Flagship

Hefty Japan wage hike

Japan’s biggest companies agreed the biggest annual wage hike in decades, presaging a significant shift in the fiscal and monetary policy of the world’s fourth-biggest economy. The 5.28% increase in pay is the largest one-year rise since 1991, reinforcing expectations that Tokyo will dial down a long-running stimulus program and that its central bank will soon end an eight-year policy of negative interest rates. “Japan is facing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get out of deflation,” the country’s finance minister said this week, while the Japanese government cabinet office’s chief economist told Bloomberg: “The Japanese economy is gradually improving after 25 years … This is a very important moment for us.”

Russia votes in Putin’s sham election

Dissident Russians planned to hold flash mobs as voting began in the country’s presidential election, saying that was the only way left to protest. President Vladimir Putin’s opponents are mainly exiled, jailed, or dead, and the other names on the ballot “admit they’re not trying to win,” the Financial Times’ Moscow bureau chief reported. Street protests risk arrest, so opposition supporters have agreed to turn up simultaneously at noon to show each other how many they are. It’s unclear how or if the authorities will respond. Regardless, Putin will win the election and remain in power until at least 2030, and his goal, as two Russia scholars wrote in Foreign Affairs, is to make it impossible for Russians to “imagine a future without him.”

China slams US on freedoms

The Chinese foreign ministry accused the United States of suppressing freedom of speech. In a newly published report — ostensibly a mirror of human rights reports published by the U.S. State Department — Beijing argued that “freedom of speech in the United States is one for domestic politicians and interest groups, and another for ordinary people,” adding that the country “relies on lies to weave ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ and … smears others to maintain its hegemony.” Meanwhile, Reuters reported that during the Trump administration the CIA carried out a Chinese social-media influence operation to try and turn public opinion against Beijing.

Mnuchin moves to buy TikTok

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok. His announcement came as Beijing slammed congressional moves to force TikTok’s parent company to divest itself of the app or risk a U.S. ban, saying lawmakers had resorted to “robber’s logic,” and arguing, “if the pretext of national security can be used to suppress excellent companies from other countries arbitrarily, there is no fairness or justice to speak of.” (China currently bans Google, Meta, and X, among other major U.S. tech companies on data-sharing and national security grounds.) The app’s popularity suggests only Big Tech firms have sufficient cash to take it on, but a forced sale may lower the price.

Ride-hailing services quit Minneapolis

Uber and Lyft will cease operations in Minneapolis after the city voted to require that they boost their drivers’ pay. The council overrode a mayoral veto of a bill imposing the minimum hourly wage on ride-hailing services. A lawmaker said the bill would stop drivers being “exploited for cheap labor.” But Lyft said it would render services unaffordable, while Minnesota’s state governor said people depended on ride-hailing and if the companies quit “there’s nothing to fill that gap.” U.S. politicians are increasingly clashing with the digital economy: Pornhub has blocked its own site in Texas over requirements to verify users’ ages, saying the law is “the least effective and yet also most restrictive” way of protecting minors.

Growing US-Israel divide

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be unseated highlighted the growing gulf between the historically close allies. The remarks, which the White House reviewed before they were delivered, were slammed by Republicans in Washington and Israeli politicians of all stripes. But that they were made by the most senior Jewish politician in Congress and an ardent support of Israeli defense showcased widening divides between the U.S. and Israel, something prominent American columnists noted even before the Schumer comments. “The White House doubts the Israeli leader has a sound strategy,” The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote, while The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman went further: “Israel is becoming radioactive.”

Milei faces new setbacks

Argentina’s Senate overwhelmingly rejected President Javier Milei’s deregulatory reforms, the latest setback to his ambitious bid to overhaul the country’s economy. Although many Western finance institutions have welcomed Milei’s plans, his party holds a minority of seats in Congress, severely restricting his capacity to deliver. With legislative elections not due until the end of 2025, the self-described anarcho-capitalist has vowed to govern through presidential decrees, while conceding that means only a fraction of his reform package can be implemented. Milei’s confrontational style will likely only widen his differences with the opposition: “They’re all traitors to the nation,” Milei said of those who voted down his proposal.

