New Normal

• [New] Foreign businesses with supply chains in China should stay in touch with their Chinese suppliers, prepare inventory stock, ensure product quality control, and settle payment beforehand to avoid any supply chain disruption.
• [New] The ongoing tendency to portray migration from the Global South as an anomaly, a problem to solve or a threat to prevent ignores the fact that migration is not new.
• [New] Cloud spending growth is expected to rebound significantly through GFY 2023, due to the new normal of remote work, thousands of expiring task orders and an increased interest in packaged enterprise IT as a service contracts.
• [New] NASA's Perseverance rover is equipped to sniff out signs of alien life, while China's Tianwen-1 rover could find underground water.
• [New] An increased occurrence of medicanes in the western Mediterranean Basin and in the Black Sea is projected and could be associated with a reduction of storm tracks in adjoining areas, particularly in the central Mediterranean 37.
• [New] In 2021, Tanzanian president John Magufuli will double down on antidemocratic and counterproductive policies, suppressing domestic opponents and codifying nationalist economic policies that alienate foreign businesses.
• [New] To avoid being alienated further, participation in ASEAN would give North Korea a chance to highlight its position, perceived threats and other areas of concern.
• A broken Australian internet would serve as a warning to other countries to keep their hands off Big Tech and let online innovation run its course.
• There's a number of processes taking place where agreements are seeking to reduce vulnerability to ISDS, making it a strange time to increase Ireland's vulnerability.
• To comprehend the analogues for the kind of warming we will likely see in the coming decades and centuries, we will need to move beyond the past 3 million years of ice ages entirely, and make drastic jumps back into the alien Earths of tens of millions of years ago.
• China's CNOOC to expand offshore gas, unconventional fuel to cut emissions China's CNOOC Ltd said it will accelerate the exploration and development of natural gas, including deepwater reserves in the South China Sea and unconventional resources onshore China, to cut carbon emissions.
• The domestic textile industry will get easy access to raw materials and exports of value added products which will make textile industry globally competitive.
• China's CNOOC Ltd. said it will accelerate the exploration and development of natural gas, including deepwater reserves in the South China Sea and unconventional resources onshore China, to cut carbon emissions.
• The pace of economic recovery, advances in technology, changes in trade flows and energy incentives will determine how the United States produces and consumes energy in the future.
• The new normal, where remote work, social distancing, and virtual interaction are necessary for agencies to safely meet their missions and serve the American public, has exponentially increased the public cost of disruptions.
• Vaccine distributions will gradually allow more workers to return to offices, but the cloud shift will continue as companies look to join the new normal of cloud-based enterprise software.
• The second half of 2021 will be compared with a relatively strong end to 2020 in China, but momentum is expected to continue as the widespread deployment of vaccines globally will support recovery and return to a new normal in major economies and boost China's trade.
• 76% of executives aim to make cybersecurity more of a priority over the next two years, and almost half expect to use advanced technology like AI to protect their businesses from bad actors.
• Invasive alien species and diseases and climate change are the key threats to oaks in the United States.
• South Korea does not want to be forced to choose a side in the intensifying competition between the United States and China, since alienating either power could adversely affect its security and its economy.
• With any kind of vaccine being rolled out in the first half of 2021, hope is that most economies can return to a new normal.

Last updated: 21 February 2021