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The World
EU and NATO allies have swung behind the Biden administration’s assessment that Russia may be poised to invade Ukraine following unprecedented sharing of U.S. intelligence on Moscow’s military preparations. Weeks of sustained U.S. diplomatic engagement with European governments, backed by a sharing of intelligence normally reserved for its closest allies, have helped convince some previously skeptical capitals, including Berlin, that the Kremlin could soon order its troops into Ukraine. The effort has galvanized support for the need for robust sanctions threats to deter the Kremlin. (Financial Times)
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered his team to de-escalate tensions with French president Emmanuel Macron, telling colleagues not to retaliate against what London regards as recent provocation from Paris. Johnson is convinced that Macron is going to win a second term, and wants to prepare the ground for better relations after next April’s presidential elections, possibly via a new Anglo-French treaty. With Macron reportedly labelling Johnson a “clown,” the idea of any post-election “entente cordiale” seems far-fetched to some diplomats. (Financial Times)
China is increasingly turning to the military and political indoctrination of ruling elites in Commonwealth countries as criticism grows of its coercive use of foreign investment and debt diplomacy. Military officers from Commonwealth countries who might once have earned their stripes at British military colleges such as Sandhurst are joining China’s foreign training programs in record numbers. Several African nations, including Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, have opened “politico-military schools” sponsored by China. (The Times)
Elon Musk Needs China. China Needs Him. The Relationship Is Complicated: Tesla likely makes more than half its vehicles in China. Chinese sales helped propel Tesla to its first full year of profitability in 2020 and provided roughly a fourth of Tesla’s revenue in the first nine months of 2021. Musk, meanwhile, has cemented his place as the world’s wealthiest person. But Tesla is facing an increasingly difficult business environment in China now. It has drawn wrath from domestic rivals over what they see as preferential treatment, suffers criticism of its vehicle quality from drivers and Chinese officials, and has been caught up in the government’s sweeping crackdown on big tech. (Wall Street Journal)
Police fired teargas and used water cannons on Sunday to disperse protesters pelting officers with cobblestones and fireworks as a demonstration in Brussels over government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions turned violent. A few thousand protesters marched peacefully through the centre of the Belgian capital to the neighborhood which hosts the headquarters of EU institutions, where the demonstration reached its end point. (Reuters)
The UK announced that all travelers would be required to submit a negative coronavirus test before boarding a flight, regardless of vaccination status. (Axios)
The incoming German government wants to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory from March 16 for people working in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical practices, according to a copy of draft legislation seen by Reuters. (Reuters)
As the peak of holiday shopping approaches and winter temperatures drive up heating costs across the U.S., 45% of American households report that recent price increases are causing their family some degree of financial hardship. Ten percent describe it as severe hardship affecting their standard of living, while another 35% say the hardship is moderate. (Gallup)
As LA traffic slowed amid the pandemic, researchers gained new insight into air pollution. Car tailpipes spew out molecules of ammonia, a harmful air pollutant that can lead to thousands of premature deaths every year. New research shows that vehicles may produce a lot more of these emissions than federal and state regulators have believed. (University of Colorado at Boulder)
Economy
U.S. trade with Taiwan is booming, as the self-governing island cashes in on surging demand for its computer chips and lures factories back from China, where many exports to the U.S. including electronics are subject to 25% tariffs. Taiwan is now ranked No. 8 globally in trade with the U.S., just behind the U.K. and ahead of Vietnam. It exported a record $72 billion in goods to the U.S. in the 12 months through September. That is up about 70% since 2017, the year before the Trump administration imposed the Chinese tariffs. U.S. exports to Taiwan have climbed about 35% from pre-tariff levels to $35 billion annually, also a record. The increase has largely been driven by purchases of American crude oil, machinery and cars. (Wall Street Journal)
