Opinion

  Among the world’s major economies, America’s is “the least ugly,” as Adam Posen, head of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, puts it. So it is. The American economy is plodding along at about a 2 percent annual growth rate, which is much slower than most past periods, but compared with most other economies, looks stellar. Peterson economist Paolo …

  Sara Hsu SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Recently, the 2016 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, produced by Ambassador Michael Froman in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, stated, controversially, that China’s Great Firewall presents a trade barrier to American suppliers. The Cyberspace Administration of China has rebutted this claim by asserting that the firewall was in …

  The International Monetary Fund released its world economic outlook this week, and the news isn’t good for Central Asia. According to the IMF, recovery will be put off until at least 2017, for reasons frequent readers will find familiar: the Russian recession and low oil prices. “The economic outlook for the Commonwealth of Independent States remains very weak, reflecting …

Last week, Arrium, one of the two dominant steel manufacturers in Australia went into voluntary administration with debts of over $AU 3 billion ($US 2.3 billion). With the failing of the company having the potential to affect up to 8,000 jobs nationwide, there have been calls for the federal government to bail out Arrium. The opposition Labor Party wants to …

  Jonathan Dove SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS China’s foreign policy is evolving, and Africa may be both its proving ground and litmus test. As Beijing is seeking to expand its global role, its national interests, citizens, and assets need to be protected abroad, and nowhere else is this need as acute as it is in Africa. Consequently, China seems to …

While the Taliban officially launched their annual spring offensive this week pledging large-scale attacks, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) will for the first time in 15 years be able to deploy a light attack aircraft specifically designed for counterinsurgency operations in their fight against the insurgents. The Afghan Air Force (AAF) will begin this year’s fighting season …

There is a consensus that aggression by one nation against another is a serious matter, but there is no comparable consensus about what constitutes aggression. Waging aggressive war was one charge against Nazi leaders at the 1946 Nuremberg war crimes trials, but 70 years later it is unclear that aggression, properly understood, must involve war, as commonly understood. Or that …

  The reports of consensus over oil output freeze following talks between Saudi Arabia and Russia and signs that global glut will ease in the US, saw the crude climbing to the highest level in more than four months on Tuesday. Speculations were already rife that the two oil majors had reached an agreement, boosting expectations that a wider deal …

  Albert R. Hunt SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Donald Trump is getting some unlikely assistance from his opponents in his uphill effort to win a majority of Republican presidential delegates. Ted Cruz and John Kasich remain too busy battling each other to unite in opposition to the front-runner. Cruz and Kasich have the same goal: to prevent Trump from getting …

  My recent column on the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, generated some energetic criticism — or, rather, half a paragraph of it did. While I acknowledged that many Americans have benefited from the law, I also said that the Obama administration was too eager to give it credit for slowing the growth of …