Davos warned of a 'polycrisis'; PH focused on... onions

THE recent World Economic Forum in Davos was not exclusively about schmoozing and networking and deal-making among the world's political and economic elite. Or techno and corporate babble. It warned of the great and destabilizing dangers that the world at large faces: a bloody and long-dragging war, inflation wreaking havoc on nations, the rise of autocracy and the many other threats to economic stability and global peace. The ravages from climate change were cited as the clear and present danger, the existential threat to humanity itself.

These two events were unspoken of, but were on everyone's mind. The grievous and unimagined toll of Brexit on Britain. The post-Brexit environment led to the choice of a clueless prime minister who governed for a total of 44 tumultuous days, double-digit inflation, strikes of health sector workers. Britain, the great imperial power and the mother nation of the so-called Commonwealth of Nations, on the wane. The historic ascendancy to the leadership of Rishi Sunak, the son of immigrants from India, a former colony, has been overshadowed by Sunak's often flailing efforts to contain various crises. The other unexpected event, that has exacted a heavier toll on the world than Brexit, was Vladimir Putin's Feb. 24, 2021 invasion of Ukraine, done without provocation and launched in pursuit of Putin's revanchist dreams.