英语咖啡馆：2023年2月25日英语新闻

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, declared “this will be the year of our victory” as he marked the anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Ukraine encouraged pupils to study online and people to work from home, as the country prepares for Russian strikes. Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister, visited Kyiv in a show of solidarity. Earlier 141 countries backed a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly demanding a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine; only seven countries voted against.

Germany’s economy shrank by 0.4% in the last three months of 2022, a larger-than-expected drop caused by falling consumption and reduced capital investment. Germany had avoided any contraction in GDP in the first three quarters of 2022, despite skyrocketing energy prices due to the war in Ukraine. Analysts predict Europe’s largest economy will shrink again this quarter, meaning the country would enter a recession.

President Joe Biden nominated Ajay Banga, a former chief executive of Mastercard, as president of the World Bank. David Malpass, the previous head, resigned last week, a year before his term was set to expire, amid concerns that he did not take climate change seriously. The bank’s largest shareholders, including America, are seeking to expand its operations to focus on combating global warming.

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, rubbished Russian claims that Ukraine was planning to annex Transnistria, a breakaway Moldovan territory. Moldova called the idea a “psychological operation” and thinks a Kremlin-led takeover is more likely. Moldova has applied to join the EU; Transnistria is pro-Russian and home to a large stash of Russian weapons.

Sam Bankman-Fried, a former billionaire and founder of FTX, a collapsed crypto exchange, was charged with four new criminal offences, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and securities fraud. Prosecutors allege that Mr Bankman-Fried developed a “series of systems and schemes” through which he could “access and steal” billions of dollars of customer deposits. Mr Bankman-Fried has pled not guilty to all of the eight original charges against him.

The EU waived a requirement that charities seek approval before sending aid to certain recipients in Syria, to ease earthquake recovery efforts. The waiver will last six months, matching one issued earlier by America covering money transfers for disaster relief. Since 2011 Syria’s regime—as well as firms and individuals associated with it—has been under sanction over its brutal conduct in the civil war.

Fact of the day: $7.2bn, the estimated combined revenues of the Premier League clubs in 2022-23 according to Deloitte, an accounting and consulting firm.

TODAY’S AGENDA

A year of war in Ukraine

Friday is the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine. The defenders have defied expectations. Russian forces were defeated around Kyiv, routed in Kharkiv and have suffered up to 60,000 deaths. Now, the Russian army is engaged in a broad offensive in eastern Ukraine, stretching from Kupiansk in Kharkiv province to Vuhledar in Donetsk province (see map). The Russians are making small gains; the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk could fall in days or weeks. 

Still, the offensive is falling short. Russia has little in reserve and its ammunition is running dangerously low. Vicious quarrels between Wagner, a mercenary group that has done much of the fighting around Bakhmut, and Russia’s military leadership have burst into the open in recent days. Ukraine hopes to exploit this disarray with a counter-offensive in the spring. But there is little sign that Vladimir Putin will abandon his catastrophic war.

What next for Japan’s economy?

Two big clues about the future of Japan’s economic policy came on Friday. The first was the release of inflation figures for January. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food costs, reached 4.2% in January, a 41-year high, up from 4% in December. Despite rising prices the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has maintained an ultra-loose monetary policy even as other central banks raised interest rates sharply. 

The market is making the BoJ pay. Last month it bought a record 24trn yen ($176bn) worth of government bonds to preserve its “yield-curve-control” policy that is a big part of its monetary easing. Managing the mess falls to Ueda Kazuo, a respected academic who will become governor of the BoJ in April. He offered the second clue about Japan’s economic future on Friday when he spoke at confirmation hearings in parliament, his first public appearance since his nomination. Mr Ueda said the bank should maintain ultra-low interest rates for the time being to prevent an economic slowdown. But he added that the BoJ should be “creative” with its policy.

Telecom Italia mulls a takeover offer

Telecom Italia’s problems began more than two decades ago. In 1999 a leveraged buyout by Olivetti, a smaller telecoms firm, saddled Italy’s national telecoms operator (also known as TIM) with huge debts, which have now grown to an unmanageable €25.5bn ($27.1bn). Could another deal reverse its fortunes?

TIM’s board will meet on Friday to discuss an offer from KKR, an American private-equity investor. It wants to acquire the company’s landline infrastructure for €20bn. But KKR has several stakeholders to impress. Vivendi, a French investment firm, holds nearly a quarter of TIM’s stock and wants a €31bn valuation for the unit. Italy’s government, which has veto power over a deal, likes KKR’s cash, but dislikes the idea of a foreign firm managing its largest telecoms-infrastructure network. It could seek to acquire a controlling stake in the grid via state-backed firms.

A legal reckoning for abortion pills in Texas

Last summer, America’s Supreme Court ruled that the legality of abortion is a matter for the states to decide. But federal district judges can in many circumstances issue nationwide injunctions. A case pending in Texas, with final briefs due on Friday, could result in the withdrawal from pharmacies across America of mifepristone, half of a two-drug regimen women use to end first-trimester pregnancies. 

The plaintiff, a right-wing health group, claims that America’s Food and Drug Administration never adequately explored mifepristone’s safety. The FDA rejects the allegation. It says that it has demonstrated over more than two decades that mifepristone is not harmful. The matter now lies with Matthew Kacsmaryk, a judge in Texas who was appointed by Donald Trump and has a conservative record on and off the bench. If he reverses FDA approval of the drug, the abortion method used by more than half of the American women who terminate their pregnancies could be suspended—with little assurance that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court would see the matter differently.

Streaming giants ride a new French wave

The last French spy to hold foreign streaming audiences captive was Malotru, the inscrutable protagonist of “Le Bureau”, a French-language thriller. Executives at AppleTV+ will hope that “Liaison”, their first dual French- and English-language series, released on Friday, proves to be a similar hit. 

The pacey spy drama is about several geopolitical headaches at once: cybercrime, the Syrian regime, Russian mercenaries and Brexit. On hand to sort things out are Vincent Cassel, who plays a former French intelligence agent, and Eva Green, whose character works in British counter-terrorism. 

Apple is probably trying to emulate its rivals’ success in producing French-language content. “Lupin”, a Netflix show about a heist at the Louvre, reached a third of the streamer’s subscribers in the first quarter of 2021. Netflix viewers also binged on “Call My Agent!”, a comedy-drama about talent agents in Paris. French auteurs helped to shape modern cinema; Francophone screenwriters may yet do the same for the streaming age.