| | | | | |  | | By Ryan Heath | Send tips and thoughts to rheath@politico.com. Follow Ryan on Twitter. | | | BLINKEN VISITS UKRAINE, GERMANY: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Kyiv and Berlin through Thursday and will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday, amid warnings that Russia could invade Ukraine (again) at any moment. Here's Blinken explaining to hard-core Democrats (on the Pod Save the World podcast) why giving Russia a free hand in Ukraine would spell trouble for democracy everywhere. Sergey Lavrov — belle of the ball: Everyone wants to speak with Russia's foreign minister this week. His most recent partner was Annalena Baerbock, Germany's new foreign minister. French President Emmanuel Macron is now pitching direct talks between Europe and Russia. Moscow wants attention, so why are they getting it? One European ambassador to the U.S. told Global Insider it's a terrible strategy: "This is a completely fabricated crisis by Mr. Putin" where "he creates a crisis and then he gets all the cards, all the phone calls and all the meetings and all the data. So this guy gets everything for creating a crisis. And you (Biden administration) don't even say 'listen, my friend, how about you pull back half of your troops, and then we start talking?'" At least Baerbock didn't get outfoxed by Lavrov — which was the fate of the EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell in 2021. "She was clearer, direct," Gustav Gressel of the European Council on Foreign Relations told Global Insider, but "infighting in Berlin severely undercut Baerbock's mandate." Some German social democrat officials want to soft-pedal on Russia relations. Transatlantic Quad, what's that? The U.S. and Europe's three largest countries: Germany, U.K. and France. The group will meet Thursday. Global Insider first spotted the term in 2019, and Blinken used it occasionally in 2021. Do you know of an earlier usage? Share with Global Insider. MERKEL TURNS DOWN U.N.: An official from Merkel's office told POLITICO, in response to Global Insider's reporting Friday of an offer to join a U.N. advisory board on global public goods, that Merkel "spoke to the UN Secretary-General on the phone last week, thanked him and told him that she would not accept the offer." YEMEN SPIRALING: A Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes overnight against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, killing 20, in response to a surprise drone attack on oil tankers in the port of Abu Dhabi. This week's violence ended three years of zero attacks inside the UAE. The State Department said Wednesday morning that U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking will travel to Gulf capitals and London today to reinvigorate peace efforts "in coordination with the U.N." WEF LAUNCHES QUANTUM COMPUTING GUIDELINES: Among a series of leader video speeches at virtual Davos, the World Economic Forum today published what it billed as the world's first Quantum Computing Guidelines. The document is intended to "address ethical, societal and legal concerns well before commercialization," said Kay Firth-Butterfield, WEF's head of artificial intelligence, leading to "responsible innovation," according to Bronwyn Fox, Chief Scientist at CSIRO, Australia's science national agency. 100 MOST SUSTAINABLE COMPANIES: Three of the top seven positions are held by Danish companies, renewable energy majors Vestas and Orsted, and bioscience company Chr. Hansen, per a new list by Corporate Knights. GET YOUR FREE TESTS, MASKS: U.S. households can now order four Covid test kits online, and the administration is planning to give away 400 million masks from the National Strategic Reserve at community locations. | | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | NEW PODCAST EPISODE — RICHARD EDELMAN | | | | Richard Edelman, the brains behind the 22nd annual Edelman Trust Barometer, told Global Insider that we're now in a "vicious cycle of distrust" across rich democracies. The trust that remains is becoming heavily local, or concentrated among elite groups. While the collapse trust is sharpest in government and media, and among those who aren't top earners or masters degree holders. Edelman says CEOs are asked to step into this breach. Strategic consequences: "The people of China have a deep trust in their institutions. The Chinese believe in their government. Americans don't." "You see a kind of failure of democracies at the moment. … Not a single democracy is in what we call 'trustworthy land.' They lack optimism." Downwardly mobile: "The base emotion is 'I'm scared I'm going to be downwardly economically mobile,' and that is a different kind of world than the entire postwar consensus." Who do people trust: "Scientists, 'my colleagues,' 'my CEO.'" Leadership failures or system failures? "It's both. And it's happening while we're confronting these massive fears of job loss and climate. When two-thirds of our respondents say that their leaders are liars, we have a problem." Why is tech trusted more than other sectors? "I want to distinguish between tech and social media — because social media is at all-time low levels, it's a 20 percent trust level in Germany and France." HOW CAN WE RESTORE TRUST? Is it via a New Bretton Woods: different economic institutions to promote a different brand of globalization, as argued by Kevin Gallagher and Richard Kozul-Wright? Is it via standardizing the processes of professions like journalism, which is the aim of the Journalism Trust Initiative? Friday's Global Insider will include an interview with the head of the initiative, Olaf Steenfadt. | | 869 The number of companies that have achieved the $1 billion valuation mark over the past five years, according to a PwC study | | WHAT CEOs ARE WORRYING ABOUT Interview with Bob Moritz, Global Chair of PwC, on the latest trends among more than 4,000 CEOs surveyed by the firm. Why is CEO optimism at a 10-year high, when others from the IMF to Goldman Sachs