Saudi Arabia pips Russia to be China’s biggest oil supplier in 2020

Saudi Arabia pips Russia to be China’s biggest oil supplier in 2020

DUBAI: The risk from infectious diseases remains a "clear and present danger“ even as vaccines are being rolled out to counter the effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In its latest annual Global Risk Report, most respondents said that disease was the top risk to global security and livelihoods over the next two years.

In the medium to long term, they were worried about financial crises in the shape of asset bubbles arising from the pandemic economic crisis, and over the next 10 years the "existential threat“ of weapons of mass destruction was the biggest fear.

In the gloomiest risk report for many years, the WEF said: "The immediate human and economic cost of COVID-19 is severe. It threatens to scale back years of progress on reducing poverty and inequality and to further weaken social cohesion and global cooperation.

"Job losses, a widening digital divide, disrupted social interactions, and abrupt shifts in markets could lead to dire consequences and lost opportunities for large parts of the global population.

"The ramifications “” in the form of social unrest, political fragmentation, and geopolitical tensions “” will shape the effectiveness of our responses to the other key threats of the