Tag: COVID-19

Monkeypox

The Fuss About Monkeypox

The World Health Organization has been one of the easier bodies to abuse.  For parochial types, populist moaners and critics of international institutions, the WHO bore the brunt of criticisms from Donald Trump to Jair Bolsonaro.  Being a key institution in identifying public health risks, it took time assessing the […]

shinzo-abe

Shinzo Abe: A Controversial Visionary

When politicians die, especially an untimely death in tragic circumstances, obituaries tend to go overboard. A sense of perspectives is lost when obituaries become eulogies. But you can’t falsify history. And in the final analysis, it is the forces of history that write the course of politics rather than individuals, […]

Boris Johnson resigns

Abandoning The Sinking Rat: Boris Johnson Resigns

Like the political equivalent of a cockroach, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived and endured one strike after another.  His credibility was shot, his mendacity second to none.  He lost the confidence of a party that delighted in his buffoonish performances and appeal.  Fearing electoral punishment, senior ministers and aides […]

Morbid Matters: Estimating COVID-19 Mortality

Morbid Matters: Estimating COVID-19 Mortality

It has dominated news cycles, debates and policies since 2020, but COVID-19 continues to exercise the interest of number crunchers and talliers. While the ghoulish daily press announcements about infections and deaths across many a country have diminished and, in some cases, disappeared altogether, publications abound about how many were […]

Albatross

Migratory Birds Of Mass Destruction

The UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding the biological activities in countries including Ukraine. Predictably, the US and UK representatives didn’t show up at the event and the western media also blacked out the proceedings. But […]

PCR

Surrender, Accommodation And RATs

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test has been the mainstay of COVID-19 testing.  But reliance upon such a regime, which requires the administration of middlingly competent personnel at appropriate testing sites, has caused its fair share of global disruption. The dreaded queue, where one waits for hours only to be […]

Billionaires got richer amid COVID-19

Arise, Pandemic Profiteers

History’s annals are filled with war profiteers and hustlers for the opportunistic return.  They come in the form of hoarders, arms manufacturers and wily business folk making a steal on slaughter and mayhem.  But the other conflict – that of battling a pandemic – has also shown that profits exist […]

Novak-Djokovic

Dangerous Precedents And Hypothetical Threats: The Deportation Of Novak Djokovic

Australia’s treatment of Novak Djokovic, the tennis world number one, has been revelatory.  Unintentionally, this has exposed the seedier, arbitrary and inconsistent nature of Australia’s border policies.  The approval by the Australian Federal Court of the Immigration Minister Alex Hawke’s decision to re-cancel the prominent Serb’s visa left the country […]