ITK Daily | January 23

Happy Monday.

Here’s today’s ITK Daily.

To be ITK, know this:

Malta now has a seat at the UN Security Council and in February will take over its presidency for a month.

AP: Minister: Germany won’t block Poland giving Ukraine tanks

AFP: Germany ready to let Poland send Leopard tanks to Ukraine: foreign minister

Germany faces backlash over reluctance to send tanks to Ukraine: Kyiv voices frustration at ‘global indecision’ as allies say Leopard 2s needed now to stop Russian assault.?Guardian

+ On Friday, 50 countries agreed to provide Kyiv with billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware, including armored vehicles and munitions needed to push back Russian forces.

What Western armor gives Ukraine in the next round of the war: A new iron fist should confer an advantage over Russia, but the stakes are rising.?Economist

AFP: Russia taken 180,000 dead or wounded in Ukraine: Norwegian army

+ Russia is sending drug addicts to war to meet its mobilization quota, the Jerusalem Post reports.

How Russian fake news paints 'the Germans': If you believe Russian state media, then Germans back President Putin and mock Chancellor Scholz. But where do these stories claim to get their information from??DW

Boris Johnson hogs spotlight with Ukraine visit: Politico reports the ex-UK prime minister is loved in Ukraine for his support of the country, but the move is likely to irritate the Conservative government back home.

We’re getting our marbles back this year, says Greece?The Times

AFP: Turkey to hold general election on May 14, one month earlier than planned

Sweden’s rare earths discovery won’t end EU’s China reliance — yet: Europe needs to ramp up its refining and production capacity first, experts warn.?Politico

+ China?currently?provides?nearly 98 percent of the EU’s supply of the rare earth minerals it needs to build green transition technologies. Russia is also a key?supplier?of metals like palladium, titanium, platinum, and aluminum.

AFP: Burkina Faso asked France troops to quit, diplomatic note confirms

Macron wants Burkina Faso 'clarifications' on reports of call for French withdrawal: Le Monde reports Burkinabe media have reported that the government was giving France one month to pull out its troops stationed in the country, but no official communication has been made.

Macron and Scholz mend strained France-Germany friendship: Olaf Scholz called on France and Germany to be Europe's 'driving force' while Emmanuel Macron said the two countries could be the continent's 'pioneers.'?Le Monde

+ "Germany and France, because they cleared the path to reconciliation, must become pioneers to relaunch Europe."

+ Away from defense, interlinked trade and energy conundrums are hitting both France and Germany. And leaders across Europe fear distortions in transatlantic trade from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Germany to join Mediterranean hydrogen pipeline project: DW reports the hydrogen pipeline will bring "green" gas from the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe. France, Portugal, and Spain previously agreed to build the pipeline, which should be operational by 2030.

Germany eyes 'China lite' future that is less dependent: France explores collaboration with Quad; Italy's new leader vows to review Belt and Road.?Nikkei

+Some of the more drastic prescriptions include limiting investment in China and governmental monitoring of German companies that depend too much on China for its business, officials familiar with the paper say. Slowly but surely, the plan is to reduce the weight of China from the German business scene.

+ Until recently, the mainstream view in German politics was to not pick sides in the US-China rivalry so as to keep diplomatic options open.

Bloomberg: Slovakia heads toward September election as parties reach accord

+ Two left-leaning opposition parties lead opinion polls.

+ Lawmakers must amend the constitution first to trigger an early vote.

Aging planet: The new demographic timebomb: India is about to overtake China as the most populous country, but as birthrates fall, we face life in a greyer world. Are we ready for the physical, political, and financial challenges ahead??Guardian

+ "We are in transition across the 21st century and need to adjust to this age-structural transition, rather than fight it." -- Sarah Harper, University of Oxford

India’s population will soon overtake China’s—if it hasn’t already.?The boom should benefit India’s economy—but experts warn it could be a liability.?Fortune

Democracies shouldn’t gloat about China’s stumbles: The country still boasts a technocratic elite capable of recovering from even calamitous policy errors. How many of its neighbors can say the same??Pankaj Mishra

+ For one thing, Chinese policymaking remains less rigid than is commonly appreciated. As Elizabeth J. Perry and Sebastian Heilmann, two veteran scholars of Chinese politics, have?pointed out, China’s post-Mao rulers are known for “guerrilla-style policy-making.”

+ Learning from its history of successful revolution through guerrilla warfare, the country’s ruling class has never been averse to quick improvisation and ad hoc adjustment.

+ It is one reason among many that China, unlike the Soviet Union and many other Communist states, has survived numerous, often self-inflicted calamities.

Pro-tip: The Chinese Communist Party is the world's most opportunistic political party the world has ever seen.

Michael Pillsbury?is now a senior fellow for China strategy at the?Heritage Foundation. He’ll work with the new China-focused House committee. He previously was a senior fellow and director for Chinese strategy at the?Hudson Institute.

