标题: 2022.02.21普京的发言人表示，没有与美国总统拜登举行峰会 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-2-21 23:51 标题: 2022.02.21普京的发言人表示，没有与美国总统拜登举行峰会 The world in brief
A spokesman for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said there were no concrete plans for a summit with President Joe Biden to discuss Ukraine, contradicting earlier claims from America and France. Russia said diplomacy would continue, albeit at the level of foreign ministers rather than heads of state. Despite the earlier optimism about a possible summit, America’s government said Russia appears to be preparing for a “full-scale assault” on Ukraine “very soon”. It told the United Nations it had “credible information” that the Kremlin is drawing up lists of Ukrainians “to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation”.
Australia demanded a “full investigation” into an incident in which a Chinese warship shone a laser at an Australian military plane. Both were within Australia’s exclusive economic zone at the time. China has not yet offered any explanation. Tensions between the two countries have been heightened since Australia formed an Indo-Pacific alliance with America and Britain, a pact known as AUKUS.
Some users of OpenSea, a leading online marketplace for trading non-fungible tokens, were hit by a phishing attack. The hackers appear to have stolen at least $1.7m in NFTs, some of which they have already sold for cryptocurrency. The popularity of NFTs exploded in 2021 but the market is frothy.
Credit Suisse denied any wrongdoing after a data leak exposed the accounts of more than 18,000 clients. The data were shared with a network of investigative journalists. Media outlets alleged that many of the Swiss bank’s clients were involved in human rights abuses, money laundering and drug trafficking. Credit Suisse said these were “tendentious interpretations of the bank's business conduct”.
Canadian police secured the downtown area of Ottawa, ending a three-week occupation of the capital. Trucks and other vehicles had been blockading the city centre as part of protests against covid-19 restrictions. Nearly 200 arrests were made. Ottawa’s police chief said his force was working to “make sure nobody returns to occupy our streets again”.
There were joyous reunions at Sydney airport, as Australia reopened its borders after nearly two years. Fully vaccinated travellers can now enter the country without quarantining. Meanwhile Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, said his government would reveal its “living with covid” strategy on Monday which would involve scrapping all covid-related restrictions.
Queen Elizabeth II tested positive for covid-19. Officials at Buckingham Palace said she had “mild, cold-like symptoms”. The queen, who is 95, will continue with “light duties”. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch has been on the throne for 70 years, a mark she passed on February 6th.
Fact of the day: 14%, the share of the world’s animal species that China is home to. Read the full article.
Ukraine prepares for cyber war
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
With more than 150,000 Russian troops massed on its border, Ukraine faces the prospect of an imminent invasion. It is readying itself for war on another front, too. On January 14th hackers targeting state databases warned: “Be afraid and prepare for the worst”. An attack on February 15th paralysed two big banks and the defence ministry’s website.
The risk is acute. Mobile and internet outages could create chaos ahead of an invasion. A communications blackout might be hard to achieve, as it would probably require a physical operation inside Ukraine. But Russia has other options. It could inflict power cuts or disrupt air-traffic control, as it did between 2015 and 2017.
Ukraine has improved its digital infrastructure. It is now excellent at detecting threats. And the rudimentary nature of its infrastructure is, in some cases, an advantage. But Russia is probably hiding its most advanced capabilities. It may yet hold a trump card.
Trump’s media ambitions
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Donald Trump’s new media firm launched a new social-networking platform, Truth Social, late on Sunday night. The former American president has been banned from Facebook and Twitter since shortly after the Capitol riots in January 2021.
A conservative-friendly space—“Cancelling cancel culture”, its website crows—Trump Media & Technology Group plans to launch a streaming service and news network, too. A war chest of $1.3bn will help. But the firm has had an inauspicious start: financial regulators are investigating its proposed merger with a blank-cheque company.
Mr Trump may be too preoccupied with another probe to pay that much attention. Soon he will have to sit for a deposition by New York’s attorney-general as part of her inquiry into alleged fraud at his family business. All told, it is proving an eventful post-presidency.
PHOTO: ALAMY
The next 12 months will be pivotal for the IMF. Around the world, debt piles are growing fast. Rising interest rates across the rich world could push a number of big emerging markets into crisis. The debts of more than half of the world’s low-income countries may now be unsustainable.
The IMF faces severe constraints in its efforts to address such problems. The rise in debt owed to China complicates efforts to place countries on firmer financial footing. Indebted countries are wary of antagonising the lender, and China’s leaders are divided about how lenient to be with overextended borrowers. The hardship caused by the pandemic means that the reforms the IMF might normally recommend—cuts to energy subsidies or overhauls of insolvent pension systems, for example—are a hard pill for governments to swallow. Rich countries could give more grant funding to poor countries and allow China more say within the IMF. But the sour geopolitical mood makes such co-operative steps increasingly unlikely.
Fashion’s coming slow down?
London Fashion Week kicked off on Friday and the mood is as bright as the pastel-coloured dresses on its runways. Both couture and high-street fashion houses have reported sparkling results this year. Consumers, flush with cash after lengthy lockdowns, are on a shopping spree. Americans spent 3.8% more in January than they did the previous month.
Sales at H&M, the world’s second biggest fast-fashion retailer, have returned to pre-pandemic levels. The firm wants to double them by 2030, while halving its carbon footprint. Ralph Lauren, a relatively upmarket American brand, is aiming for rapid growth, too. It opened 40 new shops in the third quarter of 2021.
These brands, and others that weathered lockdowns, have benefited from reduced competition as rivals went bust. But rising inflation, supply-chain bottlenecks, sky-high shipping costs and worker shortages are likely to get worse. Buying sprees are unlikely to last. The industry may not be strutting its stuff for long.
Making myths in Silicon Valley
PayPal, a digital-payments firm, began with a merger of two other companies: Confinity (co-founded by Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist) and X.com (co-founded by Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla). Both companies allowed customers to transfer money via email. Initially rivals, they joined in 2000. A new book, published on February 22nd, examines a firm that has come to hold a unique place in Silicon Valley mythology.
“The Founders”, by Jimmy Soni, chronicles the firm’s transformation from a scrappy startup to a profitable business. PayPal is no tech giant. It has a market capitalisation of $120bn (Amazon’s is $1.6trn and Apple’s $2.7trn). But a startling number of its co-founders and senior employees have gone on to corporate greatness, earning themselves the nickname of the “PayPal mafia”. The book offers an engrossing glimpse of PayPal’s early days, investigating what Mr Soni calls “one of the most powerful and successful networks ever created”.
Daily quiz
Welcome to another round of our quiz. Our baristas will serve you a new question each day this week. On Friday your challenge is to give all five answers and tell us the connecting theme. Email your responses (and include mention of your home city and country) by 1700 GMT on Friday to QuizEspresso@economist.com. We’ll pick randomly from those with the right answers and crown one winner per continent on Saturday.
Monday: Which American burger chain was founded in 1969 by Dave Thomas?
Life is like a book. One has to know when to turn the page.