Gordon Brown warns of decade of economic disaster after ‘unprecedentedly bad’ global Covid response

Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown described the international response to the pandemic as “unprecedentedly bad” on Wednesday and called for an urgent G20 meeting early next year to tackle the global recovery from Covid-19.

Mr Brown, now the United Nations special envoy for global education, said leaders must offer hope that the post-Covid world in 2021 will be better and that the 2020s will not become a decade of low growth and high unemployment.

“The G20 was nominated as the premier forum for economic coordination and therefore, in those areas where the economy has affected fiscal policy, monetary policy, dealing with issues of debt and debt relief, debt restructuring ... the political leadership has got to be provided,” Mr Brown told delegates attending the virtual Maryam Annual Forum, hosted by the London School of Economics.

“We cannot expect the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank independently, without the support of the shareholders, to move ahead and do lots of things that really the political leaders are going to make a decision to do.”

Mr Brown said the focus around the handling of the pandemic has so far centred on national interests, taking the world back to the pre-Second World War 1930s, with the barrier to international action not caused by the “standoff between China and America", but by nationalism, "which must now be overcome".

“We have not seen the coordination of monetary and fiscal policy. We have not seen the coming together on matters of global health in the way that we had expected and we are riddled by rhetoric that is nationalist, protectionist, xenophobic, isolationist, and has all the tools of the 1930s when Churchill said that politicians were ... all powerful for impotence,“ he said.

Mr Brown offered two proposals to tackle Covid going forward, with the first a global recovery programme for the world economy.

“We've had a huge amount spent to stop businesses collapsing, to protect people in jobs, to keep economies in being, to keep companies in being, but we do not have a recovery plan for the world economy,” he said.

Such a programme would not focus on the medical roots of the crisis but also ensure the vaccine will be distributed to as many people as possible, he said.

“If 12 per cent of the population in the richest countries are going to have 50 to 60 per cent of the vaccine, people will see that this world is not working well,” said Mr Brown.

Mr Gordon’s second proposal is for a global growth plan, facilitated by his proposed G20 meeting early in the New Year, with President-elect Joe Biden in a position to call for it to be convened.

The meeting could address the funding of vaccines for poorer nations as well as coordinate fiscal policy to "maximise the growth that is possible across the world as happened in 2009-10", Mr Brown said.

While the IMF has put a proposal to the G20 to boost global economic activity by $2 trillion, Mr Brown said the plan does not address the needs of lower and middle income countries.

Minouche Shafik, director at LSE, said international tax reform was also needed to achieve a fair distribution of corporate taxation around the world to enable more countries to benefit from that revenue. She also urged governments to keep "aid programmes at a generous level to help other countries who cannot afford to provide a decent minimum for everyone".

Her call comes weeks after UK finance minister Rishi Sunak cut the UK's foreign aid budget to 0.5 per cent of national income as he looked for ways to help pay for the Covid-induced economic crisis.

Mr Brown said the world has been "unduly defeatist about the possibilities of international cooperation" and that there should be more optimism around what can be achieved to ensure 150 million people do not end up in poverty.

"We managed to eliminate smallpox, we managed to deal with the worst of polio, we managed to deal with the worst of HIV AIDS, we managed also to deal with the ozone layer ... surely, in the biggest crisis of all in the last 100 years, it is possible for international cooperation to be more effective,” he said.

“With a new regime in America and also with the cooperation of all countries like China, we can actually make something of this in the new year," he said.

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

Representing%20UAE%20overseas

%3Cp%3E%0DIf%20Catherine%20Richards%20debuts%20for%20Wales%20in%20the%20Six%20Nations%2C%20she%20will%20be%20the%20latest%20to%20have%20made%20it%20from%20the%20UAE%20to%20the%20top%20tier%20of%20the%20international%20game%20in%20the%20oval%20ball%20codes.%0D%3Cbr%3E%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESeren%20Gough-Walters%20(Wales%20rugby%20league)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EBorn%20in%20Dubai%2C%20raised%20in%20Sharjah%2C%20and%20once%20an%20immigration%20officer%20at%20the%20British%20Embassy%20in%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20she%20debuted%20for%20Wales%20in%20rugby%20league%20in%202021.%0D%3Cbr%3E%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESophie%20Shams%20(England%20sevens)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EWith%20an%20Emirati%20father%20and%20English%20mother%2C%20Shams%20excelled%20at%20rugby%20at%20school%20in%20Dubai%2C%20and%20went%20on%20to%20represent%20England%20on%20the%20sevens%20circuit.%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFiona%20Reidy%20(Ireland)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EMade%20her%20Test%20rugby%20bow%20for%20Ireland%20against%20England%20in%202015%2C%20having%20played%20for%20four%20years%20in%20the%20capital%20with%20Abu%20Dhabi%20Harlequins%20previously.%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

