In a recent survey, 52 percent of French citizens cited their purchasing power as a major concern. Only 29 percent mentioned the environment, putting this issue roughly on a par with the health system (30 percent) and immigration (28 percent).

It is now well known that SARS-CoV-2 can mutate to evade vaccine protection against infection. The Omicron variants – BA.1, B1.1, and BA.2 – can infect those who were previously infected by other variants, even when vaccinated.

As I write, Russia’s army has entered Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. It is clear now that the threat of sanctions did not dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from launching his invasion.

On 18 February, 2022, six Filipino nationals from Ukraine arrived in the country after the Philippine government announced free repatriation flights for Filipinos living in the crisis-driven Eastern European state. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has estimated more than 350 Filipinos living in Ukraine.

This week, Russia officially recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

Despite strong global economic headwinds, not least from the COVID-19 pandemic, China managed to achieve 8.1 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth last year, its highest rate in a decade.

When Deng Xiaoping launched China’s strategy of “reform and opening up” in 1978, economists in the West had their doubts. In their view, a vibrant market economy was fundamentally incompatible with China’s authoritarian political system. But many in the East – including Koreans like me, who witnessed the East Asian miracle while living under developmental dictatorship – were hopeful.

It has been 30 years since world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro and agreed on a set of measures to start the global mobilization against human-caused climate change and to meet the imperative of a more sustainable development model. Their Rio Declaration affirmed that “human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development.

The current military standoff in Ukraine somewhat mirrors one of the most frightening and nerve-wracking episodes of the Cold War, and that’s the “Cuban Missile Crisis” where leaders of the United States (US) and the Soviet Union was engaged in a tense and stressful 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba just 90 miles from US shores. The US then was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize

With 124 million new COVID-19 cases worldwide since the start of 2022, and with the COVID-19 virus spreading, mutating, and stalking even the fully vaccinated, the world faces a grim truth: everyone will live in fear until no one lives in fear. That is why world leaders must resolve that 2022 will be the year when we finally bring the pandemic under control.