Chinese tourists are back and so is Beijing's tourism diplomacy: Visitor flows and spending is being used again to reward friends and punish foes.?Mingming Cheng

As deepfakes flourish, countries struggle with response: Few governments have approved regulations, often because of free-speech concerns. New mandates from China could change the tone of the debate on digital forgeries.?NYT

FT: Brazil and Argentina to start preparations for a common currency

Mexico needs private investors in renewables, says capital mayor: Claudia Sheinbaum aims to boost clean energy as she eyes presidency.?Nikkei

Canada reaches $2.8bn settlement with Indigenous peoples: DW reports the Canadian government will pay over $2 billion into a not-for-profit trust that will fund projects for Indigenous education, culture, and language.

Jeff Zients to be Biden’s next chief of staff?WP

Jeff Zients to be Biden’s next chief of staff: He has maintained close ties to departing chief of staff Ron Klain and other senior Biden aides dating back to the Obama years.?Politico

+ But what Zients has in organization acumen he lacks in extensive political experience. He will likely be relied on to manage the day-to-day workings of the White House, allowing other senior advisers to focus more on Biden’s expected reelection campaign, one person familiar with the matter said.

Trump team struggles to consolidate support ahead of SC event: Two prominent South Carolinians are considering a run, complicating the picture for the former president.?WP

Most Americans think both Biden and Trump inappropriately handled classified documents: A plurality sees Trump’s actions as more serious, an ABC News/Ipsos poll shows.

‘There is no plan. There’s nothing’: Florida Democrats in despair over future: More than two months after humbling midterm losses in a longtime battleground, Democrats are in a state of disorder and pessimistic about 2024.?WP

+ There are currently no Democratic statewide officeholders — a first since Reconstruction.

Mitch Daniels tests Senate run in Indiana, drawing fire from Trump world: WP reports the former governor hasn’t decided whether to run, but opponents, including the former president’s son, are already bashing him.

Private jet companies look to expand Las Vegas presence with casino customers?NI

Can Big Tech make livestreams safe??FT

OTD: In 1993, the first version of Mosaic, created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was released, becoming the first popular web browser.

TikTok accused of spying on the US and corrupting youth: In a mix of paranoia and puritanism, the Chinese app faces a cabal from US officials.?Le Monde

As TikTok faces data-harvesting claims, spy agency warns Canadians to protect themselves: The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) Canadian Centre for Cyber Security says it’s updating its social media guidance.?CBC

+ "You have to ask yourself the question, do they need to access that information? Why does an application need to access all of my contact list? Why does it need to access my calendar, my email, my phone records, my [texts]?"

Don’t ban TikTok. Make it safer for the country.?WP - Editorial

+ To teenagers, TikTok is mostly about makeup tutorials and music-inflected memes. But to many policymakers, the video-sharing site is about totalitarianism and illegal surveillance.

+ One of the biggest problems with TikTok is knowing what the biggest problem with TikTok is.

+ A country that cherishes free speech shouldn’t be eager to stamp out the ability of millions to express themselves on their site of choice.

TikTok's algorithm rewrites cultural practices: Today's culture hitmaker is no longer a publisher, label, journalist, or even influencer – it is an algorithm used by everyone, mastered by none.?Le Monde

+ For beginners and "over 50-year-old housewives," TikTok is a mere collection of videos shot by overexcited kids and beauty queens performing mini-dances using maximum filters. For culture industries, it comes as an obligation to ride a dragon they cannot harness.

+ "TikTok is the cradle of all trends. The difference with other social media is that TikTok opens up to an unwanted stream, which means the number of subscribers you have doesn't really matter."

+ In plain language: Any video from an unknown user can become a hit.

+ The concerns are shared by some US elected officials who are currently discussing in Congress the possibility of banning TikTok.

+ Is this just a protectionist trade war waged because China is shaking America's tech hegemony for the first time or is it a real cause for concern since ByteDance, like any Chinese company, has to collaborate with Beijing regarding the information it collects?

+ TikTok is not just typical of "the era of infinite swipe," it is also an application that puts powerful editing software equipped with many filters in the hands of its users, potentially turning everyone into a "creator" – as they are modestly called on the platform – in just a few minutes.

+ In short, no one understands anything about TikTok – or how or why it works – but everyone is rushing to it.

ChatGPT: 'The risk of mass manipulation will intensify the PR battle between Big Tech companies': The chatbot will do more than simply disrupt the internet economy by threatening the advertising model of the digital giants.?Vincent Lorphelin

+ "In all likelihood, the internet's advertising model and the plundering of intellectual property will shrink. Big Tech companies, whose areas of focus were historically separate, will compete with each other and engage in a fierce image battle. ChatGPT has opened a new chapter in the digital economy."

