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The World
Ukraine refused to surrender Mariupol as Russia warned of humanitarian 'catastrophe': Ukraine rejected a demand to surrender the city of Mariupol by 5 a.m. Monday, as Russian forces broadened their bombardment of the strategic port and forcibly deported thousands of residents, according to city officials and witnesses. Iryna Vereschuk, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, told Ukrainska Pravda that her country rejected the Russian demand for surrender. She called on Russia to open a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol so thousands of civilians trapped with little food or water can escape. Military experts now describe the war as a bloody stalemate, with Russian troops appearing to lose ground around Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, while making some gains in the east. (Reuters, New York Times)
Brussels accelerated plans designed to improve the EU’s health response in case of a nuclear incident following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The European commission is seeking to encourage EU members to stockpile iodine pills, protective suits and other medicine. It is also working on ways to deal with possible chemical and biological attacks after the US warned that Russia could use such weapons in Ukraine. (Financial Times)
European Union governments will consider whether to impose an oil embargo on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as they gather this week with U.S. President Joe Biden for a series of summits designed to harden the West's response to Moscow. (Reuters)
President Joe Biden will travel to Poland on Friday as part of his diplomatic efforts surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war, according to a White House statement late Sunday. (Politico)
Finland’s president warned that applying for NATO membership would carry a “major risk” of escalation in Europe as the Nordic country explores ways to improve its security set-up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sauli Niinisto said that joining NATO was one of the two main alternatives to Finland’s current position inside the EU but outside a military alliance. The other option is a deepening of its defense co-operation with the US and neighboring Sweden. (Financial Times)
The Biden administration has transferred a significant number of Patriot antimissile interceptors to Saudi Arabia within the past month, fulfilling Riyadh’s urgent request for a resupply amid sharp tensions in the relationship, senior U.S. officials said. The transfers sought to ensure that Saudi Arabia is adequately supplied with the defensive munitions it needs to fend off drone and missile attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, one of the officials said. (Wall Street Journal)
China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the disputed South China Sea, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment and fighter jets in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby, a top US military commander said. US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John C Aquilino said the hostile actions were in stark contrast to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s past assurances that Beijing would not transform the artificial islands in contested waters into military bases. The efforts were part of China’s flexing its military muscle, he said. (South China Morning Post)
The US is likely to see an increase in Covid cases like that in Europe and the UK thanks to the BA.2 virus subvariant but not a dangerous surge, Anthony Fauci said. BA.2, Fauci told ABC’s This Week, “has a degree of transmission advantage over the original Omicron [variant], but not multifold advantage. So, it’s about 50% to 60% or so more transmissible, which means ultimately it might take over as a dominant variant. (The Guardian)
Shanghai reported a record daily surge in local COVID-19 infections as authorities scrambled to test residents and rein in the Omicron variant, while the Disney resort closed until further notice. It is the fourth consecutive day of increase in Shanghai's local asymptomatic infections. (Reuters)
Hong Kong will lift flight bans and reduce quarantine for arrivals, as mass testing plans are put on hold. Carrie Lam revealed changes to quarantine measures for travelers, with the current 14-day period to be cut to seven if they test negative on the sixth and seventh day from arrival. Changes to the flight bans and quarantine will start on April 1. (South China Morning Post)
Ahead of Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s stances on key issues: Despite her years on the federal bench and as a lawyer in private practice and public service, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has had little engagement with many of the hot-button issues dominating the Supreme Court’s attention. Nevertheless, her supporters think they know she’s on their side, on the basis of her past affiliations and the Democratic president who nominated her. That’s also enough for her opponents to have formed some opinions. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee today will begin the notoriously difficult job of trying to pin down a Supreme Court nominee on specifics about how she would approach the job or confront the national issues in which the high court now increasingly plays an outsize role. (Washington Post)
Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the U.S. Supreme Court, was hospitalized with an infection on Friday after experiencing flulike symptoms, the court said in a statement on Sunday. (New York Times)
Economy
The biggest US investment banks have taken a $4.6bn revenue hit from the freeze in equity raisings because of recent market volatility, a sharp slowdown for Wall Street which raked in record profits from stock sales last year. Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup have generated a cumulative $645mn from equity capital market (ECM) fees so far this year, compared with $5.3bn in the same period in 2021. Industry-wide ECM fees are down more than 75 per cent year on year at $2.7bn. (Financial Times)
State oil giant Saudi Aramco said its 2021 net profit more than doubled to $110 billion, a boon to the Middle East’s largest economy as it seeks to use its hefty profits for investment opportunities domestically and abroad. The world’s largest oil exporter is benefiting from rapidly rising oil prices and said it raised its spending target this year as demand surges and the impacts from the pandemic recede. (Wall Street Journal)
Three big uncertainties cloud the oil market: OPEC’s calculations, America’s shale quandary and Chinese lockdowns make a volatile mix. (The Economist)
Consumers age 65 and over have increased their spending more slowly than those in other age groups for most of the past two years, according to Visa Inc.’s index of credit and debit card “spending momentum,” which measures the number of people boosting or cutting their spending compared with the long-term trend, from a year before. The index for the older group was more than 6 percentage points lower on average than spending by the groups age 45 to 64 years old and 25 to 44 years old from March 2020 through January 2022. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
How the EU is fighting tech giants: The European Commission’s competition watchdog is thinking bigger than lawsuits. Margrethe Vestager is one of the driving forces behind tech regulation worldwide. Appointed as the European Commission’s commissioner of competition in 2014 and an executive vice president in 2019, she’s pursued antitrust cases against Apple, Google, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Amazon among others. Now, with the EU on the verge of implementing a new antitrust law called the Digital Markets Act, Vestager is planning her next moves. (The Verge)
New Toshiba President Taro Shimada skipped the typical Japanese modesty when saying why he is fit to lead the troubled industrial group. He said his predecessors didn't understand digital. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Google began rolling out a feature that lets users delete the last 15 minutes of their search history on Android, after rolling it out for iOS in July 2021. (The Verge)
Breakthrough Energy has emerged as one of the most prominent climate venture capital and policy shops in the U.S. That’s perhaps unsurprising given it’s the brainchild of Bill Gates, a guy you’ve probably heard of. Jonah Goldman is the managing director at Breakthrough Energy, and he’s tasked with helping set the agenda for the entire organization. He describes himself as “not a career-long climate guy,” but told Protocol that actually opens the door to thinking a bit differently about the challenges we collectively face. Protocol chatted with Goldman about his work, how Breakthrough Energy approaches both the policy and investment side of its work and if being at one of the climate tech heavy hitters is a big weight to bear given the stakes. (Protocol)
Smart Links
Biden administration rules Myanmar army committed genocide against Rohingya. (Reuters)
Jury awards professor $3 million in pregnancy and sex discrimination suit against UT-Austin. (Texas Tribune)
The immune system is very complicated, but now, it's on a chip. (Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard)
The global fight over chips is about to get even worse. (Bloomberg)
How much NATO countries spend on defense. (Visual Capitalist)