Global Issues

Has the corona crisis already changed the world? Many people certainly seem to think so. From doomsday prognoses of a collapse into a bio-authoritarian dystopia to cheerful visions of a rejuvenated benevolent state, commentators the world over have already identified 2020 as the date on which a new

In this episode of COVIDcast, Roland Rajah sat down with the Institute’s Director of Research Alex Oliver to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy. Roland is Director of the International Economy Program and Lowy’s lead international economist. One of the key questions

There is a growing recognition that Australia will need to do a lot to help the Pacific get through the Covid-19 pandemic. Like everywhere, big sums of money are needed. The question is how to finance it. Many advanced economies are rolling out budget packages of 10% of GDP or more. The Pacific

In the midst of a public health pandemic, the 2020 presidential election has receded into the background of American political life. Candidates have been forced off the campaign trail. There are no rallies for the press to cover and fundraising efforts are stalled. Most states with near-term

As borders close and globalisation contracts, consider the impact on the Pacific Island neighbours. Many countries in the region rely on labour mobility, with workers sent to Australian and New Zealand to help with fruit picking and work in regional areas. Workers on these schemes send around A$9,

To emerge in the best way possible from the Covid-19 pandemic requires us to understand the nature of the economic crisis. Our slowdown has arisen from deliberately-introduced frictions in human interaction at local, regional and international levels. While people remain able to trade in many kinds

From its origins in Wuhan mere months ago, Covid-19 has literally travelled as far around the world as possible. On the other side of the globe, Wuhan’s antipodal point sits in Córdoba Province, Argentina, which recorded three deaths from the virus in early April. The number of countries with

On Wednesday 15 April, South Korea will hold legislative elections. South Korea’s parliament, the National Assembly, is elected every four* years. Composed of 300 members, it has 253 single-member district seats and 47 proportional representation seats. The Landscape The left currently holds a

Many people assume that South Asia is a sitting target for coronavirus, with potentially millions of deaths leading to an impoverished and destabilised region just around the corner. That might well happen, and the countries in the region are locking down. But there are also reasons to think that

In episode 6 of COVIDcast, the Director of Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Program, Ben Bland, sat down with Hervé Lemahieu to discuss geopolitics and the coronavirus pandemic. Hervé is the Director of our Asian Power and Diplomacy Program where he leads the research for the annual 

The first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded in China starting in December last year. We watched on with growing alarm, but thought that it wouldn’t happen here. The second wave has been unfolding from mid-February onwards in the rich countries of the world (as well as Iran). Some have

This should be the greatest hour for the World Health Organisation, the UN’s Geneva-based body dedicated to fighting just such a global threat as Covid-19. Instead, WHO is struggling to defend its own credibility – while the impact of the contortions into which it has forced itself by adhering

Of all the people who might have been expected to emerge from the current coronavirus crisis with their reputations enhanced, I don’t think many would have nominated Karl Marx. And yet when governments around the world are adopting unimaginably radical solutions to address yet another “crisis

The War on Covid-19 In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mobilising language of war is being used by leaders from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and British

The spread of Covid-19 throughout Indonesia is more than a health and economic crisis but a direct challenge to national unity. What began as a problem of resources and hospital capacity has developed into one of policy, driven not by expertise but instead by political considerations about how to

The last ten days in Japan have been extraordinary. First, the global Covid-19 pandemic forced the International Olympic Committee to postpone the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics until July 2021. And now, after a slow response, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has announced a state of emergency for

For years at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the pre-eminent meeting of defence ministers held in Singapore, successive secretaries of defence from the United States have repeated ad nauseam that Washington is a “resident power” in the region.It is becoming increasingly evident that the Covid-19

Jamie Oliver stamped “like” on my tweet about cooking a deep pan pizza on the weekend, so that’s my self-isolation menu approval sorted. Celebrity chef endorsement – tick.   #pukka pic.twitter.com/XH4by4GV9n — Daniel Flitton (@danielflitton) April 3, 2020   I asked

The tardy response by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) to the Covid-19 outbreak triggered widespread community outrage. But Beijing’s draconian crackdown, paired with intense scrutiny and intrusion into the daily lives of ordinary citizens, has further consolidated power in the hands of

With confirmed Covid-19 cases now well past the million mark, most of the world is looking inward. Many countries feel overwhelmed by their local fight against the virus. But while some countries are just coping, others face a choice between stopping the pandemic or a famine. Most likely they will

Even before the coronavirus pandemic began to dominate the news, and as Australia’s bush fires took most of the media oxygen, this past summer was an unusually quiet period in the long-running “whaling wars” in the Southern Ocean. For the first time in years, a southern summer passed without