ASIA — BLINK'N'MISS IT, THE NEW U.S. VISION FOR ASIA: On his first trip to Southeast Asia as secretary of State, Antony Blinken dropped a new U.S. strategy for the region that had a lot of people scratching their heads. "More of a vision rather than a strategy," was one charitable reaction: from Eurasia Group's Peter Mumford. The administration laid out more details in a fact sheet. TRADE — JAN. 1 MOVES THE GLOBAL CENTER OF TRADE TO ASIA-PACIFIC: The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership includes 15 East Asian and Pacific nations and, when it enters into force Jan. 1, will create the world's largest trading bloc. A new study from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development shows how the agreement will shift the center of gravity for global trade. Reality check: Given the new U.S. vision for the Indo-Pacific, the most obvious question is: Why doesn't the U.S. government simply join RCEP or the other huge trade deal centered on the region (which it helped negotiate), the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership? These are the logical action points of a vision focused on "stronger connections," "broad-based prosperity" and a "free and open Indo-Pacific." BELARUS — OPPOSITION FIGURES CONVICTED AND SENTENCED: The former opposition leader of Belarus, Sergei Tikhanovsky, also the husband of the current leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in prison , alongside other activists who received terms of 14 to 16 years. Secretary of State Blinken condemned the convictions as "politically motivated" and in violation of "obligations under international law, as well as commitments as an OSCE participating state, to respect the right to a fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal, as well as the rights of the individual to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Tsikhanouskaya urged supporters to write to the country's political prisoners to lift their spirits in freezing jails during the holiday season: see here. WHO WILL PUTIN MOVE AGAINST FIRST — UKRAINE OR BELARUS? Fred Kagan at AEI has a report on Putin's military options and likely course of action in Ukraine: He concludes that Putin is more likely to deploy troops in Belarus than Ukraine, noting that Russian forces are almost certainly already covertly in Ukraine's occupied Donbass region. COVID CORNER ONE MILLION AMERICAN LIVES SAVED BY VACCINE: A new study from the Commonwealth Fund calculates that 10 million hospitalizations and more than 1 million lives were saved by Covid vaccines delivered in 2021 in the U.S. Most of the deaths would have occurred in the summer and fall due to the Delta variant. BOOSTERISM: Twenty-seven percent of the American population has received a booster dose , including around half of those 65 and older. In Europe, it's just 14 percent. Massive numbers of unused doses in Europe: The European CDC has delivered 884 million doses, but only 678 million have gone into arms: meaning 206 million are unused. U.S. PANDEMIC SCORECARD: With 800,000 dead due to Covid, and the economy bigger than before the pandemic, there's also now enough data to evaluate how well the 50 states handled the pandemic. Interactive POLITICO graphics on which states served its citizens best. Surprise! No state did well across the board. States that imposed more restrictions, such as stay-at-home orders and mask requirements, did experience lower rates of death and hospitalizations. But they also tended to have worse economic and educational outcomes. YOU'VE GOT MAIL! FedEx wants you to know that one year after the first U.S. Covid vaccine — at 5:53 a.m. ET to Boston Medical Group — they've now delivered just over 300 million doses across the U.S. UPS is one-upping that, mailing Global Insider with news that it's delivered 1 billion vaccine doses across 110 countries — using everything from trucks to drones. That includes 296 million doses delivered in the U.S., 337 million to developed countries outside of the U.S. and 377 million to developing countries. TECH — EU LAWMAKERS VOTE TO BAN ONLINE ADS TARGETING CHILDREN: The proposed ban — which must be agreed by national governments before it becomes law — was included in a broader content moderation rulebook known as the Digital Services Act. The ban passed its committee vote by 36 to 7. TECH — CHINA, AFRICA PLEDGE TO DEEPEN COOPERATION IN AI. YOUR TECH CONUNDRUM FOR THE WEEK: DOES MISINFORMATION KILL PEOPLE, OR DO PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE? Meta's Chief Technology Officer, the Facebook stalwart Andrew Bosworth, told Ina Fried (watch, from Axios) that misinformation on politics and Covid on Facebook should be blamed on the people sharing those posts. That argument sounds very similar to the one about high rates of gun deaths having nothing to do with the ease of gun availability — that they're simply due to deranged people. What do you think? Where does Facebook's responsibility start and end? Email me: rheath@politico.com CLIMATE — ARCTIC WARMING CONTINUES: NOAA's annual Arctic Report Card, based on contributions from 111 scientists from 12 countries, pins 2021 as the seventh warmest year on record in the Arctic. The period between October and December was the warmest Arctic fall since scientists started monitoring in 1900. CLIMATE — THE DIVESTMENT WARRIORS ARE COMING TO YOUR STATE: State legislatures in Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon are looking at introducing legislation to require disclosure of assets, with a view to upping pressure to divest from fossil fuels. In Oregon, that means the state treasury might have to reveal where its $130 billion portfolio is invested. Hawaii will consider whether to divest its pension fund from fossil fuels within five years, and a similar measure shot down in Colorado earlier this year could be reintroduced in 2022. There are already bills circulating in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and California, too. Maine in June became the first state to require that its $17 billion pension fund divest from coal, oil and gas companies by 2026. CATCH UP WITH GLOBAL INSIDER. Two recent panels available to watch online: — The 120-year French-American cinema relationship, with Serge Bromberg, the man who has been saving many of the earliest films from destruction, or resurrecting them from archive obscurity. — Panel on the future of transatlantic digital relations, for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, featuring C.J. Mahoney of Microsoft, Chris Padilla of IBM, Rita Balogh of Google and Brian Hendricks of Nokia. | 
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