While rich countries experience a post-COVID boom, the poor are getting poorer
May 19, 2021 | 4:49 pm
PHILSTAR
The latest International Monetary Fund and World Bank reports show a global economic boom gathering steam. This is thanks to $16 trillion in fiscal stimulus packages spent mostly across the world’s rich nations since the pandemic began.
After the reversal of 2020, the global economy is now projected to grow by 6% in 2021, powered by strong growth in the US and China, which are forecast to grow by 6% and 8%, respectively.
Australians are not missing out, thanks to A$311 billion in public spending. The federal budget’s GDP growth forecast is 4.25% in 2021. Unemployment is forecast to fall to below 5% by mid-2023.
ASEAN brings hope for Myanmar at leaders meeting: experts
By Trung Nhan April 27, 2021 | 07:48 am GMT+7
ASEAN top officials attend the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 24, 2021. Photo by ASEAN.
The consensus ASEAN managed to achieve with Myanmar s military head is the first positive step in easing the nation s long-lasting crisis, experts said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member state leaders reached a five-point consensus calling for an end to violence in Myanmar at ASEAN Leaders Meeting last Saturday.
Alistair Cook, Research Program coordinator and senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Myanmar, said ASEAN showed its potential with the joint statement.
Australia is likely to maintain diplomatic relations with Myanmar amid the military's violent crack downs on protestors, an expert from The Australian National University (ANU) argues. The call comes as other Western democracies, like New Zealand, cut ties with the Southeast Asian nation. According to media reports, 38 people were killed during protests across Myanmar on Wednesday, in the country's deadliest day since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's Government last month.
Nicholas Farrelly is Professor and Head of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania.
After graduating from the ANU in 2003 with First Class Honours and the University Medal in Asian Studies, he completed his M.Phil and D.Phil at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2006, while a graduate student, Nicholas founded New Mandala, a website which has gone on to become the preeminent public forum in Southeast Asian Studies. After returning to Canberra from Oxford, he was appointed Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security.
Since 2011, he held a number of key academic positions in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, including as a Deputy Director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs and as Director of the ANU Myanmar Research Centre, an institution he helped establish in 2015. From 2017-2019 he was Associate Dean of the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific responsible for