On Monday, four hospitals and a school in Syria were bombed. The United Nations and various countries have described the attacks as flagrant violations of international law that could jeopardize the fragile temporary ceasefire scheduled to begin in the country later this week. The incidents mark the latest in a string of attacks on the country's health infrastructure—Physicians for Human Rights says there have been 336 attacks on medical sites in Syria, resulting in the deaths of 697 health-care workers. That has huge implications not only from a human rights standpoint, but also from an economic one.
Last month, the World Bank released its quarterly economic brief for the Middle East and North Africa region. The Bank's short-term outlook for the region is "cautiously pessimistic," with low regional economic growth expected due mostly to low oil prices and ongoing violence in the region. The report is most interesting, however, for its detailed and sobering discussion of the devastating economic consequences of war—attacks such as Monday's have economic consequences that last far beyond the end of the conflict.
[For more of this story, written by Dwyer Gunn, go to http://www.psmag.com/business-...ics-of-war-and-peace]
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