'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Two principal economists painted very different pictures Thursday of what the global economy will look like in the coming years.
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told an audience at Georgetown University on Thursday that the IMF is once again lowering its projections for global economic growth in 2023, projecting world economic growth lower by US$4 trillion through 2026.
"Things are more likely to get worse before it gets better," she said, adding that the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in February has dramatically changed the IMF's outlook on the economy. "The risks of recession are rising," she said, calling the current economic environment a "period of historic fragility."
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on the other side of town at the Center for Global Development, focused on how the U.S. and its allies could contribute to making longer-term investments to the global economy.
She called for ambitious policy solutions and didn't use the word "recession" once. But despite Yellen's more measured view, she said "the global economy faces significant uncertainty."
The war in Ukraine has driven up food and energy prices globally -- in some places exponentially -- with Russia, a key global energy and fertilizer supplier, sharply escalating the conflict and exposing the vulnerabilities to the global food and energy supply.
Additionally, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation and worsening climate conditions are also impacting world economies and exacerbating other crises, like high debt levels held by lower-income countries.
Georgieva said the IMF estimates that countries making up one-third of the world economy will see at least two consecutive quarters of economic contraction this or next year and added that the institution downgraded its global growth projections already three times. It now expects 3.2% for 2022 and now 2.9% for 2023.
The bleak IMF projections come as central banks around the world raise interest rates in hopes of taming rising inflation. The U.S. Federal Reserve has been the most aggressive in using interest rate hikes as an inflation-cooling tool, and central banks from Asia to England have begun to raise rates this week.
Georgieva said "tightening monetary policy too much and too fast -- and doing so in a synchronized manner across countries -- could push many economies into prolonged recession." Maurice Obstfeld, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, recently wrote that too much tightening by the Federal Reserve could "drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contraction."
Yellen agreed Thursday that "macroeconomic tightening in advanced countries can have international spillovers."
The two economists' speeches come ahead of annual meetings next week of the 190-nation IMF and its sister-lending agency, the World Bank, which intend to address the multitude of risks to the global economy.
Georgieva said the updated World Economic Outlook of the fund set to be released next week downgrades growth figures for next year.
Many countries are already seeing major impacts of the invasion of Ukraine on their economies, and the IMF's grim projections are in line with other forecasts for declines in growth.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last week said the global economy is set to lose $2.8 trillion in output in 2023 because of the war.
The projections come after the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries decided Wednesday to sharply cut production to support sagging oil prices in a move that could deal the struggling global economy another blow and raise politically sensitive pump prices for U.S. drivers just ahead of key national elections in November.
Yellen said since many developing countries are facing all challenges simultaneously, from debt to hunger to exploding costs, "this is no time for us to retreat."
"We need ambition in updating our vision for development financing and delivery. And we need ambition in meeting our global challenges," she said.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.