At the start of 2020, I was asked what the year would be like. I replied, “50-50.” I was just being facetious. It could very well turn out to be worse.

THE Bank of England’s outgoing boss, Mark Carney, has long come under fire from pro-Brexit politicians for his grim predictions for the British economy outside the European Union, including the possibility of a recession. It got to the point that it looked like one of the biggest tasks for his successor, Andrew Bailey, would be to un-ruffle feathers.

It is regrettable that the news and commentaries regarding the “Co-Chairperson’s Report” have focused on the finding that “the percentage of shabu seized is less than 1% of the total estimated consumption of shabu.”

Time was when the Philippines held the dubious distinction of being a “Latin American country in the East.” Its growth episodes were short and spasmodic; “boom and bust” aptly describes its longer horizon; investment was at a canter; its till was perennially made empty by waste and venality; and government encroached into the market mindlessly. That was also Latin America Post-WWII. The current development tragedy, Venezuela, is the latest and most virulent example of the Latin American disease presided over most times by populist caudillos who supplanted the imperfect market with their own populist-socialist mishmash.

Following the Philippines’ successful hosting of the 30^th Southeast Asian Games, the Philippine Olympic Committee announced its intention to bid for the 2030 Asian Games. Other countries vying for the hosting rights are Qatar, India, Thailand, Taiwan, and Uzbekistan. If successful, this would be the second time the Philippines would host the Asiad -- the first time being in 1954.

Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. and acknowledged second most powerful man to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed by a US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Baghdad International Airport Road in Iraq on Jan. 3.

TO JUDGE by Parasite -- Bong Joon-ho’s Golden Globe-winning portrait of three Seoul families thrown into queasy proximity by the country’s wealth divide -- South Korea is an Asian version of Brazil or South Africa.

A distressing piece of news, so early in the brand new year, that yet more corruption of our sovereignty and a bastardization of our...

As if to remind the Philippine press and media of the challenges they face during his troubling watch, President Rodrigo Duterte began the new year by urging the owners of ABS-CBN to sell the network. He had earlier threatened to make sure that the House of Representatives majority he controls doesn’t renew its franchise, which expires on March 30 this year. One of his accomplices in that House of ill-repute has in so many words assured him that they will do exactly that.

“Words are windows that open us to mystery. Visual art that accompanies those words deepens the colors we see and brings us even closer to the wonder of it all,” remarked Father Jose Ramon “Jett” Villarin, SJ, on his new book, Siya Nga! This is a Filipino expression of wonder, of openness to possibilities. It is an epiphany and eureka!

It was the shot heard around the world. Declared more significant than the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So -- perhaps predictably -- questions were raised regarding the legality of Qasem Soleimani’s killing.

THE CARLOS GHOSN circus opened in Lebanon on Wednesday morning, with the ringmaster demanding rapt attention. Some 120 journalists from around the world, armed with cameras and cellphones, crammed in a room to hear Ghosn defend himself for the first time since he escaped from Japan last week. Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan Motor Co. -- and the creator of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance -- spoke nonstop for an hour, his tone emotional, angry, aggrieved, sarcastic, sometimes all at once. Reporters asked Ghosn questions during the ensuing Q&A by shouting over everyone else.