are worried about global growth? "CEOs are generally more confident than the masses. The last two years have enabled them and their organizations to develop some additional muscle, some resiliency to uncertainty. We see inflation coming and there's talent challenges out there, there's geopolitical challenges, but compare that to two years ago when the world had so much uncertainty that we didn't know if we were ever going to go back to normalcy, or whether people would even show up in an office again." How important is trust for a CEO in delivering financially? "CEOs and their management teams have to think more broadly across their stakeholder group. And if they've got that trust with them, they're able to react quicker … and be much more agile in reacting to whatever gets thrown their way." Four out of five companies don't have a net zero plan: "I was surprised, very much so." "When you slice and dice the data you see that it was the number one risk for the large companies, the multinationals. And you saw it across a number of different sectors. But the smaller- to medium-sized enterprises just don't feel like 'I, as an organization, have a lot of emissions to deal with.' It tells me that we've got a number of companies and leaders that really are just operating in their own little silo, and not thinking about the ecosystem. Only 8 percent of the CEOs have a compensation connection tied to climate." Why is cybersecurity finally the No. 1 risk for CEOs in many sectors? "One: the amount of digitization that has happened over the last two to three years, because of the pandemic. Working on a home computer vs. a work computer has a different threat to it. Second point: In the (United) States and Europe, you probably have a lot more awareness, because the media was pretty good at covering it. Then third: The regulators in the regulated industries are definitely more focused on it." Where could CEOs be better collaborators? "It's amazing to me that people are not focused on wellbeing generally, financially, physically, mentally. Working with other organizations that are more societal in nature to help solve those problems. The talent issue is real: People have choices and they're going to get fed up a heck of a lot quicker, and move on. Companies need to be willing to engage with their talent." DAVOS LEADERS SPEECHES IN A SENTENCE Xi Jinping (China): "If major economies take a U-turn in their monetary policies, there would be serious negative spillovers which will challenge global economic and financial stability." Connected action: As other central banks flag likely rate rises to contain inflation, the People's Bank of China on Monday went in the opposite direction, cutting its key interest rate for the first time in almost two years, amid fears that GDP growth will dip below 4 percent. Narendra Modi (India): "It is very essential that we move away from today's take-make-use-dispose economy and towards a circular economy," António Guterres (U.N.): Urged governments, development banks and private finance to build up private investment in low-income countries to help them bounce back from Covid. Kishida Fumio (Japan): Called for a better balance between economic growth and distribution and said digital and green investments would be the basis of Japan's economic future. Olaf Scholz (Germany): "After years of growing tensions, silence is not a reasonable option," Scholz said about Russia's aggression toward Ukraine. Anthony Fauci: "We should have had a much more coordinated global response. … A global pandemic requires a global response." COMING UP TODAY: at 10 a.m. ET, Latin America Outlook with Presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru; and the Inter-American Development Bank. | | | HOW TO RECONNECT TONGA TO THE WORLD: With the Pacific island nation cut off from the internet after the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai volcano, specialized ships will need to restore cables, and new satellite dishes (washed away by tsunami) will be needed as back-up. According to MIT Review, the nearest vessel that could help is CS Resilience, nearly 3,000 miles away. Read the full story. CHINA'S UPPER MIDDLE CLASS TORN OVER WHETHER TO SEND KIDS ABROAD TO STUDY: As education in China becomes more ideological and patriotic under Beijing's direction, parents who just a few years ago would plan to send their children to English-speaking Western countries to study are now navigating a new minefield — including the question of whether to follow their children out of China. CHINA'S CONTINENT-SPANNING TRAINS — WHAT'S THE LONG GAME: These engineering marvels are rarely full, so why are they there, and why does the network keep expanding? WHAT IS DAVOS WITHOUT 'DAVOS'? A look at Europe's highest town when it is isn't hijacked by the world's biggest companies and isn't covered in the WEF's blue branding. RESIGNED: António Horta-Osório resigned as chair of Credit Suisse after a board investigation found he breached the company's coronavirus quarantine rules for private island holidays and a trip to the Wimbledon finals. PASSED: Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Malian president deposed in coup, died at 76. GLOBAL MAYORS CHALLENGE WINNERS: Bloomberg Philanthropies has been cultivating local government innovators, awarding prizes to a group of 15 — from Rochester, Minn. to Bogotá, Colombia. | | | | DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | | | | SHORT READ: How Biden's first year became a tale of two presidencies, by Jonathan Lemire. SHORT READ: British royals: soap opera meets circus act. Prince Andrew presents "an extinction-level event," writes Camilla Long. "You can't spend a thousand years telling everyone you're special and then everyone discovers, in real time, in a court case, that you are really not." Thanks to editor John Yearwood, Hans von der Burchard and Hannah Farrow | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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