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The World
The EU will hit Russia with trade bans and technology export controls worth €11bn as the bloc seeks to weaken Moscow’s ability to maintain its “war machine”, the European Commission president said. The latest EU measures will restrict exports of electronic components used in Russian systems including drones, missiles and helicopters, Ursula von der Leyen told MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday. The EU will seek to clamp down on supplies of Iranian drones to Russia, with proposals to impose sanctions on Iranian entities, including some linked to the country’s Revolutionary Guard, she said. (Financial Times)
‘We are for peace’: Latin America rejects pleas to send weapons to Ukraine. Tradition of non-interventionism prompts region’s leftwing leaders to snub pleas from US and Europe. (Financial Times)
NATO eyes joint summit statement with Japan and South Korea: Australia, New Zealand also to be included in show of unity against Russia, China. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Russia appears to be draining an enormous reservoir in Ukraine, imperiling drinking water, agricultural production and safety at Europe's largest nuclear plant, according to satellite data obtained by NPR. Since early November 2022, water has been gushing out of the Kakhovka Reservoir, in Southern Ukraine, through sluice gates at a critical hydroelectric power plant controlled by Russian forces. As a result, satellite data shows that the water level at the reservoir has plummeted to its lowest point in three decades. Separate images provided by the commercial companies Planet and Maxar show water pouring through the gates, and shoreline along the giant reservoir emerging as a result of the rapidly falling water levels. (NPR)
U.S. officials privately expect Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use a potential meeting with China's top diplomat this week to de-escalate tensions over the downing of a Chinese government spy balloon this month. The State Department formally announced Blinken's plan to attend the Munich Security Conference, giving him an opportunity to re-establish high-level communications by sitting down face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. The meeting has not been officially confirmed, but administration officials are preparing for it to take place. A failure for Blinken and Wang to meet would indicate how far the U.S.-China relationship has deteriorated. (Axios)
Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to increase trade and investment with Iran and work to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal during a visit with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The two countries signed an agreement in 2021 meant to deepen bilateral investment and cooperation, but attempts to deepen relations have faced headwinds as Beijing has been cautious of crossing Washington on Iranian sanctions and propping up the Kremlin with oil purchases that might otherwise have come from Iran, analysts say. (Financial Times)
Japan to clear the way for its Self-Defense Forces to shoot down encroaching balloons. (Nikkei Asia Review)
A North Korean food crisis appears to have deteriorated, South Korea said, as a newspaper reported that North Korea has cut rations to its soldiers for the first time in more than two decades. North Korea has effectively acknowledged serious food shortages, South Korea's unification ministry said, referring to a North Korean state media report this month about plans for an "urgent" ruling party meeting on agriculture. (Reuters)
North Korea may have launched a military unit tasked with operating new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in line with its recent restructuring of the military, state media video footage suggested. (Reuters)
China warned that it will retaliate against the US over violations of its sovereignty, potentially escalating a lingering dispute just as top diplomats from both nations plan to attend a security conference in Germany. At a briefing Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin repeated Beijing’s view that the Chinese balloon downed by a US jet off the South Carolina coast this month had inadvertently floated over the country after being blown off course. He criticized the Biden administration’s decision to take it out and said the move would have consequences. (Bloomberg)
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen signed a major climate change law that introduces a net-zero carbon target for 2050 and a carbon fee system for large emitters, a move that will make Taiwan a key player in Asia's climate policy. Taiwan's Legislative Yuan on Jan. 10 passed the Climate Change Response Act to set a legally binding target of no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, meaning any such emissions would be balanced by initiatives to offset them. This includes using carbon capture and storage projects, or planting trees. (Nikkei Asia)
Nicola Sturgeon is resigning as Scotland’s first minister in a move that stunned her pro-independence party and fired the starting pistol on the race to succeed her. The Scottish National Party leader — who has led the party and the country’s devolved government since 2014 — made the shock announcement at a hastily arranged press conference Wednesday from her official residence in Edinburgh. Citing the personal toll of the job and a desire to “free” her party to pick its own Scottish independence strategy, Sturgeon, 52, said it had been a “privilege beyond measure” to serve as first minister. (Politico)
Dissatisfaction With U.S. Gun Laws Hits New High: Americans’ dissatisfaction with U.S. gun laws has risen to 63%, the highest by one percentage point in Gallup’s 23-year trend, and an increase of seven points over the past year. At the same time, satisfaction with gun policy has fallen by the same amount to 34%, tying the lowest reading on record. (Gallup)
Economy
The U.S. is on track to add nearly $19 trillion to its national debt over the next decade, $3 trillion more than previously forecast, the result of rising costs for interest payments, veterans’ health care, retiree benefits and the military, the CBO said. The new forecasts project a $1.4 trillion gap this year between what the government spends and what it takes in from tax revenues. Over the following 10 years, deficits will average $2 trillion annually as tax receipts fail to keep pace with the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare benefits for retiring baby boomers. To put those numbers in context, the total amount of debt held by the public will equal the total annual output of the U.S. economy in 2024, rising to 118 percent of the economy by 2033. (New York Times)
