opinion - INTERNATIONAL AGENCY FOR JOURNALISM AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

How the GCC can capitalise on assets to become a global centre for value chains

The value chain for an iPhone includes components from suppliers in 43 countries, which get shipped to manufacturing facilities in a few key locations and then back out to warehouses and retailers around the world. ...

How artificial intelligence is matching drugs to patients

Dr Talia Cohen Solal sits down at a microscope to look closely at human brain cells grown in a petri dish. ...

Who are the Rapid Support Forces?

The notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at the centre of this dispute, which is over the move towards civlian rule. ...

The bean that could change the taste of coffee

On the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano, smallholder coffee farmer Martin Kinyua has decided against planting new crops. ...

The Ukrainian refugees making a living somewhere new

When Anastacia Kozmina and Oleksiyy Danko woke to the sound of bombing in February 2022, they immediately decided to leave Ukraine. They joined some eight million Ukrainian refugees faced with finding a safe place to live and work. ...

What India needs to do to become a global green hydrogen hub

Green hydrogen can play a crucial role in India's future energy plans as the country aims to become a global destination for the clean fuel. ...

Sri Lanka airline boss says 'don't be a CEO during Covid'

Sri Lanka's national carrier has been struggling against even more headwinds than many of its rivals. ...

Is the US dollar losing its status as the king of currencies?

Last year, the US dollar was king of the world. The world’s reserve currency had once again confirmed its status as the ultimate safe haven, crushing rivals gold, the Swiss franc, Japanese yen and Bitcoin. ...

The coming doom loop

In January 2022, when yields on US ten-year Treasury bonds were still roughly 1% and those on German Bunds were -0.5%, I warned that inflation would be bad for both stocks and bonds. Higher inflation would lead to higher bond yields, which in turn would hurt stocks as the discount factor for dividends rose. But, at the same time, higher yields on “safe” bonds would imply a fall in their price, too, owing to the inverse relationship between yields and bond prices. ...

How online returns became a $212bn opportunity for venture firms

Americans returned about $212 billion worth of online merchandise last year — clothes, electronics, sporting goods and more that was often liquidated for pennies on the dollar or simply tossed in landfills. ...

The tech helping driverless cars see round corners

"A bit like X-ray vision" is how engineer James Long describes the effect of the technology he's working on. ...

CPTPP: UK set to join Asia's trade club but what is it?

The UK is expected to sign up to a trade pact with several countries in Asia and the Pacific, including Japan and Australia. ...

Do Instagram and TikTok mean banks are less safe?

In the original Mary Poppins film, the nine year old Michael Banks accidentally starts a bank run by demanding back his tuppence coin. ...

The web firm that wants to stop you getting 'cancelled'

A supporter of Donald Trump made headlines last year when he said: "We are uncancellable by big tech." ...

How I Got the Inside Story of the UAE’s Liberation of Aden

by : Michael Knights By conversing and embedding with Emirati soldiers over the course of several years, a Washington Institute military expert was able to capture the history and stakes of an unsung operation to save Yemen’s strategically crucial port city. ...

Why America’s ‘energy dominance’ waned in the Middle East

Twenty years ago last week, US tanks rolled across the Iraqi border. And nearly to the day, Saudi Arabia and Iran signed a Chinese-mediated deal to restore diplomatic ties. During those two decades, America’s unipolar moment faded, it achieved its longed-for “energy dominance”, but that dominance is nowhere less apparent than in the Middle East. ...