Philanthropy and Statistic Blogs

  With Congress’ debate over Department of Homeland Security funding now likely to extend for at least several more days, President Donald Trump on Friday issued a promised executive action that Transportation Security Administration employees be paid immediately. “I hereby direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law,” the president wrote. How that would work, exactly, is largely unclear. But TSA workers could start seeing their paychecks as soon as Monday, according to DHS. Some context: Roughly 61,000 TSA employees are missing their second full paycheck after funding for DHS, TSA’s parent agency,  lapsed  on February 14. The impasse has led to thousands of...

  Surging fuel prices and disruption to shipping risk widespread fallout across the region, but policymakers should resist market intervention in favor of support measures for vulnerable groups. Geopolitical risk is again at the center of the global economic outlook. While Asia and the Pacific has limited direct trade exposure to Iran and neighboring countries, it could still face significant adverse economic consequences. Disruptions in the Middle East can ripple out to Asian economies through multiple channels. Policymakers across the region should be prepared to respond to potential shocks to energy prices, trade flows, and financial conditions. Historically, conflicts in the Middle East have affected the global economy primarily through oil supply disruptions. Today, the risks are broader. The current crisis highlights vulnerabilities not only in energy production but also in global transport networks for oil, gas, goods, and people.   The Strait of Hormuz—a narrow waterwa...

  These charts illustrate how demand for digital and AI skills has surged in the region, and how rising digital proficiency is reshaping jobs and widening wage gaps. Digital tools are now part of daily life across Asia and the Pacific, and labor markets are following the trend.  Employers increasingly expect workers to be comfortable with technology, whether they are teachers, shop assistants, or software engineers.  Yet until recently, policymakers had limited evidence on how deeply digital technologies had penetrated labor markets, and which skills employers rewarded most. Our research attempted to address this gap by using more than 6 million job postings on the Indeed employment website. These listing were spread across Australia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea, from 2019–2024. A large language model classified each job’s required level of digital and AI skills. On average across the six countries, about 45% of postings require ...

  On March 23, President Donald Trump announced that the United States and Iran had reached “major points of agreement”. Shortly after, he claimed that Tehran had delivered a significant concession related to oil, gas, and the Strait of Hormuz . These statements, along with the decision to postpone strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, generated considerable diplomatic optimism. Global markets responded positively to what was perceived as a sign of de-escalation. This optimism, however, conflates two analytically distinct phenomena: the emergence of a mutually hurting stalemate , which creates the conditions under which parties become willing to negotiate, and the existence of a viable bargaining architecture, which determines whether durable agreements can be reached. In the current conflict, the former is beginning to crystallise while the latter remains structurally absent. The stalemate condition American scholar William Zartman ’s concept of the mutually hurting stalemat...

  US PRESIDENT Donald Trump ’s   climb-down   from his 48-hour   ultimatum   to Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz should come as no surprise. His persistent inconsistency makes such reversals unsurprising. His claims of “very strong talks” with Iran have been firmly denied by Tehran. He extended the deadline by another five days, hoping Iran would yield. However, there is no indication that the Islamic Republic — having endured more than   three weeks   of devastating strikes by the US in coordination with Israel — is prepared to surrender. Trump’s latest claim that the US and Iran are negotiating a “total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East” may have briefly eased  international oil and gas prices . Still, it lacks plausibility given that hostilities have not ceased. Mere exchanges of messages between Tehran and Washington through a third country cannot be construed as serious negotiations. Despite the decapitation of its ...

  Tel aviv  -  US President Donald Trump’s administration has conveyed 15 conditions to Iran as its terms for ending the current war, Israel’s Channel 12 reports, setting out what it says are the key points. The conditions appear to cover all of the United States’ and Israel’s war goals, the report indicates. Nonetheless, Channel 12 says, Jerusalem is concerned that Trump and his team want to push quickly for “a framework agreement, an agreement in principle” with Iran, rather than insisting on these demands as a condition for halting the war. According to three sources familiar with the details, the president’s top aides, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have shaped a process involving “the declaration of a monthlong ceasefire period, during which the sides would negotiate a 15-point agreement,” much like previous Trump administration-brokered agreements with Hamas in Gaza and with Lebanon. Trump said yesterday that he had reached many points of agreement on a potential ...

  Israeli Arabs are experiencing more distress than their Jewish peers from the ongoing war with Iran, according to a new study published Wednesday. According to a survey done between the seventh and ninth days of the war, which on Wednesday marked its 20th day, they reported a decreased sense of economic stability and social resources such as connections with friends, a weakening of spiritual resources such as faith and hope, and a drop in their sense of connection to the community and emotional resilience. They were among 270 participants in a survey conducted by the Panels Research Institute for a snap study of community and gender experiences of the war undertaken by Prof. Liat Kulik, Dean of Netanya Academic College’s School of Behavioral Sciences and Professor​ Emerita at Bar-Ilan University. The starting point was that war threatens human resources, and that stress was created when resources such as mental resilience or economic stability were damaged or lost. In contrast to...