EUROPE — A CONTINENT REMEMBERS ITS FORGOTTEN WAR IN UKRAINE: The shooting and shelling continues around the clock, it has for years now, POLITICO's David Herszenhorn reports from Pisky. Swedish supreme commander: U.S. should add troops in Europe if Russia-Ukraine crisis deepens. EUROPE — BRACING FOR WINTER BLACKOUTS: It's not just high energy prices and cuts to Russian gas supplies that European nations risk this winter. Starting in January, one-third of France's nuclear reactors will be out-of-action, turning the country into an energy importer and leaving it at risk of energy blackouts. EUROPE — NETHERLANDS GETS A PINKO RIGHT-WING COALITION GOVERNMENT: Prime Minister Mark Rutte finally has a coalition deal and new program for government: nine months after his party finished first in the Dutch national election. Previously known for his frugal governing style, Rutte is now charged with leading his center-right coalition to a decidedly social democratic promised land, via big housing, education, defense and climate spending programs that will push public debt above 60 percent of GDP. CHINA — INFLATION DRIVER: Beijing's draconian travel and transport restrictions are an overlooked driver of inflation. "China plays a major role in the current supply chain bottlenecks and global inflation," Alicia García-Herrero , chief economist of Natixis and a fellow at Bruegel, told POLITICO. "Those bottlenecks are not just happening naturally — Beijing has decided to impose strict quarantines, including even on the crews of container ships, which is delaying freight transport and has massive consequences." Chinese growth also takes a hit: Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict a 3.1 percent growth rate for Q4 2021, the second-worst performance in three decades (the worst was Q1 2020 at the height of China's Covid outbreak). MEXICO — MATCHES CANADIAN COMPLAINT ABOUT BIDEN'S EV TAX BREAK: Proposed U.S. electric-vehicle tax breaks threaten Mexican jobs and risk spurring illegal migration to the U.S., said Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier. Canada also opposes the U.S. plan. MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA CORNER LIBYA — PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SET FOR DELAY: The vote — due Dec. 24 — is to elect a leader to replace slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi, but is almost certain to be delayed. The country's election commission is unwilling to even publish the final list of candidates. UAE — A CENTER FOR OFFSHORE FINANCE AND MONEY LAUNDERING: The Pandora Papers cache of tax documents keep on giving. While the UAE works hard to promote its new generation of female leaders and its space achievements (including landing a rover on Mars) members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists including Maggie Michael and Michael Hudson are revealing another side of the country: the role of Emirati royal family members in secret money flows, and how the UAE finance industry has become a staging post for profits from child porn and heroin. IRAQ — FINALLY A MAJOR NON-OIL INVESTMENT: The World Bank is backing a $125 million loan package to fund a new terminal at Basra's Umm Qasr Port. MACRON'S PLAY: Seeking to fill any vacuum left by America's slow pivot to Asia, French President Emmanuel Macron is making repeated trips to Lebanon, Iraq and the Gulf States, including for meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, still shunned by many leaders. The UAE is positioned as France's main ally. More from Julian Barnes-Dacey. What next for U.S. policy? The Center for American Progress has a new Middle East policy report. Most noteworthy from authors Brian Katulis and Peter Juul are recommendations that the Biden administration use the diplomatic openings create by recent normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries to improve conditions on the Israeli Palestinian front. Beyond that, it's diplomacy-heavy list of recommendations for Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iran. Aaron David Miller argues the Abraham Accords aren't that useful for Biden : They're more of a sign that regional players don't trust the U.S. to protect them against Iran. SANCTIONS CORNER MYANMAR — Cutting off coup profits: Pressure is mounting on the U.S. to sanction Myanmar's oil-and-gas industry — the country's largest single source of foreign cash. GLOBAL — Fighting corruption is profitable: It could provide a global economic boost of $3.5 trillion a year — far outweighing the cost of the fight, per World Economic Forum. CHINA — Lithuania left out on a limb: The EU gave scant time to Lithuania's troubles with China at Thursday's EU leaders summit, despite Beijing rapidly upping the ante in its economic hit job against the EU country, POLITICO's Stuart Lau and Barbara Moens write. CHINA — Crackdown on China's treatment of Muslim minority headed to Biden's desk The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill to crack down on the Chinese government's genocide targeting Uyghur Muslims, sending the measure to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature. In EU, Macron and Scholz seek to avoid forced labor import ban: Questioned by journalists after Thursday's EU leaders summit, Macron said the EU was not imposing an import ban because in its investment agreement with China it had convinced Beijing to ratify an International Labor Organization norm banning forced labor — never mind that the agreement is on ice and China has not budged on forced labor since it was negotiated a year ago. Pressure is mounting on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who in her State of the European Union speech vowed to ban imports of slave labor products. Last week, hundreds of parliamentarians sent a letter to the Commission asking it to act on its promise. Chinese companies are reportedly using imported slave labor in Serbia. The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution accusing China's Linglong tire company of forced labor practices and mistreating Vietnamese workers to construct a factory in northern Serbia. TECH CORNER COMPUTER SAYS YOU'RE FIRED: After over a year driving for Uber in Britain, Pa Edrissa Manjang suddenly found his account had been deactivated because of a selfie verification failure. Uber requires drivers to take selfies of themselves to check if it is really them driving. The company told Manjang he was kicked off the platform because the company's systems were not able to verify his photos were actually of him. Can I speak to a human? Manjang was able to obtain his selfies from Uber through the EU's privacy rights regime, and found that all the selfies in the system were, in fact, of him. But seeking redress was impossible, POLITICO's AI correspondent Melissa Heikillä reports: "Most of the time we are dealing with robots," Manjang said. The regulatory problem here is that by using AI systems that can't be checked, workers caught up in them are missing out on their statutory rights. Without better systems for algorithmic control, says Worker Info Exchange, which advocates for gig workers, the problems will continue without redress. DUTCH GOVERNMENT TO CREATE AN ALGORITHM SUPERVISOR: In the coalition agreement for the new Dutch government, the ruling parties have agreed to "regulate that algorithms are checked for transparency, discrimination and arbitrariness," by a new "algorithm supervisor." BY THE NUMBERS COVID VACCINE PROMISES AND VACCINE DELIVERIES: With thanks to POLITICO's Carmen Paun. Governments | Pharma companies FOREIGN INVESTMENT: The International Monetary Fund's latest Coordinated Direct Investment Survey lists the top recipients of foreing investment for 2020 as the United States, followed by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, China, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, and Germany. A total of $2.2 trillion was invested — a six percent increase from 2019 to 2020 NEW PODCAST EPISODE — MARK THOMPSON | 
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