Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
Vladimir Putin put Russia's nuclear deterrent on high alert in the face of a barrage of Western reprisals for his war on Ukraine, which said it had repelled Russian ground forces attacking its biggest cities. The U.S. said Putin was escalating the war with "dangerous rhetoric", amid signs that the biggest assault on a European state since WWII was not producing rapid victories, but instead generating a far-reaching and concerted Western response. (New York Times, Reuters)
Belarus reportedly is preparing to send soldiers into Ukraine as soon as today, and the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council plan to meet. (Washington Post)
The rouble plunged more than 40% to a fresh record low, exceeding the loss suffered on August 26, 1998 during the height of the Russian Financial Crisis. Meanwhile, people in Moscow and other Russian cities stormed ATMs and bank branches in search of cash, both in roubles and dollars, as they feared a collapse of the national currency and inability to use international payment systems. Late on Saturday, some people sat at the banks in front of empty ATMs waiting for fresh batches of cash to arrive. Many more went lining up in the early hours of Sunday, after the US and its European allies announced punitive measures on the Russian central bank and the country’s biggest lenders. (Financial Times, Reuters)
The EU and Canada said they would bar Russian planes from entering their airspace. The EU banned not only commercial airliners but any plane owned, registered or controlled by Russians: “Our airspace will be closed to every Russian plane—and that includes the private jets of oligarchs,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. (Wall Street Journal)
Norway’s $1.3tn oil fund will dump its Russian investments as part of a wider package of support for Ukraine, highlighting how the international financial pressure on Moscow is being ratcheted up. Norges Bank Investment Management, the sovereign wealth fund housed inside Norway’s central bank, has been instructed to immediately freeze all new investments in Russia and to begin to unwind its existing $3bn worth of Russian holdings. (Financial Times)
UK ministers seek to prevent Russian oil tankers docking: Measures to prevent a Russian-owned oil tanker from docking in Scotland are under urgent consideration. NS Champion, operated by Sovcomflot, a state company, is scheduled to arrive at Flotta oil terminal in Orkney tomorrow. (The Times)
BP is seeking to divest the near 20% stake in Russian state-oil company Rosneft it has held since 2013. The UK-listed oil group said it would no longer report reserves, production or profits from Rosneft, and its chief executive would resign from the Rosneft board “with immediate effect.” (Financial Times)
UPS and FedEx are halting delivery service to Russia and Ukraine. (Reuters)
The boss of McKinsey & Company in Ukraine accused Moscow of criminal aggression against the country as the consultancy’s global managing partner announced the firm would no longer work for government entities in Russia. (Financial Times)
Google temporarily disabled for Ukraine some Google Maps tools which provide live information about traffic conditions and how busy different places are. The company said it had taken the action of globally disabling the Google Maps traffic layer and live information on how busy places like stores and restaurants are in Ukraine for the safety of local communities in the country, after consulting with sources including regional authorities. (Reuters)
Russia's invasion of Ukraine poses concern for the possibility of China using force against Taiwan unless the international community acts, said more than three-quarters of respondents to a weekend survey by Nikkei Inc. and TV Tokyo. Concern over the risk of spillover effects on Taiwan was expressed by 77% of respondents in Japan overall, rising to 83% among those in their 40s and 50s. Just 11% of all respondents expressed no such worries. On Japan's response to the invasion, 61% said it should toughen sanctions on Russia in step with the U.S. and European partners. Thirty percent said Japan should pursue its own diplomatic course. (Nikkei Asia Review)
The US Department of Justice announced it will cease the China Initiative, which pursued potential cases of economic espionage. The program began under the Trump administration and was routinely criticized as it often targeted academics and researchers of Chinese descent. (MIT Technology Review)
Covid-19: bodies pile up at hospitals, as mortuaries struggle to find space in Hong Kong. The City’s mortuaries have already tripled their capacity but are running out of room to handle the dozens of residents who are dying daily. “The medical system is completely overwhelmed,” said David Chan from the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance. (South China Morning Post)
