Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence Group, LLC, Doing Business As LPBI Group, Newton, MA

The ACCC’s Sims is spearheading potential changes to Australia’s merger laws early in 2021, putting the country at the front of a global crackdown on antitrust violations from “Big Tech.” The ACCC is due to deliver a report on the app marketplace, with a focus on the market power of Apple and Google, by the end of March. The regulator has already taken legal action against Google twice – for misleading consumers about how much personal information it was tracking and for misleading consumers about its collection of personal location data.

Digital taking barriers down and making banking more possible – but also making digital a requirement?

Conspiracy theories and misinformation have spewed out of social media to mainstream narratives. Where does it all come from? How do they proliferate and what can we do about it?

Unlike Shell or BP, Chevron has been unabashed about its commitment to fossil fuels. It’s been smarter than others though, has a stronger balance sheet, and has made more calculated decisions. This has shown up in its market value, which last week surpassed Exxon Mobil for the first time ever. Wirth will have a lot to say about global economies, too, and the global rebound from the Covid-19 crisis.

What are the best ways to help the poorer countries of the world and their societies? Is the age of foreign aid over? What about debt relief and keeping more tax in country?

Is the best way to lower emissions to keep fossil fuels in the ground? Why environmentalists believe not tapping new oil and gas deposits, and plugging abandoned wells, would benefit investors and society.

The once fast-growing Asian aviation industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, with the region among the slowest to reopen international travel, though domestic travel has begun to rebound. How will the pandemic shape future travel patterns for leisure and business travel? How can airlines like Qantas adapt their product, fleet and route networks for the future passenger mix? How will they restore confidence in international travel before and after a vaccine?

Suntory, like all global drinks makers, has been hit hard by the pandemic which has dented sales of its popular beer and global whiskies. Even with the eventual arrival of vaccines, consumers are expected to remain wary of crowding together at bars and restaurants as they used to. How is Suntory riding out the slump? Are there any new growth opportunities in post-pandemic trends (drinking at home, non-alcohol beers etc.)? Has the pandemic, and the global political landscape, changed his views on globalization? Do Japanese companies including Suntory need to be more wary of large-scale, international acquisitions now?

Over the past three decades, more journalists have been killed in Asia Pacific than any other region on earth, with the Philippines, India, and Afghanistan consistently ranked among the deadliest places to be a journalist. Overall press freedom has worsened in more than a dozen countries across the continent since 2018, according to watchdog Reporters Without Borders, and in a time of pandemic, pervasive online misinformation, and rising authoritarianism, news organizations are facing unprecedented challenges.

A global panel on press freedom around the world. Is it getting generally worse?

How African storytellers are reshaping the way the world sees the continent.

COVID-19 has laid bare many failings in the public health system. What lessons are there to learn around the world and what are the biggest challenges beyond COVID?

Richard Edelman discusses the new Trust Barometer for 2021. To discuss trust in journalism, politicians, tech companies etc.

What do we do about the unequal impact of climate change?

Mahathir bin Mohamad served twice as Malaysia’s prime minister, from July 1981 to October 2003 and from May 2018 to March 2020. Forming the new Homeland Fighters Party, Mahathir remains a prominent voice in the Southeast Asian nation’s politics.

Global sales of palm oil, used in everything from cookies to soap, reached $43 billion last year, with Southeast Asia responsible for the bulk of production. The industry has come under fire in recent years, including consumer boycotts, for clearing biodiversity-rich tropical rainforests in the region. Yet it also provides hundreds of thousands of jobs as well as substantial foreign income. The major players, Indonesia and Malaysia, are looking at ways to expand coveted green credentials, even as they push for consumer companies to step up purchases of the more expensive sustainable palm oil.

Nowhere else in the world has seen more rapid digitization in the past decade than in China, where technological innovation driven by the private sector has transformed all aspects of society, from the way people socialize to how business is done. The commercial outlook for innovators in China is positive, with a ready market of 1.4 billion people, but any new technological offerings and innovation remain beholden to sudden shifts in the mood in Beijing.

India’s Serum Institute is one of the biggest vaccine makers by volume in the world. CEO Poonawalla’s early bet on the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine candidate during first phase trials appears to have paid off. The institute plans to prioritize distribution in India before providing doses to the COVAX facility, an international initiative aimed at ensuring almost 100 low and middle income economies have access to a vaccine.

How has Covid changed universities and which changes will stick.

The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed for business but are the two incompatible? Can we save the Amazon and profit from it?

If big investors dump stocks, there may be less accountability. What to do?

How the US legal profession is pushing greater diversity and where the blockers still are.

Off the back of its successful IPO, Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky shares lessons from the pandemic and how he sees travel returning in 2021.

Interview with Y Combinator on where they are putting their trend-setting bets in 2021.