In the thick of it, back in Moscow in 2003, it never seemed possible that the onslaught would go as far as it did. In the end, it took only months for Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to find his empire under siege, and not much longer for the edifice to crumble. The parallel between the Yukos Oil debacle almost two decades ago and the crackdown on Alibaba Group Holding and affiliate Ant Group over the past weeks will seem at best inexact. And, to be clear, it is. Jack Ma didn’t be

Viewpoints Jan. 6, 2021

Count 2020 as a lucky year. This may sound odd given that the world grappled with a pandemic that has killed close to 1.8 million people and crippled many countries’ economies. The “luck” relates to the more than 90 percent efficacy of the two vaccines -- Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot and Moderna’s candidate. Enormous leaps in science and technology helped make this happen and could well speed the end of the pandemic. And more vaccines are on the way. Unfortunately, there

Viewpoints Jan. 5, 2021

The rare activist moment at China’s central bank was too late and too crude. For years, when it came to innovative business ideas, Beijing’s stance has been to let them flourish -- there’s always room to regulate and rein in later. And thus gig economy superstars have blossomed. China’s versions of Uber Technologies, DoorDash and PayPal Holdings are more ubiquitous than their US counterparts at home. The other side of the coin is that billions of dollars in paper gains

Viewpoints Dec. 30, 2020

Now we know how this movie ends. “Brexit means Brexit,” Theresa May declared in those electric but mystifying opening scenes after the referendum back in 2016. It wasn’t clear then or for a long while after what Brexit meant. Nearly five years and two prime ministerial resignations later, Boris Johnson has finally defined it. Set against the perils of breaking up with no trade deal, having an agreement at all merits celebration. Apart from the economic costs and reputational d

Viewpoints Dec. 29, 2020

For obvious reasons, 2020 will not go down as a good year. At the same time, it has brought more scientific progress than any year in recent memory -- and these advances will last long after COVID-19 as a major threat is gone. Two of the most obvious and tangible signs of progress are the mRNA vaccines now being distributed across America and around the world. These vaccines appear to have very high levels of efficacy and safety, and they can be produced more quickly than more conventional vacc

Viewpoints Dec. 28, 2020

In the Persian version of the fable of the scorpion and the frog, the frog is replaced by a turtle, but the rest of the tale is familiar. The turtle is stung even as it is doing the scorpion a good turn -- ferrying it across a river -- and is told, by way of explanation, that this is merely an expression of the arachnid’s nature. The moral of that tale may finally be dawning on European leaders who have been keeping the Islamic Republic from falling into the water for the past four years.

Viewpoints Dec. 23, 2020

When King Louis XVI, his two brothers and his sister-in-law were inoculated against smallpox in 18th-century France, the public worried about the risks. Though the experiment was a success, even sparking a new type of hairstyle, the doubts never went away. As vaccines took off during the 19th century, the age of Pasteur, so did resistance, apathy and distrust. A similar challenge faces French President Emmanuel Macron, who’s holed up in the Elysee Palace after testing positive for COVID-1

Viewpoints Dec. 22, 2020

While much of Joe Biden’s first term in office will involve digging out from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, the incoming president has also vowed to change the way the US manages its supply chains. This is framed as a way to make America more resilient in the face of crises after struggling to secure much-needed protective and medical materials in the early days of the coronavirus. But it’s obvious that his supply-chain policy centers on weaning the US and its allies off China

Viewpoints Dec. 21, 2020

Donald Trump’s administration is doing an extraordinary amount of “midnight rule-making” -- issuing regulations at the very end of the president’s four-year term. This will cause real trouble for the Joe Biden administration, which will have to try to unwind a lot of it. As of now, Trump’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has a whopping 136 regulations under review, suggesting that there might well be a last-minute tsunami. Some of the last-minute re

Viewpoints Dec. 17, 2020

Angela Merkel has done it again: She’s “merkeled.” In German, that neologism means to hedge, delay, dilute and fudge -- as the eponymous German chancellor is wont to do. There’s much to be said for this elastic style of politics, especially in the labyrinthine European Union. Merkel’s latest fudge, however, will weaken and undermine the bloc, and tarnish her legacy. The compromise was struck between her government, which currently holds the EU’s rotating pres

Viewpoints Dec. 14, 2020

  Citigroup Inc. appointed Elissar Farah Antonios as the first woman to run its Middle East & North Africa operations, among the US bank’s fastest-growing businesses in emerging markets. Antonios will continue to report to Atiq Rehman, who runs the bank’s Europe, Middle East & Africa emerging markets business, and will join the EMEA operating committee. She has been in charge of Citigroup’s operations in the United Arab Emirates, Levant and Iraq since 2019. Ant

World News Dec. 8, 2020

Judging by the sounds emerging from embassies and trade ministries, you’d think one of China’s most important economic relationships was on the rocks. But currency markets are predicting it’s on the verge of another boom. The Australian dollar hit its highest level in more than two years Thursday, capping a 29 percent rally from its nadir in late March. The moves come after data showed the country emerging from recession in the September quarter. That’s a remarkable cont

Viewpoints Dec. 8, 2020

Singapore said it will keep searching for possibilities of travel bubbles with other regions even after an arrangement with Hong Kong suffered a setback, the Straits Times reported. Potential partners could be the countries where the city-state has already opened its borders to, the paper said, citing Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung. Singapore currently allows short-term visitors from Australia, Brunei, China, New Zealand and Vietnam to enter without having to be quarantined, though they must

World News Dec. 6, 2020

China has all but met President Xi Jinping’s pledge to eradicate extreme poverty by 2020. More than 800 counties considered severely impoverished just under a decade ago have now cleared a government-defined line of 4,000 yuan, or roughly $600, in annual per capita income. The last nine, in the province of Guizhou in China’s southwest, were removed from the list this past week. The sheer scale of China’s overall achievements when it comes to poverty alleviation is remarkable.

Viewpoints Dec. 3, 2020