标题: 2022.02.23 拜登本周将不再与普京会面 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-2-23 23:53 标题: 2022.02.23 拜登本周将不再与普京会面 The world in brief
Catch up quickly on the global stories that matter
Updated less than 1 hour ago (15:45 GMT / 10:45 New York)
The White House said that Joe Biden, America’s president, would no longer meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, this week, after Russia on Tuesday recognised separatists’ claims to the entire Donbas region of Ukraine, not just the portion they control. A meeting between America’s secretary of state and his Russian counterpart was also cancelled. In a speech on Wednesday morning to mark Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day, Mr Putin insisted that Russia was still open to “diplomatic solutions”. Western leaders, however, warned that an imminent invasion of Ukraine and an assault on Kyiv, the capital, looked possible.
Ukraine told its citizens not to travel to Russia, and advised those already there to leave immediately. The government said that it would not be able to offer consular assistance as the crisis intensifies; millions of Ukrainians are thought to live in Russia. Ukraine’s security council called for a state of emergency throughout the country (except in the breakaway regions). The country also started calling up members of its reserve armed forces.
Britain announced that its package of sanctions against Russia would, like America’s, include targeting the country’s sovereign debt, thereby cutting it off from Western financing. The countries’ other sanctions target Russia’s banks and its elites, as do measures announced by Australia, the EU and Japan. Germany withheld approval of Nord Stream 2, a controversial gas pipeline that has been built between it and Russia. Russia’s ambassador to America warned that sanctions “will not solve anything regarding Russia” and will only damage financial and energy markets around the world. Western leaders have promised steeper penalties if Russia moves further into Ukraine.
China’s foreign ministry said it did not believe such measures to be the best way to solve problems. But stockmarkets seemed to welcome the sanctions. Main indices in China, Hong Kong and South Korea all traded higher on Wednesday. Meanwhile the price of Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, approached $100 for the first time since 2014, before settling near $97.
Canadian authorities told banks to unfreeze the accounts of “freedom convoy” protesters, who organised blockades to oppose covid-19 restrictions. Prime minister Justin Trudeau gained the authority to freeze the accounts when he invoked emergency powers last week, but his decision was heavily criticised for being illiberal. The protest has since been shut down.
Taiwan’s president said her country must be on high alert for “military developments around the Taiwan strait” at a meeting about the crisis in Ukraine. Tsai Ing-wen suggested that Russia’s actions in Ukraine could affect the “morale of Taiwanese society”. China, which considers Taiwan its own territory, has increased its military activity around the island over the last two years.
Heathrow said only 19.4m people travelled through its airport in London in 2021, the lowest number since 1972. Britain’s biggest airport was hit hard by covid-19 travel restrictions and reported a loss of £1.8bn ($2.4bn). With restrictions easing, it is hopeful of a strong rebound and expects to meet its target of 45.5m passengers in 2022.
Fact of the day: 25,000, the annual death toll on India's railways. Read the full article.
On the ground in Donetsk and Luhansk
PHOTO: AP
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has ordered his troops to cross into the newly recognised “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine. But how will Russia view the swathes of Ukrainian territory that these separatist regions claim but do not control?
Our correspondent found all strands of opinion on the streets of Slovyansk, a town the separatists took and then lost in 2014. Many people remain unflappable. News of shelling at the front line and beyond does not shock them. They have lived through conflict for the past eight years. But others, who on Monday heard Mr Putin undermine Ukraine's legitimacy as a sovereign state, feel that something is changing. “We are in Ukrainian Donetsk but soon our region may have another name,” says one young man, who is finalising plans to leave for Germany. If Mr Putin’s ambitions stretch beyond the de-facto borders of the breakaway regions, it is anyone’s guess where they might stop.
Rio Tinto’s results
PHOTO: DREAMSTIME
As expected, Rio Tinto reported exceptional annual results on Wednesday. The global mining giant earned $21.4bn during 2021, its highest-ever profit. Revenues were helped by the soaring price of iron ore, which has jumped by two-thirds since November. The prices of other metals, including aluminium and nickel, have climbed too. Constrained supply and resurgent demand, as economies reopen, are behind the rally. BHP and Glencore, two other miners, also published handsome profits. Anglo American is expected to do the same on Thursday.