Sen. Michael Bennet; Sen. Ron Wyden; Kevin Scott, CTO, Microsoft; John Waldron, President & COO, Goldman Sachs; Tom Lue, General Counsel, Google DeepMind; Nicolas Kazadi, Finance Minister, DR Congo and Jeetu Patel, EVP and General Manager, Security & Collaboration, Cisco have joined the world class line-up of global economic leaders for the 2024 World Economy Summit, taking place in Washington, D.C. on April 17-18. See all speakers and sessions, and RSVP here.

Somalia debt canceled

The Paris Club, a group of mostly rich nations that includes the U.S. and U.K., agreed to cancel 99% of Somalia’s debt. The $2 billion owed was equivalent to almost a quarter of Somalia’s GDP, a problem faced by myriad poorer countries. As interest rates surged globally to their highest level in four decades, developing nations spent a record $443 billion to service their external debt in 2022, according to the World Bank. That has limited countries’ capacity to invest in education, health, infrastructure, and other levers for growth. In response, debtor governments should coordinate on restructuring agreements. “The alternative is another lost decade,” the World Bank’s chief economist said.

Global art market shrinks

The global art market shrank last year, although analysts say there is cause for optimism. Political instability combined with high interest rates and inflation hit the higher end of the market in particular, the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report said. The pandemic hit sales badly in 2020 before a revival in 2021, but after that, China’s weakening economy led to a slump in demand even as the U.S. and U.K. continued to recover. The report said “green shoots” were visible in the rise of younger buyers and the strong performance of smaller art dealers. Meanwhile, Seattle University received the largest-ever art donation to a U.S. university, a $300 million gift of more than 200 works, from the philanthropist Richard Hedreen.

Forests slow US warming

Reforestation may be keeping the eastern U.S. cool. During the 20th century, millions of acres of forests were restored after two centuries of clearance. Researchers suggested that might explain the “warming hole,” an anomalous triangular area of low temperatures roughly from Pennsylvania down to Florida and across to Louisiana: Temperate forests cool the air by releasing water vapor. The research shows the climate “adaptation potential of reforestation,” one scientist told Scientific American. China is also trying to boost its forest area, to combat a growing dust-storm problem in the north: The country’s leader Xi Jinping wants to accelerate the “Great Green Wall” plan to plant 88 million acres of forests to slow desertification.

• Slovakia’s main opposition parties are expected to protest against government changes to the criminal code.
• U.S. President Joe Biden hosts Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar at the White House.
• Chicken Nugget, a South Korean comedy about a woman who is turned into a chicken nugget, is released on Netflix.

Each Friday, we’ll tell you what a great bookstore suggests you read.

Norli bookstore in Tromsø, Norway, recommends The Last Remains by British crime writer Elly Griffiths. The 15th book in her popular Ruth Galloway detective series, it involves the discovery of human remains in a quiet town in eastern England. Wenke Anita Ludvigsen of Norli said that Jenta under Jorden, as it’s known in Norwegian — “the girl under the earth” — is “a delightful mix of investigation, archaeology, humor and suspense.” Buy it at Norli or from your local bookstore.

The founder of a beloved Trinidadian restaurant in London opened a new roti spot. For the last three decades, Roti Joupa has been regarded as something of an entrypoint and an education into foods such as doubles, a popular streetside snack brought to Trinidad and Tobago by indentured Indian laborers during the 19th century. In 2016, the eatery won a spot on the first-ever London edition of the Eater 38, noted Vittles. The new outlet, Tawa Roti, opens “the latest chapter in a story that has been simmering on slow heat for more than 35 years,” it wrote.

• How Hollywood failed to buy into the ad industry, again.
• Inside Saudi Arabia’s plans to dominate the global mining industry.
• How Adobe’s Firefly repeats the same blunders as Google’s Gemini.