Opinion

For those who believe that the surge of interest in warehouse automation and robotics was just a pandemic fling that will fade as the labor market loosens, meet Malcolm Wilson. He’s the chief executive officer of GXO Logistics Inc., which operates about 900 warehouses, mostly in the US and Europe for customers including Nike Inc. and Nestle SA. The Greenwich, ...

  The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced it will overhaul itself in response to pandemic mistakes. The first thing the CDC should do is to clarify what those mistakes were. While many experts think those mistakes are obvious, half of the public assumes the mistakes involved too many, overly strict rules that were kept in place too long, and ...

  Vladimir Putin is certain he will win in Ukraine, because he must. He has left himself no other options, having started a war that’s been portrayed as a fight for Russia’s very survival, one that has redefined national identity and to which he has tied the fortunes of his regime. It’s an existential fight. That may be why he ...

In the eyes of Hong Kong’s new leader John Lee, the city has a publicity problem. It has a great story to tell, and just needs to do a better job of showcasing its achievements to the world. “We should not belittle ourselves,” Lee told lawmakers a few days after taking office last month, saying he planned to send delegations ...

There’s a lot about Beijing’s decades-long infrastructure push and investment-led growth that India wants to emulate. But when it comes to the consumer economy, aping China’s out-of-control digital lending boom is strictly off the policy agenda. The Reserve Bank of India’s recently released guidelines for app-based loans show a clear desire to rein in the industry after its pandemic-era excesses. ...

  Kenya’s general election was always going to be a close-run thing, with a certain amount of political uncertainty baked into the outcome. Going into the weekend, Raila Odinga, the perennial opposition contender, has rejected the election commission’s announcement that William Ruto had beaten him, by a thin margin of 50.5% to 48.9%, to the presidency. Odinga has until next ...

  Indonesian President Joko Widodo has long put domestic concerns ahead of diplomacy. He’s now about to host one of the most significant geopolitical gatherings in years. He told Bloomberg News that Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping plan to attend the Group of 20 summit. For the image-conscious Jokowi, as he is known, that counts as a win ...

Wars that are caused by people can also be caused by deep historical processes. For proof, look at the fighting in Ukraine. That conflict is the doing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a ruler determined to reassert Russia’s greatness by destroying an independent Ukraine. Yet it is also part of a bigger story about what happens when empires break up. ...

If Walmart Inc signalled better times ahead for the broader economy, Target Corp’s profit collapse is a reminder that battered big-box stores aren’t in the clear yet. Target laid bare the damage from marking down its mountain of inventory, with an almost 90% slump in second-quarter profits. That’s in stark contrast to Walmart’s forecast that earnings wouldn’t fall as much ...

  Federal Reserve policy makers don’t have an explicit target for US stocks or consumer borrowing costs, but they know something’s off when they see it, and there’s a chance that now is one of those times. The S&P 500 Index has rallied 17% from its June lows through August 16, and consumer credit is growing at one of the ...