¹û¶³´«Ã½

"Still too little, too late and no urgency on expanded COVID-19 debt relief for developing countries" - As it is preparing for default on its external debts as a result of the pandemic, experts from the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE)at ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Law School comment on the latest G20 proposals.

The European Council is holding a summit from 15-16 October, at the same time as the Prime Minister's deadline for a post-Brexit trade deal. Professor Abhinay Muthoo of the Department of Economics expects that the trade negotiations will be on the agenda, but comments that a deal is still unlikely to be struck until later due to the 'deadline effect' of negotiations.

"Today’s ONS’s Labour Market Overview for October is not optimistic. Without doubt the region’s labour market is in for a bumpy few months. But there is also a need to think now about the region’s future and how 2021 might play out." Professor Terence Hogarth of IER analyses what today's ONS statistics reveal about the labour market prospects for the West Midlands.

Speaking at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, World Bank Group President David Malpass urged the UK and the US to "do more to reconcile their public policies toward the poorest countries and their laws protecting the rights of creditors to demand repayments from these countries." Members of ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Law's GLOBE research group, who have proposed just such a legal reform for the UK, respond.

This week, it was reported that the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their work on the technology of genome editing -- more specifically, Crispr-Cas9. (See story on ).

Scientists at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ who also research Crispr-Cas9 explain what it is, and discuss its significance in our lives.