ITK Daily | November 14

Happy Monday.

Here’s today’s ITK Daily.

To be ITK, know this:

Anger, defiance in famous Istanbul area rocked by blast: AFP reports Istanbul's popular Istiklal Avenue was still buzzing with tourists and onlookers late Sunday afternoon, hours after a deadly blast rocked the area.

Bloomberg: Turkish officials suspect terror in deadly Istanbul blast

+ Six people were killed and more than 80 wounded in the explosion

+ Turkish officials suspect a woman detonated a bomb in Istiklal

Nikkei: ASEAN talks lay bare deep divisions on South China Sea, Ukraine

+ US allies' clash with Russia, China overshadows end of bloc's meetings in Cambodia.

+ Biden calls for a "free and open" Indo-Pacific, pushing back against China's effort to dominate much of the South China Sea.

Today: Biden and Xi will have their first face-to-face meeting as leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.

AFP: Biden will seek to establish 'red lines' in talks with Xi

Biden set to meet Xi in bid to avert a full rupture in US-China ties: The US leader said he won’t make ‘fundamental concessions,’ while China calls for the US to play a ‘responsible role.’ Bloomberg

G20 discord likely to thwart efforts to boost sagging global economy: War, inflation, and US-China tensions are dividing major economies and making a coordinated response difficult. WSJ

+ “While we look at this gloomy picture, even more troubling is the trend towards increased fragmentation—at a time when we need each other the most,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Sunday. “And I am very concerned that we may be sleepwalking into a world that would be poorer and less secure as a result.”

+ Economists at Goldman Sachs in a report this past week said they estimate a US ban on chip exports to China on national security grounds will shave around a quarter of a percentage point off China’s economic growth in 2023.

+ One of the most pressing economic problems is inflation, putting central banks rather than governments in the driver’s seat of economic policy.

Divided over Ukraine war, G20 summit struggles on economic agenda: A club that was founded to tackle the 2008 global financial crisis is desperately seeking a second act. WP

+ To say that expectations are low for the annual meeting would be an understatement.

+ “The main appeal of the G20 is the ability to force countries’ leaders in the same place and at the same time to interact. The actual outcome of the G20 is likely to be very unsatisfactory if there is any consensus output at all,” said Douglas Rediker, founder of International Capital Strategies, an investment advisory firm in Washington, DC “It’s been on a steadily downward trajectory for a long time.”

+ “You can’t solve a problem of geopolitics with economic policy measures. It will be very difficult to bring the level of economic cooperation to the level it should be. … Ending the war in Ukraine is the single most powerful factor to turn around the world economy.” -- Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund

G20 host Indonesia lobbies West to soften Russia criticism in communiqué: Politico reports Indonesian President Widodo urges Western counterparts to show ‘flexibility’ as G20 risks going without a joint statement.

Eight things to watch for as global leaders meet in Bali: Even without Russian President Vladimir Putin attending in person, the G20 summit will be full of tension and potentially awkward moments. Bloomberg

SMH: ‘Zelensky is not here’: Moscow’s presence hangs over Asian talks

Putin is humiliated by Kherson — but Zelensky should beware of overconfidence: Rather than bringing the war nearer to an end, Russians’ latest disaster could lead to more bloodshed. Mark Galeotti

+ Putin is, after all, probably not expecting to win this war on the battlefield. Rather, by denying Ukraine a quick win and signaling that Russia is able to leverage its resources to keep the war running indefinitely, he hopes to shake the West’s willingness to continue to arm and bankroll the conflict.

+ Professor Mark Galeotti is the author of Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, published by Bloomsbury last week.

North Korea sees new opportunities in ‘Neo-Cold War’: Kim Jong-un has launched a record number of missiles this year, hoping to leverage the tension between the United States and China, and to exploit hostilities toward Moscow. NYT

AP: US, South Korea, Japan vow coordinated response to North Korea threat

+ Biden had also planned to seek input from Kishida and Yoon on managing China’s assertive posture in the Pacific region on the eve of his face-to-face with Xi.

