On May 20, 2020, Joe Rogan announced an exclusive, multiyear deal with Spotify. The deal could be worth more than $100 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agreement, as described by Spotify, would make the podcast free for all of its 286 million users.

For podcasts, this deal is unprecedented: Rogan will most likely earn more money than most musicians on Spotify.

But the 52-year-old is no ordinary podcaster; he is arguably the Michael Jordan of podcasts.

Rogan started his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience in 2009. …

History Lesson

Let’s start the story with Vietnam: a developing country which shares a large land border with China; a country with a population of 97 million people. Yet there hasn’t been a single death reported from coronavirus. As of May 19, the country has reported 324 cases with 263 of them already recovered.

Flashback to April 28, 2003, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Vietnam to be the first nation to contain and eliminate SARS — the honor earned after going 20 straight days without a new case.

Their success was neither a coincidence nor a miracle, but it did involve a little fortune and a lot of action. Fortune favored them as the disease had entered the country through just one infected person: Johnny Chen, a 50-year-old American businessman. …

Football is back in Germany — albeit without the fans. The Bundesliga is the first of Europe’s major leagues to resume after lockdown. On May 16, the league kicked off with six games; five of which kicked off simultaneously at 14:30 British Summer Time (BST).

Unlike the Premier League where Liverpool ran riot with a twenty five-point lead from Manchester City, Bundesliga has been competitive this season with only four points separating Bayern Munich from Borrusia Dortmund at the top.

The German league’s decision to complete the season in such unprecedented times raised many questions. Much was answered.

The safety measures in place:

After World War II, the American higher education foresaw a significant expansion, which helped their economy to grow. During the Great Recession, a similar plot took place: College enrollments surged along with the tuition fees.

In an ever-expanding industry, a tremendous amount of money has been circulating since then: contributing to the economy and funding for infrastructures and research models — but in a rather unsustainable manner with unsustainable debt levels.

The global economy has faced several recessions. …

For poor countries like Nepal, Covid-19 poses an ironical threat other than the virus itself — the lockdown. Imran Khan, the president of Pakistan phrases this predicament very well, saying that “if we shut down the cities…we will save [people] from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger.”

Over 25 per cent people live below the poverty line in Nepal, and the lockdown could increase poverty and hunger. The quintessential question: save lives or save livelihoods?

Nepal has had more time to prepare. The government has banned large gatherings, restricted air travel and travel within the country, and has closed borders except some for import purposes. Schools were closed off; and a nation-wide lockdown was enforced — all the steps that were taken sooner than they were elsewhere. …

Digital censorship guarantees compromise of a massive degree for the safety of privacy, but in the end, does not ensure the entirety of privacy safety.

“If you open the window for fresh air, some flies will be blown in.” — famously said Deng Xiaoping, a Chinese politician and the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1989. Xiaoping led China through market-economic reforms. His famous saying laid the foundation for the “socialist market economy”.

Although China was opening itself to the world for economic development and progress, the Communist Party of China (CPC) wished to protect its values and political ideas from “flies” of other ideologies. …

During the fourth quarter of 2018, Germany’s economy registered zero growth, narrowly avoiding recession.

For the third consecutive year, Germany recorded the world’s most substantial current account surplus in 2018. Germany’s current account surplus — the world’s largest at $294 billion — shrunk compared to the previous years, as per a 2018 Ifo institute report from Germany.

In 2016, Germany recorded the highest trade surplus in the world at $310 billion (also the most significant capital exporter globally). The same year, Germany was the third largest exporter in the world with $1.27 trillion; exported in goods and services.

Germany’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by only 1.5% in 2018, compared to the previous figure of 2.2% in 2017. Germany ranked as the fourth-largest by nominal GDP in the world, and fifth by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) GDP. …

International students contribute about $39 billion to the U.S. economy and make up about 5.5% of enrollment nationally.

Amid the China-US trade war, Huawei, a Chinese technological company — founded by Ren Zhengfei, a former communist engineer in the People’s Liberation Army — relates to the story of how China comes ahead of the U.S. in the educational battle.

As a Chinese technological company, Huawei, at the moment, is excelling in the smartphone market; ranking second, only behind Samsung in the third quarter of 2018, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). The Chinese company shipped 52.0 million smartphones, with 14.6% …