Covid-19: Some business ideas to consider during the downturn

In its first space mission, Japanese company ispace Inc. has built the lander that is carrying the United Arab Emirates' Moon rover, as well as other payloads for government agencies from the US, Canada and Japan. Created over a decade ago, it could be the first private company to land on the Moon's surface.

Only deaths resulting directly from respiratory failure due to a coronavirus infection will be counted as COVID-19 deaths under new Chinese rules. With the new guidelines in place, cases have risen but deaths declined.

Famous German virologist Christian Dorsten believes the coronavirus pandemic has ended and COVID-19 is now an endemic disease. And Justice Minister Marco Buschmann called for the last restrictive measures to be lifted.

Germany managed to stave off a full recession in 2022, with the economy performing better than expected. Although Russia's war in Ukraine and high energy prices slowed growth, the economy "managed to perform well."

Afghanistan, Ukraine and much further afield: The fight for women's rights is ongoing and business has a role to play. Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UN's Population Fund, speaks to DW at the WEF.

Following years of political and economic crises, Lebanon's population structure has changed, and not for the better. Experts believe that the structural inequality will only widen in future.

Almost all European chambers of commerce remain active in Myanmar nearly two years on from a military coup that ousted a democratically-elected government and sparked a civil war.

This week, a major upheaval hit one of India’s top business empires. Adani Group has operations in everything from coal mining to telecoms. Its seven main units were recently worth an estimated $220 billion. But a blistering report by an American investor research firm accusing the conglomerate of massive fraud and market manipulation has sent its stock price plummeting, along with the personal fortune of billionaire founder Gautam Adani.

In his State of the Union address, US President Joe Biden underlined slowing inflation and low unemployment as signs that the country's economy is resilient and ready to compete with China in key sectors. Looking forward, he aims to reduce the deficit and raise the debt ceiling by increasing taxes on wealth.

This week saw the release of a wide-ranging investigation into the lucrative disinformation industry, published by a media consortium led by the French NGO Forbidden Stories. At the centre of the story is a shadowy Israeli group nicknamed "Team Jorge" who claims it has influenced 33 elections worldwide with a potent combination of phone hacking and thousands of fake profiles.

The Indian economy is expected to grow 6.9 % in the 2023 fiscal year, the World Bank has forecasted. But despite economic growth, India still has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world.

Vladimir Putin claims the Russian economy has withstood Western sanctions, as he prepares to mark one year since the invasion of Ukraine. While Russia's GDP has contracted less than many analysts expected, Beata Javorcik of the EBRD explains that's largely the result of years of "sanctions-proofing", and doesn't mean that households and businesses aren't suffering.