Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with U.S. President Joe Biden and with the leaders of Turkey and France on Sunday, an increase in diplomatic activity around the war started by Russia that is dragging into a 10th month. While Zelenskiy has held numerous talks with Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan since Russian forces invaded in late February, the accumulation of discussions in just one day is not a regular event. (Reuters)
Turkey Is Strengthening Its Energy Ties With Russia. Since the war started, Turkey’s imports of Russian crude oil and coal have climbed sharply. The presidents of both countries have talked about how to turn Turkey into a regional trading center for Russian gas. And Turkey has suggested building a second nuclear power plant designed and financed by Russia in addition to the one already scheduled to come online next year. (New York Times)
Biden Cements Trump-Era Steel, Aluminum Tariffs in WTO Snub. If there were any hope President Joe Biden would undo his predecessor’s divisive trade tariffs that caused upheaval in the global steel and aluminum markets, it all but evaporated Friday. The US Trade Representative issued a strong rebuke of the World Trade Organization’s decision that former President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel imports and 10% duty on aluminum violates international rules. It’s the strongest statement yet from the White House that Biden has no intention to remove the duties, which would potentially alienate one of his most important bases of support: steelworkers. (Bloomberg)
The US will send a high-level delegation to China next week, following up on President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month at the G20 meeting in Indonesia. The move is a bid to keep channels of communication open, the US State Department said in a statement, and avoid mishaps as tension between the two giants has intensified. (South China Morning Post)
Countries across Europe are reporting shortages of antibiotics as demand for the medicines rises and manufacturers grapple with supply-chain snags. Amoxicillin, cephalosporins and other widely used antibiotics are in short supply, data from various countries show, raising concerns among doctors and officials about the availability of drugs that are relied on to treat conditions ranging from ear infections to pneumonia. (Wall Street Journal)
Deepening poverty and hopelessness have set off the largest exodus from the Caribbean island nation since Fidel Castro rose to power over half a century ago. The country has been hit by a one-two-punch of tighter U.S. sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic, which eviscerated one of Cuba’s lifelines — the tourism industry. Food has become even more scarce and more expensive, lines at pharmacies with scant supplies begin before dawn and millions of people endure daily hourslong blackouts. (New York Times)
Kansas residents near the site of the worst U.S. oil pipeline leak in a decade took the commotion and smell in stride as cleanup crews labored in near-freezing temperatures, and investigators searched for clues to what caused the spill. Pipeline operator TC Energy did not provide details of the breach or say when a restart on the broken segment could begin. Officials are scheduled on Monday to receive a briefing on the pipeline breach and cleanup, said Washington County's emergency preparedness coordinator, Randy Hubbard, on Saturday. (Reuters)
A string of attacks on power facilities in Oregon and Washington has caused alarm and highlighted the vulnerabilities of the US electric grid. The attacks in the Pacific north-west come just days after a similar assault on North Carolina power stations that cut electricity to 40,000 people. (The Guardian)
More employers are demanding workers return to the office as the job market slows: Nearly three years into a pandemic that reshaped workplace norms and put the power in the hands of employees, the tides are shifting again. (Washington Post)
Economy
The 24 Hours of Hikes That End Year of Fighting Inflation: The world’s biggest central banks will this week wrap up the most aggressive year for interest-rate hikes in four decades with their fight against inflation still not over even as their economies slow. The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday is set to raise its key rate by 50 basis points to a range of 4% to 4.5%, the highest since 2007, and to signal more increases in early 2023. (Bloomberg)
U.S. inflation will be much lower by end of 2023, Yellen says. (Reuters)
