Articles by Steven Gilchrist

The nuclear armed nations of Pakistan and India have been locked in a contentious border dispute since 1947. In that year, India and Pakistan gained independence from Great Britain. Since achieving independence, India and Pakistan have fought three wars in 1947, 1965, and 1999. The most recent chapter in the ongoing dispute occurred in February 2019 when an Indian Air Force pilot was shot down and captured by the Pakistani military. The pilot’s MiG-21 jet was shot down while flying in the disputed Kashmir region (which is located to the north of India and to the east of Pakistan).   The Indian Air Force’s response stemmed from a suicide bombing attack on February 14, 2019. The attack took place in the Indian controlled section of Kashmir. More than 40 Indian troops were killed when a suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a group of Indian soldiers. The Pakistani government denied any involvement in the attack. Nonetheless, the Indian government retaliated by conducting

World-wide debt reached an all-time record high of $253 trillion as of the end of September 2019, according to research from the financial advocacy and research group the Institute of International Finance (IIF). In the IIF report it states: “Spurred by low interest rates and loose financial conditions, we estimate that total global debt will exceed $257 trillion in the first quarter of 2020, driven mainly by non-financial sector debt.” Economists believe that the drastic world-wide debt increase can be attributed to record-low interest rates in nations across the globe. The historically low interest rates have caused consumers, corporations, and governments to borrow more – which leads to increased debt levels. The report also noted that the governments of the United States and Australia hit all-time debt highs in the 3 rd quarter of 2019. The IIF report also shows that the global-debt-to-global-GDP ratio reached an all-time high of 322% as of the 3 rd quarter of 2019. Sources