ChatGPT passed a Wharton MBA exam, and it’s still in its infancy.?One professor sounds the alarm.?Fortune

Netflix’s new Co-CEOs answer all your questions: Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters on advertising, competition, and what happens when they disagree.?Lucas Shaw

+ "It is very rare that a show like?Squid Game?from Korea would be as global as it was. Within 30 hours, the world was watching?Squid Game?with no human intervention to try to market?Squid Game?to the world."

+ "We're just getting started to make?Squid Game?not an unusual thing, but basically something that happens literally every week."

+ "There’s many, many countries around the world that we are barely penetrated in."

+ "Or Korean television in America. 60% of our members last year have watched Korean content."

+ "We are equal parts HBO, AMC, FX, the Food Network, HGTV and Comedy Central. Lifetime. You used to have to hunt through 500 channels of cable to find them all and now they're gonna be on Netflix."

+ "We have never canceled a successful show. A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget."

+ "The key to it is you have to be able to talk to a small audience on a small budget and a large audience at a large budget. If you do that well, you can do that forever."

What the tech and media layoffs are really telling us about the economy: About 130,000 people have been dismissed from their jobs at large tech and media companies in the past 12 months. Why??Derek Thompson

+ "The final explanation is that chief executives are normal people who navigate uncertainty by copying behavior."

Stellantis + LG Energy Solution announced plans for a C$5-billion EV battery facility in Windsor, Ont.

Global Great Lakes. The future of the global economy is the Great Lakes.

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system: How did the world's largest economy get stuck with retro measurement??Ian Thomson

+ "It's time for America to get out of the Stone Age and get on board with the International System of Units (SI), as the metric system used to be known."

+ ?In the first-ever State of the Union address in 1790, George Washington?observed: "Uniformity in the Currency, Weights, and Measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to."

+ In something of a hissy fit, the French government declined to invite representatives from the US to the international gathering at Paris in 1798-99 that set the initial standards for the metric system.

French (yes, French) executives are the world’s worst workaholics: French business leaders’ surprising binge-working ways are due to concerns over an economic slowdown and a reluctance to work remotely, a survey found.?Bloomberg

+ Nearly four in ten?French business leaders admit to working intense, long hours without regular?breaks, well above the 25% global average and besting rates in the US, UK, and China, the?survey?from health insurer Bupa Global found.

+ Concerns about their organizations’ ability to weather the current economic instability, along with a reluctance to work remotely compared to their global peers, contributed to their workaholic tendencies, the survey’s authors found.?

Rick Rubin's stripped down approach to making music?60 Minutes

Over the weekend, I watched Shangri-La. A four-part docu-series focusing on creative conversation and the emotional side of music-making, using legendary music producer and Def Jam Records co-founder Rick Rubin's iconic Malibu, CA studio as the backdrop.

The Showtime docu-series focuses on creative conversation and the emotional side of music-making.

Rubin’s mark on the music scene has been indelible since he co-founded Def Jam Records while enrolled at New York University in the ’80s, helping to launch the careers of Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, and Run-DMC, among many others.

Watch the trailer here.

What it was like to attend Beyoncé’s explosive concert in Dubai: The artist, and the setting of the brand new Atlantis the Royal resort, were thrilling. The audience, not so much.?Bloomberg

+ To stand out among all of the new luxurious hotels opening in Dubai, you’ve got to make a real splash.

+ Ashley Park from Emily in Paris was in attendance.

+ "But all around us, at least in the VVIP section we snuck into, most people acted as if they were at the New York Symphony Orchestra. And that was a bummer."

+ Beyoncé’s set lasted about 50 minutes.?

+ "The Sun newspaper reported that Kerzner paid $24 million for Beyoncé’s appearance, though I have heard from sources who believe it was much more."

Takeaways from Sundance’s secret Brett Kavanaugh documentary: Director Doug Liman announced his new documentary at the festival. Then new tips began pouring in.?WP

+ The finished documentary had converted back to a work in progress.

+ Variety called it “an exercise in preaching to the choir.”)

Bloomberg: Man City the richest club in Europe for second year running

+ The Premier League champion’s revenue, boosted by a sharp increase in commercial income, was 13% up on the previous year at €731 million ($794 million), according to Deloitte’s annual Money League.

+ Premier League makes up more than half the top-earning clubs.

+ Liverpool overtakes Man Utd after run in Champions League.

Erling Haaland: With 18 games left, he is on pace for 48 goals, which would shatter the record for the most scored in a Premier League season.

+ Sunday was Haaland's fourth Premier League hat trick in just his 19th career appearance.

Gary Bettman not interested in ‘debate’ with Ron DeSantis over discrimination claim?NHL The Athletic

The Eddie: Honolulu Ocean Safety lifeguard Luke Shepardson today knocked out defending champion John John Florence to win the 2023 Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational surf contest at Waimea Bay.

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc?

Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal

Caracal produces ITK Daily.

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