Buried inside the IMF’s latest Pakistan country report is a dependency that receives far less attention than headline GDP or inflation numbers, but arguably carries more immediate risk for millions of households: Pakistan’s economy is structurally exposed to whatever happens next in the Gulf. The Numbers That Matter Pakistan receives annual remittances amounting to roughly…
In most economies, a strengthening currency is treated as evidence of underlying strength. In Russia’s case in 2026, the opposite is true — and this counterintuitive dynamic has received surprisingly little mainstream coverage relative to how directly it undermines Moscow’s ability to finance the war in Ukraine. The ruble touched 69.90 against the dollar in…
Why the AI Revolution Is Breaking the Link Between Output and Labor Income Artificial intelligence is transforming the modern workplace at a breathtaking pace. Generative AI tools are drafting legal briefs, diagnosing medical images, writing software code, and managing supply chains with superhuman efficiency. Yet a landmark report from the International Labour Organization, released on…
On a cold Tuesday morning in central Dublin, the queue outside a new residential development in Clongriffin didn’t consist of speculative investors or overseas institutional funds. Instead, it was filled with young professionals clutching pristine folders of bank statements, employment certificates, and salary clearances. This scene reflects a broader macroeconomic reality now sweeping across the…
At the Conrad Singapore Orchard hotel on Friday morning, the warning from the Monetary Authority of Singapore landed with unusual bluntness. Central banks, said MAS chief economist Edward Robinson, must maintain “heightened vigilance” as the Middle East conflict feeds a new wave of financial and inflation risks into the global economy. For policymakers who spent…
The phone calls from American buyers haven’t stopped. Neither have the shipments. For many Singapore-based companies with exposure to the United States, the Trump administration’s 10% baseline tariff — widely feared when it landed in April 2025 — has turned out to be, as more than one founder has privately put it, something they can…
Walk through the humming control rooms of Islamabad’s power ministry, and you will find the air thick with a very specific anxiety. It isn’t just the fear of physical grid failure that keeps bureaucrats awake at night; it is the sheer, terrifying arithmetic of the sector’s balance sheet. For decades, Pakistan’s energy infrastructure has functioned…
As the Strait of Hormuz closure triggers the largest supply disruption in oil market history, the world’s largest asset manager is signalling that European equities face structural headwinds that no ceasefire communiqué can fully erase. In the spring of 2022, Europe watched in stunned disbelief as the price of its future arrived in the form…
London. When Leonid Radvinsky, the reclusive, Ukrainian-born billionaire who quietly built one of the internet’s most improbable cash machines, died of cancer last month at 43, the fate of his empire—a digital bazaar of intimacy worth over $7 billion in annual transactions—was suddenly thrust into a glaringly uncertain light. Now, we have the first chapter of…
Mohammad Emrul Kayes is not the kind of man who makes impulsive purchases. A Supreme Court lawyer with a polished practice in Dhaka and a car parked in his driveway, he had little obvious reason to walk into a Runner Motors showroom last month. He was not replacing his car. He was not chasing a…
