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Israel to send team to Washington

Israel will send a team to Washington to discuss the looming invasion of the town of Rafah, which President Joe Biden said Monday would be a “mistake” in his first call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since February. Biden has ratcheted up criticism of Netanyahu since they last spoke, but the president “didn’t make threats,” his national security adviser said. Famine in Gaza — which is imminent, a global hunger monitor warned — would cause Israel to further lose international legitimacy, the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist wrote. The “most Israel-friendly thing that Biden could do,” he argued, would be to put more pressure on Israel through military aid conditions or sanction its most extreme ministers.

Chinese economic data mixed

Retail sales and industrial activity in China rose in the first two months of this year compared to 2023, beating expectations and offering a ray of hope for an economic rebound. Beijing wants the economy to grow 5% this year, but hasn’t offered any major new stimulus measures. The new, more promising economic data could reinforce that decision, Societe Generale’s China economist said, adding that it would take a “much bigger slowdown” to trigger a policy shift. The data also confirmed that China’s real estate market remains listless, with property investment down 9% year over year, while unemployment rose for the third straight month. “It’s clear that the domestic consumer remains weak,” another economist said.

India’s political donations row

In what India’s opposition called the “biggest scam of independent India” ahead of national elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was the largest beneficiary of anonymous political donations since 2018, garnering nearly 50% of the $1.5 billion pot. Under the now-scrapped opaque electoral bond scheme — details of which were released by the Election Commission — donations to political parties were often made by companies that were under scrutiny: Of 35 pharmaceutical companies that donated $120 million, at least seven were under investigation for poor-quality drugs, Scroll.in reported. The opposition will try to use the revelations to sway voters, but their “time is short, their means limited, the BJP’s propaganda machine outmatches them, and the mainstream media seems disinterested,” one pundit wrote.

SCOTUS hears social media case

U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared unconvinced by Republican-led claims that the White House unconstitutionally coerced social media platforms to suppress inaccurate information during the pandemic. The court’s ruling could have a drastic impact on how the government balances free speech while regulating potentially harmful content online. Plaintiffs argued the Biden administration threatened punitive action against platforms that failed to take down posts spreading misinformation, but the justices appeared to agree that certain instances call for government intervention. The issue of government oversight of social media platforms is a global one: India has tightened laws giving it more leverage to remove posts on national security grounds, inspiring Nigeria and Myanmar to craft similar measures.

Apple, Google could put AI in iPhones

Apple is in talks to let Google’s AI tools power iPhones. Apple is looking for a partner to “do the heavy lifting of generative AI, including functions for creating images and writing essays based on simple prompts,” Bloomberg reported, noting that a partnership could give Google’s Gemini model an advantage over rival ChatGPT in the race to integrate AI chatbots into everyday technology. But a deal would likely attract regulatory attention; the U.S. and Europe are scrutinizing the companies’ current partnership that makes Google the default search engine on iPhones, and “the last thing we should be doing is letting history repeat itself with generative AI,” the Europe director of the anti-monopoly Open Markets Institute said.

Japan tries to lure angel investors

Japan will offer five-year residencies to angel investors. New U.S. firms are often able to operate at a loss thanks to generous capital put up by angel investors, allowing them to grow in their early years. But few such investors exist in Japan — total venture capital investment in Japan in 2018 was $1.8 billion, compared to more than $90 billion in the U.S. The shortfall means new companies struggle to raise funds and grow. Japan has opened up somewhat to foreign migration, but still rarely grants citizenship: Even the new VC residencies will only apply in 13 designated zones. In the U.S., an immigrant investor who invests $800,000 or more is often offered a route to permanent residency.

Rare protests in Cuba

Hundreds protested in Cuba on Sunday, a rare public outcry as the communist-run island faces its worst economic crisis since the 1990s. Cuba has seen a wave of electricity blackouts, skyrocketing gas and diesel costs, and food shortages, in part because of U.S. sanctions. In an unprecedented request last month, the country asked the United Nations to provide powdered milk for children, while the sagging economy has also caused “many, particularly young, educated Cubans, to flee in search of opportunities elsewhere,” the World Politics Review wrote. The latest protests threaten to exacerbate chilly ties between Washington and Havana, as Cuban officials accused the U.S. of stoking the unrest, a charge that Washington called “absurd.”

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.

Insurance companies know drivers’ habits

Car manufacturers are sharing drivers’ data with insurance companies. In some cases, the driver knowingly signs up for insurance schemes where hardware installed in their cars monitors their driving habits. But more often, The New York Times reported, drivers of modern internet-enabled cars are unaware that when they turn on optional features that rate driving, car companies share that information with data brokers used by insurance companies, sometimes leading to a bump in premiums. The data-sharing agreement is usually buried in fine print, meaning it is “nearly invisible to drivers.” Millions of Americans have had their driving data collected, and a law professor told the Times that “it should certainly be an industry practice to prominently disclose that is happening.”

The decline of the state banquet

State banquets are shrinking. Christ­ophe Marguin, a French chef, is selling 4,000 menus from banquets hosted by French heads of state, going back 155 years. In 1913, King George V of Britain was greeted on a state visit with 12 courses including “trout, lamb, foie gras, young Bresse chickens with pike stuffing, and hams glazed with Marsala,” The Times of London reported. George’s great-grandson Charles III, on his French jolly last autumn, was served a mere four courses, including lobster, chicken, cheese, and a macaroon. Other notable banquets include an 18-courser served to Edward VII in 1904: Marguin said that in those days, banquets lasted four or five hours, while now if people take longer than 45 minutes they risk seeing their plates taken away.

Banksy’s new mural

The anonymous artist Banksy claimed a new green mural that appeared on St. Patrick’s Day on the side of a North London building. The mural’s green paint appears like the foliage of a nearby bare cherry tree that local officials said was 40 to 50 years old and had been pruned to stop its decay. A local councilor said it would be “incredible” to have a Banksy piece “right in the middle of social housing and one of the poorest parts of the borough,” while others said it promoted an environmental message. The new work was unveiled as a court dispute over the authenticity of a print of Queen Elizabeth depicted as a monkey threatens to reveal Banksy’s identity.

March 19:

• Japan’s tourism agency releases its monthly report on visitors, the first since the Lunar New Year holiday.
• Indonesian tech firm GoTo, which manages the super-app Gojek, holds its fourth-quarter earnings call.
• IQ Air releases its sixth-annual “World Air Quality Report” that tracks worldwide exposure to unhealthy levels of fine particle pollution.

A feminist romance film set in rural Senegal described as Romeo & Juliet meets Lady Macbeth opened in U.K. theaters over the weekend. Banel & Adama, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, combines a classic, tragic love story with magical realism. Instead of focusing on the continent’s troubles, French Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy “set out to showcase Africa’s heart — the passionate, complex love stories that thrive beyond the shadow of misery and conflict,” the Baobab newsletter wrote. Making the film wasn’t easy, though: It was shot in a village with no electricity and where temperatures sometimes surpassed 50 degrees Celsius.

• The legendary American political brawler Rahm Emanuel on China, Japan, and sitting out a historic U.S. election.
• ‘Very few have balls’: How American news lost its nerve.
• The West slams Putin’s rigged election win as China and India send congratulations.