Corporate culture is still a problem for the industry. This month Rio published the findings of an external investigation it had commissioned, which found that almost half of its employees said they have been bullied in the past five years. Glencore has troubles too. This month it put aside $1.5bn to cover expected fines from bribery and corruption investigations in Brazil, Britain and America. Despite rosy results, the industry is struggling to shake off a reputation for bad behaviour.
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California’s housing crisis
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
The Golden State is home to nearly half of America’s rough sleepers. The median price of a house in California is more than double the national average and even “affordable” housing is not immune from high prices. In 2016, voters in Los Angeles overwhelmingly approved massive spending on a subsidised housing plan. An audit of the scheme, due to be published on Wednesday, will show that the average cost per flat identified in 2020—already a staggering $531,000—has since ballooned.
Shortages of building materials have nudged up costs. But bureaucracy is a far bigger problem. An array of government agencies pumps out rules that restrict building and line the pockets of consultants, lawyers, environmental specialists and unions. One study found that a requirement to build subsidised housing with union labour added more than $50,000 to a flat’s cost. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has chipped away at some home-building impediments, but there is little prospect of significant change.
Barclays in the money
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Barclays has plenty to celebrate. On Wednesday the British bank announced pre-tax profits of £8.4bn ($11.6bn) for 2021, almost trebling its 2020 result.
Its investment bank drove the outperformance, taking advantage of a booming mergers and acquisitions market to generate big fees. Though dealmaking continued apace in the fourth quarter, Barclays’ quarterly profits dropped from £2bn to £1.5bn. M&A advisory fees depend on market conditions. That makes them fickle and hard to extrapolate into the future.
C. S. Venkatakrishnan, Barclays’ new chief executive, will hope the bank’s bumper results overshadow the resignation of his predecessor, Jes Staley, who resigned in November. His departure followed a regulatory probe into his business dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, the late disgraced financier and convicted paedophile. Mr Staley denies that his conduct was improper. Barclays’ will be hoping it has begun a new chapter.
By Invitation: Alexander Gabuev on Russia’s elites
PHOTO: DAN WILLIAMS
This is an excerpt from a guest essay by a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Centre. You can read the full article here.
Anywhere you turn in Moscow, it’s easy to find members of the Russian elite who wonder why the West thinks that war in Ukraine is the Kremlin’s preferred course of action. Even if the Russian army managed to force Kyiv into a swift defeat, the damage to Russia’s national interests would surely outweigh any potential military gains.
The problem is that the same logic was just as true eight years ago when the fateful decisions were made to annex Crimea and to stir conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The fact that Russia has been able to endure the international fallout for all these years helps to explain why the region finds itself again on the brink of war.
When it comes to Ukraine, people in Moscow and the West can be forgiven for assuming that the Kremlin’s policy is informed by a dispassionate strategy. What actually drives the Kremlin are the tough ideas and interests of a small group of longtime lieutenants to President Vladimir Putin, as well as those of the Russian leader himself.
Daily quiz
You know the drill by now. 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.
Wednesday: Which English author wrote an exposé of the funeral industry called “The American Way of Death”?
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
C. 巴克莱银行的新任首席执行官S.Venkatakrishnan将希望该银行的丰收业绩能掩盖其前任Jes Staley的辞职，后者于11月辞职。他的离职是在监管部门对他与杰弗里-爱泼斯坦（Jeffrey Epstein）的商业交易进行调查后发生的，杰弗里-爱泼斯坦是已故失宠的金融家和被定罪的恋童癖。斯塔利先生否认他的行为是不正当的。巴克莱银行将希望它已经开始了新的篇章。
应邀参加。亚历山大-加布耶夫谈俄罗斯的精英阶层
照片。DAN WILLIAMS
这是卡内基莫斯科中心高级研究员的客座文章的节选。你可以在这里阅读全文。