Germany decertifies Russian pipeline / Musk accuses SEC of retaliation / Colombia legalizes abortion

Plus, researchers have built a complex system to observe the next supernova.

Inside.com Part of   Network February 22, 2022

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Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany will review the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to recognize two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. The move comes as the U.S. and other NATO member countries impose sanctions against Russia for its decision to send "peacekeeping forces" into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.  More: The $11B-pipeline was completed late last year but has yet to start transporting Russian natural gas to Germany. It was certified by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government before she left office, leaving the final decision on the project to a German regulatory agency. Following Scholz's announcement, the certification process will be halted and the project will be reviewed by the government. Scholz and Robert Habeck, the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, have previously spoken about the need to diversify Germany's energy sources as a means of reducing dependency on Russian natural gas. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Scholz's decision is the "morally, politically and practically correct step in the current circumstances." Zoom Out: Russian gas accounted for almost 27% of the energy consumed in Germany last year. Given that Germany plans to shut down its last three nuclear power plants and phase out coal-based power by 2030, the country may need to find new energy sources if the Nord Stream 2 project is abandoned.

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said she is open-minded about a potential interest rate hike of 0.50 percentage points next month instead of the standard 0.25. The Federal Reserve is expected to announce its first interest rate increase since 2018 in its next meeting on March 15-16. More: The annual inflation rate was 7.5% in January, a 40-year high. Bowman told a banking conference that the "uncomfortably high inflation" will likely persist until at least mid-2022, maybe longer. She said she supports "prompt and decisive action" to fight high inflation but that her vote will be based on new economic data that will be released in the lead-up to the meeting. Last week, New York Fed President John Williams said that "there's really no kind of compelling argument" for starting the rate hikes with a 0.5 move. The Federal Reserve has not made a half-percentage-point hike since May 2000.

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An attorney for Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a letter to a judge accusing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of leaking information about a federal investigation into his client. In the letter, Alex Spiro alleges that at least one member of the SEC has leaked information regarding an unidentified investigation into Musk. More: Musk last week said the SEC was "harassing" and trying to silence him over a settlement agreement that Musk reached with the agency in 2019. In September 2018, the SEC charged Musk with making "false and misleading" statements to Tesla investors when he said that he had secured funding for a private buyout of Tesla at $420 a share. Musk and Tesla had to pay $20M in fines each, and Musk was forced to step down as Tesla chairman for at least three years as part of the revised settlement agreement. In its Q4 2021 earnings report, Tesla disclosed that the SEC had issued a subpoena seeking information on Tesla's "governance processes around compliance with the SEC settlement."

GOOD NEWS: Colombia's Constitutional Court voted to legalize abortion until the 24th week of pregnancy. Previously, abortions were only legal in Colombia when a woman's life was in danger, when a fetus was malformed, or when the pregnancy was the result of rape. More: Cristina Rosero, a U.S.-based lawyer who was involved in the lawsuit that led to the decision, said: "We were trying to get the complete decriminalization of abortion ... but this is still a historic step." A 2021 poll found that 25% of Colombians believed abortion to be a crime, while 42% of people disagreed with that statement. Women who receive illegal abortions in Colombia face prison sentences of up to three years. Abortion is still illegal in some Latin American countries, including El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic.

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Astronomers have developed a sophisticated system to observe the next supernova. The Japan-based Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) alert system is designed to detect the unique neutrinos that a supernova emits and alert telescopes worldwide about the event. More: A supernova occurs when a massive star runs out of fuel for the nuclear fusion that sustains it, imploding and making a visible mark on the surrounding galaxy. Only five supernovae have been observed and recorded so far — the last one in 1987. Having several telescopes recording a supernova could allow researchers to better understand these complex events. In 2018, the Super-K was upgraded, making it "the world's best detector for determining the direction to a supernova."  Particle physicist Ed Kearns said of the elusive event: "Every year is a fresh year, every day is a fresh day for a chance at a supernova."

World-renowned public health leader Dr. Paul Farmer died yesterday in Rwanda at the age of 62. His lifetime of service with his Partners in Health non-profit group brought healthcare to millions of people in Haiti and other low-income countries. More: Farmer became interested in Haiti after spending time with impoverished Haitian farmers during his fieldwork in the country as a Harvard graduate student. He founded Partners in Health in 1987 to deliver healthcare to poor people in low-income countries.  Farmer wrote more than ten books and won the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1993. He also served as chair of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. At the time of his death, Farmer was involved in medical education at a hospital and medical school in Rwanda.

QUICK HITS This startup has upended commercial real estate investing by taking buildings public via IPO.* Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has proposed holding a televised debate with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss bilateral tensions. An explosion at a makeshift gold mine in Burkina Faso killed ~60 people yesterday. One person has been arrested in connection to the blast. Mount Etna, a volcano in Sicily, let out a 7.5-mile-high pillar of volcanic ash yesterday. The eruption from one of Europe's most active volcanoes led to the closure of a nearby airport for part of the day. University of Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard was fined $40,000 and suspended for the rest of the regular season after he struck an opposing coach in the face following a game against the University of Wisconsin this weekend. Loop TV provides fully licensed TV content for businesses. Ditch cable and satellite. Switch to Loop TV for free. Sign up today.* *This is sponsored content.

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Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. Editor Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade.

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