Flagship

Putin easily wins ‘election’

Thousands of Russian voters silently protested President Vladimir Putin during his predetermined election by showing up to the polls at the same time and forming long lines, a plan promoted by opposition leader Alexei Navalny before he died in prison. Early results showed Putin taking 87% of the vote, a foregone conclusion in a rigged election that grants him a fifth six-year term. Experts say Putin’s reelection will likely embolden him to pursue even more aggressive tactics against Ukraine, and many Russians are especially uneasy about the possibility of another war mobilization. Putin’s one-man grip on power is so strong that “not even the handpicked elite” have an answer for who could succeed him, Moscow-based journalist Anna Nemtsova wrote.

Japan likely to end negative rate

Japan’s central bank is expected to raise borrowing costs and end the world’s last negative interest rate regime this week, a major monetary policy shift and the first increase in 17 years. The change reflects policymakers’ confidence that “a virtuous cycle of wage growth and price hikes is in motion,” The Japan Times wrote, after Japan’s biggest companies agreed to give workers a large pay increase last week. Japan’s is one of several central banks that will set policy for nearly half of the world this week: The U.S. will likely hold rates steady, while officials in Latin America may cut rates. The patchwork of policy is “in contrast to the largely synchronized response that central banks previously engineered,” Bloomberg wrote.

Bibi vows to press into Rafah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press on with an invasion of the Gazan border town of Rafah, despite international opposition and the lack of an evacuation plan for the more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering there. Netanyahu’s approval of the operation came as Israel sent a delegation to another round of ceasefire negotiations in Qatar. Netanyahu has been insistent on “total victory” over Hamas, and a sudden turnaround on that stance is highly unlikely, defense journalist Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz. “It seems that for now, the way out of the entanglement depends mainly on the Biden administration, which in recent weeks has taken off its kid gloves” but hasn’t threatened to withhold military aid to Israel.

McDonald’s glitch shuts stores

A computer glitch at McDonald’s left customers around the world unable to order food on Friday. The crash was first noted in Australia, but affected stores in at least 14 countries. McDonald’s said it was not a hack, but seemed to be caused by a faulty system update. The glitch broke not only the online app but in-store self-ordering kiosks and employee-operated order terminals, leaving their screens black or displaying “out of service” messages, and forcing many stores to close. As is so often the case, centralized computer systems provide enormous efficiency savings, but leave major organizations vulnerable to grinding to a halt if the latest security patch is faulty.

Brazil’s latest dengue strategy

Brazil is releasing bacteria-infected mosquitoes in six cities to combat a worsening dengue fever outbreak. Other countries have seen success in infecting the insects with the Wolbachia bacteria, which reduces the breeding ability of mosquitoes that can carry diseases. Over 50 Brazilian cities have requested “wolbitos” as they’re known locally. “Our biggest bottleneck right now is the production of mosquitoes,” the head of the World Mosquito Program in Brazil told The Guardian. Researchers hope to open a new lab next year that can produce 100 million infected mosquito eggs each week. Hotter and wetter weather led to the latest dengue outbreak; Brazil recently became the first country to implement a public vaccination campaign against the virus.

Sails save freight’s carbon output

Retrofitting giant sails to a cargo ship reduced carbon emissions. Ocean freight is carbon-efficient per ton carried, but is such a huge industry that it represents more than 2% of total global emissions. The Pyxis Ocean vessel was fitted with three 120-foot “Wind Wing” sails in a six-month trial sailing the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans, and was found to use roughly 11 tons less fuel per day when the sails were up. Ships designed to use them natively alongside their diesel engines are expected to reduce emissions by 30%, but the Pyxis Ocean trial showed retrofitting them to existing stock, much of which will have decades of life, can effectively cut carbon emissions too.

Pro-China shakeup in Nepal

A surprise political split in Nepal made the country the latest to fall in the crosshairs of the India-China battle for influence in South Asia. Nepal’s prime minister changed coalition partners to form a cabinet dominated by the Nepal Communist Party, which is seen as an ally of Beijing’s. India has close economic ties to Kathmandu, but China is gaining a foothold through infrastructure projects. India and the U.S. “worked for months to ensure the communists don’t form a government together in Kathmandu,” a local political commentator told Nikkei. “The alliance is certainly a failure in that effort.” Nepal becomes the second small nation in the region to see a pro-China shift in recent months, after the Maldives forced Indian military personnel out.

Berlin techno now cultural artifact

German cultural authorities recognized Berlin’s techno scene as a piece of intangible cultural heritage. Its addition to the national list, along with other German cultural practices such as mountaineering in Saxony and the Finsterwald acapella singing tradition, marks techno as a cultural tradition worthy of protection, Berlin club officials said. The genre, most often associated with Berlin, became the “soundtrack of the spirit of optimism after reunification” in the early 1990s, Der Spiegel wrote, and became a tourism draw, inspiring electronic music culture globally. Berlin club leaders are currently discussing a partnership with Ukraine to help Kyiv become a rave destination again after the war; many Ukrainian DJs fled to Berlin after Russia’s invasion.

Guinness enters its golden age

The beer industry is struggling globally, but Guinness is cheersing to a new “golden age.” Sales of the Irish dry stout rose 14% in the second half of 2023, even as its parent company Diageo reported an overall decline in sales. The brand hasn’t carried out a major marketing push. Instead, organic social media interest has helped the drink become more popular among millennials and women. A popular YouTuber called the “Guinness Guru” is trusted for rating Guinness pours across the U.K. and Ireland, while the Instagram page “Shit London Guinness,” which highlights only the bad, has only made the drink more appealing, Fortune reported. The brand, which will no doubt benefit from a St. Patrick’s Day-related sales boost, also released an alcohol-free version.

Del Monte makes new pineapple

Del Monte unveiled a new, smaller pineapple variant for the solo pineapple eater. The Precious Honeyglow weighs between 1.5 and 2 pounds, half the size of a traditional pineapple. Del Monte said that the growth of single-occupancy households, combined with concerns about food waste, meant that fewer people wanted the full-size pineapple — which no ordinary human could possibly eat on their own before it starts to go bad — so it developed a “compact single-serving” version. Most supermarket fruit is the product of selective breeding: Wild bananas, for instance, are small, green, fibrous things stuffed with seeds, nothing like the curved, soft, hand-sized Cavendishes most of the world knows.

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.

March 18:

• The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether the government’s pressure on social media companies to remove misinformation constitutes a violation of free speech.
• Nvidia hosts an investor briefing during its developer conference in San Jose, California.
• The series finale of the Swedish drama Young Royals drops on Netflix.

Japan is awash in wine aficionados. The number of certified wine specialists jumped from about 7,000 in the early 2000s to some 40,000 last year, but not all of those are official sommeliers. Instead, many achieved the simpler and cheaper qualification of “Wine Expert,” thanks to popular classes that cater to casual wine lovers “seeking professional qualifications without a professional need to do so,” The Japan Times wrote. The country has a rich wine culture, including natural wines, and it’s common in Japan to want to formalize interest, learning, and knowledge through official certifications.

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