Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine began evacuating people, fueling concern that Moscow was setting up a pretext to justify an invasion.
-World leaders pressed to avert a war, as President Vladimir Putin presided over a test of Russia’s nuclear readiness. Follow updates on the crisis.
-If he invades, President Vladimir Putin is inviting a new global struggle with the West. But building tension could have negative consequences for Russia.
-President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine made an emotional appeal to the West to implement sanctions against Russia immediately, and called for his country to be included in deals made about it.
-US States are lifting mask mandates, and demand is bouncing back quickly after Omicron. Supply constraints are proving harder to escape.
-Using machine learning, separate teams of computer scientists identified the same two men as likely authors of messages that fueled the viral QAnon movement.
-The operation appeared to be a final salvo in the government’s effort to break up weekslong protests that have roiled Canada’s capital.
-False claims that former President Trump can be reinstalled in the White House are picking up steam — and spiraling further from reality as they go.
-The Fight Over Abortion Rights Has Changed the Politics of South Texas
In the Laredo region, long a Democratic stronghold, the issue appears to be driving the decision for many voters, the majority of whom are Catholic.
-Drought and a decade of war have brought failing crops and poverty to a region once known as Syria’s breadbasket. Even the bread has changed.
-Barry McCarthy replaced Peloton’s founder as chief executive this month. In an interview with DealBook, Mr. McCarthy discussed what he plans to do differently.
-Spiraling inflation and high electricity bills have prompted a full-blown political crisis for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, US vice-president Kamala Harris said Moscow was creating false pretexts for an attack while amassing troops and firepower in plain sight.
“We are seeing Russia spreading disinformation, lies and propaganda,” Harris told the annual get-together of politicians, diplomats and military officials, calling it “the playbook of Russian aggression”.
-As warnings flooded in that Russia was set to launch a full-blown military assault on Ukraine, Orest Putsentela wondered whether he too should pack his bags — despite living more than 700km from the Russian border.
-China will deliver 25 J-10C fighter jets to Pakistan within weeks as part of a deal that will bolster Islamabad’s military capabilities against mutual rival India. Beijing’s first export of the advanced jets marks a big step-up in its decades-old arms relationship with Islamabad and entails providing its ally with some of the latest equipment that China’s own armed forces are using. China will also broaden its support to Pakistan’s navy.
-Gold has made a positive start to the year, outperforming bonds and equities as skittish investors scour the market for safe places to park cash.
The metal has climbed more than 5% this month and broken above $1,900 a troy ounce on Friday before easing back to $1,888.
-Jean-Luc Brunel, the former French model agency boss and associate of the late sex offender and “financier” Jeffrey Epstein, has been found dead in his cell in the Paris prison of La Santé.
-Two top Federal Reserve officials said the US central bank should launch a steady string of interest rate increases beginning in March, in a bid to damp demand and bring down inflation.
Lael Brainard, a Fed governor who has been nominated to serve as its vice-chair, said on Friday that it would be appropriate for the central bank to “initiate a series of rate increases” beginning at its meeting next month. Financial markets were “clearly aligned” with that move, she added.
-The EU is taking China to the World Trade Organization for alleged patent infringements that are costing companies billions of euros, as part of what officials in Brussels claim is a “power grab” by Beijing to set smartphone technology licensing rates.
-Novavax said its protein-based Covid-19 vaccine will be a strong competitor to the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna jabs despite its late arrival because of public concerns over the safety of its rivals’ messenger RNA technology.
-Investors are pulling back from European corporate debt as central banks prepare to curtail the stimulus that has offered unprecedented support to borrowers in a taste of the more challenging environment ahead.
-Italy will spend €8bn to shield consumers, industry and local authorities from rising energy prices and support the auto industry, as spiraling electricity and gas bills threaten to undermine pandemic recovery. Mario Draghi, prime minister, also warned that any international sanctions targeting Russia’s energy industry — in response to aggression against Ukraine — would hit Italy particularly hard.
-In a sea of red so far this year, the London stock market is comfortably the best-performing in Europe, streets ahead of the US, and it is trouncing most of Asia too. But, this may reflect “everything that is wrong with the UK stock market.”
THE NEW YORK POST
-The family of Ghislaine Maxwell say they fear for her safety after model agent Jean-Luc Brunel was found hanged in his Paris prison cell on Saturday. Maxwell, who was convicted last year of sex trafficking, allegedly introduced Brunel to billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was found hanging in his Manhattan lockup in August 2019. “It’s really shocking,” Ian Maxwell, one of Ghislaine’s siblings, told The Post. “Another death by hanging in a high-security prison. My reaction is one of total shock and bewilderment.”
-The Kremlin said Russia successfully test-launched hypersonic and cruise missiles — including nuclear submarines and Tu-95 bombers — at sea and land-based targets during the exercises earlier Saturday. Russian President Vladimir Putin watched video of the drills taking place in real-time with the president of neighboring Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, from what the Kremlin described as a “situation center.”
-Grocery shopping has commanded a large share of Americans’ disposable income over the last year — and relief may be hard to come by in the months ahead as businesses raise prices even higher. US households were spending more than 12% of their disposable income on food purchases as of the end of 2021, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s up from 10.8% at the end of 2020 — and it marked the highest share of food spending in more than two decades.