DUBLIN Ireland's gross domestic product grew by 7.8 per cent in the first quarter of the year due to surging exports by multinational corporations, according to official estimates. However, gross national product, a measurement which cuts out multinationals, fell by 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter, the government's Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Friday. According to the CSO's Jennifer Banim, "the tightening of Covid-19 related restrictions led to lower levels of economic activity for many of the sectors focused on the domestic market." Ireland's government lifted a third pandemic lockdown in May after almost five months of restrictions that were ranked among Europe's harshest by the University of Oxford.
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With millions of people told to stay at home as part of pandemic lockdowns, TV viewing numbers have increased (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN “Too much television is bad for you” is more than just an adage parroted by exasperated parents at heedless, homework-shirking teenagers, going by research carried out by US-based scientists.
Using information gleaned from three surveys and studies involving more than 17,000 people, academics from Columbia University, the University of Alabama and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) said they believe “moderate-to-high TV viewing in midlife” contributes to “later cognitive and brain health decline.”
“Engaging in healthy behaviours during midlife may be important factors to support a healthy brain later in life,” according to Kelley Pettee Gabriel, epidemiology professor at the University of Alabama and lead author of one of the papers, which are to be presented at an American Heart Association conference in Dallas on Thursday.
The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, for a time the world’s tallest building (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN Global trade enjoyed a record rebound in the first quarter of 2021, according to UN estimates, growing 10 per cent year-on-year largely on the back of booming exports from East Asia.
Countries in the region thrived after “early success in pandemic mitigation,” which “allowed them to rebound faster and to capitalize on booming global demand for Covid-19 related products,” the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a report published on Wednesday.
China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam have been among the nations reporting relatively low virus-related death tolls and surging exports.
Lifeline remittances stay steady despite pandemic and recessions – dpa international
Women sending money back to the Philippines from a remittance counter inside Lucky Plaza, a mall popular with the Filipino expat community in Singapore (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN Global remittances fell 1.6 per cent last year to 540 billion dollars, a less-than-expected decline in what the World Bank labelled “lifeline” cashflows for millions of people.
The global total, which amounts to around the same as Belgium’s gross domestic product (GDP), held up far better than other economic indicators during the coronavirus pandemic and widespread restrictions on businesses, according to a bank report published on Wednesday.