that retailers had hoped for. I’ve argued before that Europe is better off without the imported annual shopping frenzy. While door-busting ...

Less than a year ago, while accepting the Nobel Prize for his role in bringing peace to the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed offered a reminder to his audience: “War makes for bitter men. Heartless and savage men.” He should need no further reason to call off the war he has started in his own country. The ...

Is India opening the door for big businesses to take over its banking industry? A working group set up by the Reserve Bank (RBI), the regulator, has suggestions for what to do with ownership of private-sector banks. Large industrial houses may be permitted to own controlling stakes, it says, but only after strengthening regulation and supervision to deal with the ...

Less than a month ago, the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) said hospitals could use remdesivir, a drug manufactured by Gilead Sciences, to treat patients with Covid-19. Remdesivir, sold under the brand name Veklury, was said to shorten recovery times and reduce the need for ventilators to facilitate breathing. Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) hit the brakes: It recommended that ...

The public outcry against bank bailouts during the financial crisis prompted European governments to constrain the use of public money to help lenders in crisis. New trouble at the region’s oldest bank will test whether these rules can outlast the pandemic. The Italian government faces an impossible decision over Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA. Italy nationalised the bank in ...

President Donald Trump’s wholesale removal of the top civilian leadership of the Defense Department almost certainly isn’t the coup-in-the-making that some of his critics have alleged. Even so, the purge threatens to inflict lasting damage on America’s national security — unless Congress is prepared to rein the president in. Trump’s post-election firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper was not wholly ...

As President Donald Trump tries to end America’s longest war, he has settled on a compromise. Instead of withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan by Christmas, as he boasted in a tweet in October, he will be leaving behind a small counterterrorism force. It’s tempting to view the development with a sense of relief. A full withdrawal from Afghanistan, or ...

Covid-19 is surging — but, finally, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible. Preliminary test results indicate that vaccines being developed by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. are more effective than many dared to hope. Treatment protocols have improved and new therapies are available. The mortality rate from the virus is dropping. Medical developments aren’t the only ...

The discovery of two seemingly effective vaccines has raised hopes that the world will soon return to normal. For Europe’s banking system, however, this may not be an easy transition. Bankers are bracing themselves for a big increase in non-performing loans after this year’s deep recession. From Italy to Greece, the frailest lenders are already under strain. Regulators eased the ...