ENGLAND SQUAD

Team: 15 Mike Brown, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Ben Te'o, 12 Owen Farrell, 11 Jonny May, 10 George Ford, 9 Ben Youngs, 1 Mako Vunipola, 2 Dylan Hartley, 3 Dan Cole, 4 Joe Launchbury, 5 Maro Itoje, 6 Courtney Lawes, 7 Chris Robshaw, 8 Sam Simmonds

Replacements 16 Jamie George, 17 Alec Hepburn, 18 Harry Williams, 19 George Kruis, 20 Sam Underhill, 21 Danny Care, 22 Jonathan Joseph, 23 Jack Nowell

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme

Priority access to new homes from participating developers
Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
Flexible payment plans from developers
Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates

TCL INFO

Teams:
Punjabi Legends Owners: Inzamam-ul-Haq and Intizar-ul-Haq; Key player: Misbah-ul-Haq
Pakhtoons Owners: Habib Khan and Tajuddin Khan; Key player: Shahid Afridi
Maratha Arabians Owners: Sohail Khan, Ali Tumbi, Parvez Khan; Key player: Virender Sehwag
Bangla Tigers Owners: Shirajuddin Alam, Yasin Choudhary, Neelesh Bhatnager, Anis and Rizwan Sajan; Key player: TBC
Colombo Lions Owners: Sri Lanka Cricket; Key player: TBC
Kerala Kings Owners: Hussain Adam Ali and Shafi Ul Mulk; Key player: Eoin Morgan

Venue Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Format 10 overs per side, matches last for 90 minutes
When December 14-17

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Emergency

Director: Kangana Ranaut

Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry

Rating: 2/5

MATCH INFO

Bayern Munich 2 Borussia Monchengladbach 1
Bayern: Zirkzee (26'), Goretzka (86')
Gladbach: Pavard (37' og)

Man of the Match: Breel Embolo (Borussia Monchengladbach)

ILT20%20UAE%20stars

%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ELEADING%20RUN%20SCORERS%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3E1%20Nicholas%20Pooran%2C%20261%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E2%20Muhammad%20Waseem%20(UAE)%2C%20248%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3E3%20Chris%20Lynn%2C%20244%3Cbr%3E4%20Johnson%20Charles%2C%20232%3Cbr%3E5%20Kusal%20Perera%2C%20230%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBEST%20BOWLING%20AVERAGE%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3E(minimum%2010%20overs%20bowled)%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E1%20Zuhaib%20Zubair%20(UAE)%2C%209%20wickets%20at%2012.44%3Cbr%3E2%20Mohammed%20Rohid%20(UAE)%2C%207%20at%2013.00%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3E3%20Fazalhaq%20Farooqi%2C%2017%20at%2013.05%3Cbr%3E4%20Waqar%20Salamkheil%2C%2010%20at%2014.08%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E5%20Aayan%20Khan%20(UAE)%2C%204%20at%2015.50%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3E6%20Wanindu%20Hasaranga%2C%2012%20at%2016.25%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E7%20Mohammed%20Jawadullah%20(UAE)%2C%2010%20at%2017.00%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

Jetour T1 specs

Engine: 2-litre turbocharged

Power: 254hp

Torque: 390Nm

Price: From Dh126,000

Available: Now

Six large-scale objects on show

Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
The 17^th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
Torrijos Palace dome

BMW M5 specs

Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor

Power: 727hp

Torque: 1,000Nm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh650,000

Sheikh Zayed's poem

When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.

Your love is ruling over my heart

Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it

Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home

You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness

Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins

You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge

You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm

Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you

You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it

Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.

Schedule:

Friday, January 12: Six fourball matches
Saturday, January 13: Six foursome (alternate shot) matches
Sunday, January 14: 12 singles

Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?

George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.

Hunting park to luxury living

Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds

Specs

Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric

Range: Up to 610km

Power: 905hp

Torque: 985Nm

Price: From Dh439,000