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell sharply at the start of the weekend, another sign that investors were pulling back from riskier bets after last week’s stock-market selloff. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, plunged more than 20% to $42,000 at midnight Eastern Time on Saturday before bouncing back somewhat, according to data from CoinDesk. It was trading at $49,300 Sunday, still down about 8% since late Friday and down 13% since the start of the month. The declines were widespread across the cryptouniverse. Other widely traded cryptocurrencies including Solana, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu coin lost more than a fifth of their value. (Wall Street Journal)
A JPMorgan Chase banker filed for a restraining order against her own employer to prevent what she alleges has been an effort by coworkers at a different division of the U.S. lender to poach her clients, including retired baseball star Alex Rodriguez. Details of the dispute between Gwen Campbell and JPMorgan were laid out in a legal filing that alleges that Campbell was “lured into a shark tank in which private bank employees defame her to her own clients and attempt to poach client assets from Campbell’s management… Campbell is a victim of a hire-and-poach ‘playbook’ that is known within JPMorgan to be a consequence of the internal conflict between JPMA and the private bank.” (Financial Times)
China has convinced financial policy makers everywhere of its resolve to create a digital version of its currency, even helping to spur the Fed to study developing an electronic version of the dollar. The tougher battle might be persuading China’s consumers that they need the digital yuan, known officially as e-CNY. Policy makers the world over are watching China’s progression for signs of how digitized money might replace cash. An organization of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, has said that most monetary authorities are considering similar moves, though none has tested an official digital currency on the scale China has. The U.S. has yet to make its position clear. (Wall Street Journal)
Among the 51 metropolitan areas with a 2010 Census population of 1 million or more, about 40% have seen a decline in employment levels compared with five years ago. Unemployed Americans are in no rush to get back to work anytime soon, suggesting labor shortages that have been afflicting employers across industries are likely to persist. (Bloomberg)
Investing in EM Womenomics: Goldman Sachs Research looked at the empirical question of investing based on gender equality in emerging economies in the context of the EM sovereign USD bond market. Specifically, GS Research constructed a Womenomics Index across EM sovereigns based on five factors: education, labor, agency, women in power and health. Key findings include: EMs still lag behind DMs; the Middle East has improved the most, although it's still behind other regions; investing in Womenomics can protect portfolios in drawdowns, albeit at the cost of some performance in rallies. (Goldman Sachs)
Technology
Clearview AI has gotten the green light on a federal patent for its facial recognition technology — an award that the company says is the first to cover a so-called “search engine for faces” that crawls the internet to find matches. Clearview’s software — which scrapes public images from social media to help law enforcement match images in government databases or surveillance footage — has long faced fire from privacy advocates who say it uses people’s faces without their knowledge or consent. (Politico)
BuzzFeed will press on with ambitious plans to build an online media giant despite the exodus of nearly all investors from its SPAC fund as it prepares to go public. Investors in the SPAC taking BuzzFeed public have pulled 94% of their money out, signaling skepticism over the media group’s prospects and underlining how far SPAC have fallen from favor. (Financial Times)
Jack Dorsey’s Twitter departure hints at tech moguls’ restlessness: There’s something else going on with Dorsey and some of his fellow tech moguls. They seem to be getting bored and restless with their jobs, and they’re striking out in search of adventure. Jeff Bezos’ wanderlust led him to step down from Amazon this year and fulfill his childhood fantasy of going to space. Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, stepped down in 2019 and have since been investing in futuristic projects like airships and flying taxis. Mark Zuckerberg is still running Facebook, but it’s called Meta now, and the company’s big metaverse pivot seems to be designed in part to infuse some novelty and excitement back into a staid, big-company culture. (New York Times)
Smart Links
Google contractor says she was fired for asking about holiday pay. (Protocol)
Why the ‘stay interview’ is the next big trend of the Great Resignation. (CNBC)
Kohl’s urged to consider sale by activist investor. (Wall Street Journal)
Inflation has risen around the world, but the U.S. has seen one of the biggest increases. (Pew Research Center)