Mayor Eric Adams announced that NYC was poised to eliminate school mask mandates and vaccine requirements for restaurants, gyms and movie theaters, by March 7, if case numbers remain low. (New York Times)
Economy
Corporations raise prices as consumers spend ‘with a vengeance’: Doughnut sellers, milkshake purveyors, tire manufacturers and rental car agencies are all discovering that something is different about America’s pandemic-weathered economy: People are willing to pay more for the goods and services they want to buy. Companies are taking advantage of a moment of hot and seemingly unshakable demand — one in which consumers are spending “with a vengeance,” to borrow the words of one executive — to cover rising costs and to expand their profit margins to prepandemic or even record levels. Corporate executives have spent recent earnings calls bragging about their newfound power to raise prices, often predicting that it will last. (New York Times)
Rising food prices are emerging as a significant headwind to the economic recovery from the pandemic this year. The price of basic staples such as wheat, corn and soybeans rose steeply last year, which would translate into higher grocery prices world-wide this year. Even if food commodity inflation slows, as many forecasters expect, households will still face higher grocery bills in the months ahead. John Allan, the chairman of Tesco PLC, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, told the BBC earlier this month that “the worst is yet to come” for food inflation. (Wall Street Journal)
Investors are bracing for turmoil in the market for mortgage loans backed by the government as the Federal Reserve begins to sketch out its plans to shrink its $9tn balance sheet. A debate is under way about how the US central bank will go about reducing its enormous stock of Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). These were amassed over the past two years as the Fed sought to quell financial panic stemming from the pandemic and shield the world’s largest economy from one of the worst contractions in history. (Financial Times)
Investors bet oil still has room to run after touching $100: The price advance builds on a historic rebound for commodities following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and adds pressure on a global economy grappling with surging inflation. (Wall Street Journal)
Goldman says demand destruction is the only thing that can restrain oil. (Bloomberg)
There are now more than 1,200 unicorn startups in the world, collectively valued at more than $4 trillion. That’s double the value of the world’s unicorns at the end of 2020. (Crunchbase)
Technology
Russia's leading internet providers have restricted access to Twitter and Facebook, while Russia's regulator demanded that Alphabet remove all restrictions on Russian-language YouTube channels of media outlets RBC, TV Zvezda, and Sputnik in Ukraine. (Netblocks, Reuters)
“Splinternet”: U.S. tech giants are under pressure from both Russia and the West to respond to the conflict in Ukraine, highlighting their power over global discourse but also escalating a recent trend in which their businesses are squeezed by geopolitical events. Analysts say the conflict could accelerate the fracturing of the internet, which not so long ago was largely split between China and the rest of the world. Increasingly, big tech companies are beholden to a patchwork of local rules, leading some to believe the “splinternet” is coming closer to reality. (Wall Street Journal)
Computer vision and machine learning may soon bolster restaurant jobs: Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol expects the restaurant industry to adopt more emerging technologies to deal with supply chain issues, worker turnover. (Wall Street Journal)
Silicon Valley is now wherever tech workers want it to be. Over four in 10 listings for higher educated white-collar jobs at tech companies are based outside of California, Oregon and Washington, according to an analysis by the Conference Board. States including Texas, Virginia and New York are becoming increasingly popular destinations for tech work. Texas is the top place for tech companies, with Austin being a particularly hot spot for tech work. East Coast cities aren't the only ones getting tech employees, either: Inland states such as Tennessee, Illinois and Colorado are also experiencing a jump in tech work, the study found. (Protocol)
Smart Links
Apple has a chance to launch an iPhone costing just $199. (Bloomberg)
People flee to rooftops as 'weather bomb' submerges Australian towns. (Reuters)
Uber, Lyft and Teamsters strike a gig worker deal in Washington. (Protocol)
Colorado will let citizens pay their tax in bitcoin. (The Times)
Military towns are the most racially integrated places in the U.S. (Science News)