The U.S. could become unable to pay all of its bills on time sometime between July and September, the nonpartisan CBO estimated, giving lawmakers several months to reach an agreement on lifting the debt limit and avoiding a default. (Wall Street Journal)
U.S. Retail Sales Rebound Sharply: Retail sales jumped 3% last month as consumers broadly boosted spending on vehicles, furniture, clothing and dining out, adding to signs economic growth picked up at the start of the year. (Wall Street Journal)
Half of Americans Who Switched Jobs Got a Pay Raise Higher Than Inflation. (Bloomberg)
A U.S.-led Pacific trade framework that excludes China will deliver practical benefits for business, the U.S. Trade Representative said on a visit to Vietnam, adding that the postwar history between Washington and Hanoi shows how today's economic and geopolitical problems can be solved. USTR Katherine Tai also addressed concerns of forced labor in the supply chain of nearby Xinjiang, China, saying the issue matters to the "integrity" of Vietnam-U.S. trade. (Nikkei Asia Review)
KPMG is cutting close to 2 per cent of its staff in the US after a sharp slowdown in its consulting business, becoming the first of the Big Four accountancy firms to respond to the weaker economy with systematic job reductions. (Financial Times)
Fidelity to Hire 4,000 for New Roles, Bucking Industry’s Firings. (Bloomberg)
Stripe burned through more than $500 million of cash last year as its revenue growth rate fell sharply, people familiar with the matter said. The previously undisclosed figures paint a clearer picture about how quickly the payments giant lost steam after a pandemic-fueled growth frenzy. Stripe’s net revenue growth slowed to about 18% in 2022, from roughly 85% in 2021. Net revenue last year was just over $2.8 billion, the people said. (The Information)
The Biden administration issued long-awaited final rules on its national electric vehicle charger network that require the chargers to be built in the United States immediately, and with 55% of their cost coming from U.S.-made components by 2024. The Biden administration hopes the new rules, issued after nearly eight months of debate, will jump-start the biggest transformation of the U.S. driving landscape in generations. It seeks to give consumers unfettered access to a growing coast-to-coast network of EV charging stations, including Tesla Inc's SuperChargers. (Reuters)
Tesla will open part of its U.S. charging network to electric vehicles (EVs) made by rivals as part of a $7.5 billion federal program to electrify the nation's highways to cut carbon emissions, the Biden administration said on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Ford F-150 Lightning production halt was triggered by vehicle battery fire. (CNBC)
Technology
The Allen & Overy law firm is introducing an artificial intelligence chatbot to help its lawyers draft contracts, as the magic circle legal firm seeks to adopt the much-hyped technology to find efficiencies for its lawyers and clients. The London-based group told the Financial Times it had rolled out a chatbot named Harvey after testing it since November for use in tasks such as drafting merger & acquisition documents or memos to clients. Allen & Overy said it had not yet informed clients of the tool, which is now available to any lawyer at the firm and around 3,500 individuals in total. (Financial Times)
Microsoft's chief technology officer says he uses the new AI-powered Bing to decode his teenage daughter's use of Gen Z slang like 'rizz' and 'bussin'. (Insider)
Human Writer or AI? Scholars Build a Detection Tool. DetectGPT can determine with up to 95% accuracy whether a large language model wrote that essay or social media post. (Stanford University)
Inside the ChatGPT race in China: ChatGPT is the hottest topic in China right now. Over the past week almost every major Chinese tech company announced plans to introduce their own similar products. There is a unique opportunity here for Chinese companies. They likely have access to better Chinese-language AI training materials and are commercially motivated to develop new products quickly. But among the many companies that have started to venture into the field of smart chatbots, only a few should be considered serious contenders. (MIT Technology Review)
Amazon is testing a fleet of robotaxis on public roads in California, using employees as passengers, as the tech behemoth moves closer to a commercial service for the general public. The online retailer has been aggressively expanding into self-driving technology and bought the self-driving startup Zoox for $1.3bn in 2020. A test conducted on 11 February saw the robotaxis successfully drive between two Zoox buildings a mile apart at its headquarters in Foster City, California. It was part of the launch of a no-cost employee shuttle service that will also help the company refine its technology. (The Guardian)
The EU is going to investigate Amazon’s $1.7 billion Roomba acquisition.This is according to the Financial Times, which says EU regulators have sent Amazon a preliminary series of questions ahead of an antitrust probe. (Financial Times)
Apple’s latest patent is adding to anticipation that the iPhone maker could be on the cusp of launching a foldable device. The patent, which was awarded to Apple Tuesday, describes technology that would allow users to touch multiple parts of a device, not just the screen, to carry out functions. For example, a user could touch the side of a device to control the camera, according to the patent. Apple describes this as a “virtual shutter button.” A user could also slide their finger up and down the side of the device to control the volume. (CNBC)
Smart Links
What Is Pushing the National Debt to Its Limit? (Wall Street Journal)
‘Broken promises.’ Tech industry’s real estate pullback leaves communities reeling (CNN)
European Union to Ban Gas-Powered Cars by 2035. (New York Times)
In about-face, Moderna vows Americans won’t have to pay for its Covid-19 vaccine. (STAT News)