Chinese banks are opening more than 3 trillion yuan ($431 billion) in lines of credit for cash-strapped real estate companies, suggesting a temporary emphasis on stabilizing the economy over cutting the industry's debt. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the nation's largest state-owned bank, has announced plans for 655 billion yuan in credit lines for 12 borrowers, including top housing company Country Garden Holdings. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Credit card charge disputes on the rise as consumers cheat businesses. Consumers are cheating businesses out of payments at increasing rates by fraudulently disputing credit card charges that they genuinely made. Driving the news: Incidents of "friendly fraud" are up anywhere from 20% to 30% in 2022 depending on the market. Businesses are already dealing with a slew of challenges as inflation, wage increases and labor shortages undermine the bottom line. If they can't prove that transactions are legitimate when a customer disputes them, they'll be forced to cover the cost. (Axios)
California Long Ruled U.S. Shipping. Importers Are Drifting East. The hierarchy of U.S. ports is getting shaken up. Companies across many industries are rethinking how and where they ship goods after years of relying heavily on the western U.S. as an entry point, betting that ports in the East and the South can save them time and money while reducing risk. Their reasons range from fears of a dockworkers strike along the West Coast and a repeat of the bottlenecks that roiled supply chains early in the pandemic to a reduced dependence on Chinese production and the need to get products to all parts of the country faster. (Wall Street Journal)
The busiest port in America is no longer on the West Coast. For the past 22 years, the Port of Los Angeles has been the busiest container port in North America. But for the past three months, the Port of New York and New Jersey has been No. 1. (CNN)
Air India is close to placing landmark orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing as it carves out an ambitious renaissance under the Tata Group conglomerate. The orders include as many as 400 narrow-body jets and 100 or more wide-bodies, including dozens of Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s and 777s. (Reuters)
Fund Managers Brace for ESG Correction With $4 Trillion at Stake: After well over $125 billion of ESG fund downgrades, asset managers are likely facing a new round of upheaval. (Bloomberg)
Microsoft Tops the Best-Managed Companies of 2022: The company is No. 1—again—in the Drucker Institute’s annual Management Top 250 ranking. But below No. 1, there were a lot of changes, especially among technology companies. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
The battle between FTC and Microsoft turns on the future of cloud gaming: Cloud gaming is an emerging technology that allows people to stream videogames to nearly any internet-connected device, similar to how movies and shows are viewed on Netflix, Hulu and other streaming platforms. The business model being developed alongside cloud gaming is a subscription service, where consumers get to play a catalog of games for a flat monthly or annual fee. With cloud gaming, players can avoid downloading games to their devices, which take up memory, and they don’t need to invest in hardware such as a console or a high-end computer. The FTC and videogame industry participants anticipate cloud gaming will become a much larger part of the market in years to come. With its lawsuit, the FTC says it is protecting the videogame-distribution market—as it is today and how it is expected to evolve—from being dominated by a few companies. (Wall Street Journal)
ChatGPT proves AI is finally mainstream — and things are only going to get weirder. Researchers talk about the ‘capability overhang,’ or hidden skills and dangers, of artificial intelligence. As the technology goes mainstream, we’re going to discover a lot of new things about them. (The Verge)
AI startup funding has been around 9%-10% of global VC investment in recent years, led by robotics, autonomous vehicles, and enterprise software. (Crunchbase News)
Twitter will relaunch its Twitter Blue subscription service on Monday, providing some details about how the service will work after a disastrous debut last month. Twitter Blue got off to a rough start and had to be suspended last month after trolls used the service to impersonate celebrities and companies. “We’re relaunching @TwitterBlue on Monday – subscribe on web for $8/month or on iOS for $11/month to get access to subscriber-only features, including the blue checkmark,” the company tweeted. (Fortune)
Harvard Business Review reports 116K digital subscribers, more than one-third of its 328K total paying readers; subscriptions have grown 6.5% in 2022. (Adweek)
Smart Links
Amgen close to deal to buy Horizon Therapeutics for $20bn. (Financial Times)
World’s Top-Selling Drug, Humira, Going Off Patent Means Big Bucks for Middlemen. (Wall Street Journal)
Rare Scotch whisky prices surge on investor flight to safety. (Financial Times)
Manchester United’s Price Tag May Set ‘Landmark’ for Football. (Bloomberg)
Qatar World Cup Fans On Pace for Record Spending. (Front Office Sports)
Manhattan Garage Owners Worry There Won’t Be Enough Cars to Go Around After Congestion Pricing. (The City)