Barcelona students to take mandatory climate crisis module from 2024: Guardian reports the course is thought to be the world's first after the university bowed to pressure from a seven-day End Fossil protest.

+ All students at the University of Barcelona will have to take a mandatory course on the climate crisis after the establishment agreed to meet the demands of activists conducting a sit-in occupation.

+ All 14,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students will have to take the course from the 2024 academic year. It will also devise a training program on climate issues for its 6,000 academic staff.

Slovenia elects first female president in runoff vote: AFP reports Natasa Pirc Musar, a lawyer, won the second round of Slovenia's presidential election on Sunday and will become its first female head of state, preliminary results showed.

+ Pirc Musar, a former TV presenter who became an influential lawyer, campaigned on human rights, the rule of law, and social welfare issues.

+ She once served on the legal team of Melania Trump.

WP: Biden, turning 80, faces renewed age questions as he weighs reelection

+ Biden will turn 80 on November 20.

It’s the Democrats’ worst nightmare: victory for Joe Biden: The president should enjoy his midterm moment — then announce he won’t run in 2024. Justin Webb

+ Exit polling on Tuesday showed that two-thirds of all Americans don’t want him to seek a second term. His few campaign appearances were riddled with gaffes, even by his standards.

New generation of candidates stakes claim to Democratic party’s future: The leadership in Washington may be geriatric but key wins for younger candidates suggest a generational change is under way. Guardian

WP: The top 10 GOP presidential candidates for 2024, ranked

1. Gov. Ron DeSantis

2. Donald Trump

3. Mike Pence

4. Gov. Glenn Youngkin

5. Sen. Tim Scott

6. Kari Lake

7. Sen. Ted Cruz

8. Nikki Haley

9. Mike Pompeo

10. Sen. Rick Scott

Hard to see DeSantis doing well at an NH diner campaign stop.

The US presidential campaign is the ultimate high-low communications experience.

Crypto exchanges race to soothe clients’ nerves after FTX collapse: FT reports Binance and other trading venues vow to publish proof of reserves as the crisis at Bankman-Fried’s empire reverberates.

+ The Bahamian police said they’re working with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate whether there was any criminal misconduct in the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.

TikTok hires former National Basketball Association (NBA) CMO as its new marketing chief: WSJ reports Kate Jhaveri fills the vacant top consumer marketing job at the popular video-sharing app.

Swipe and buy: Social media is now a destination for holiday shopping: WP reports more Gen Z and millennial shoppers than ever are turning to TikTok, Instagram, and other sites to find and buy gifts this season.

+ A poll from Deloitte found that 60 percent of Gen Z and 56 percent of millennials plan to use social media for holiday shopping this year.

+ 6 in 10 shoppers say they get “inspiration and ideas” from the sites, according to a global survey by the IBM Institute for Business Value, in association with the National Retail Federation.

+ The National Retail Federation projects holiday spending will range from $942.6 billion to $960.4 billion in November and December, which is 6 to 8 percent higher than last year.

Baby boomers can’t stop staring at their phones: Everyone struggles to put down their phones, but some families have had enough. WP

+ Two-thirds of boomers own a smartphone and about 6 in 10 are on social media, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey.

The good, the bad, and crypto: How Web Summit tackled tech’s biggest trends Global News

+ Geopolitics take center stage - Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, spoke on the opening night of Web Summit 2022 in Lisbon

+ Forty-two percent of attendees this year, approximately 30,000, and about a third (34 percent) of Web Summit speakers were women.

NYT: Electric vehicles start to enter the car-buying mainstream

+ While sales are still skewed toward affluent buyers, more people are choosing electric vehicles to save money.

+ Battery-powered cars now make up the fastest-growing segment of the auto market, with sales jumping 70 percent in the first nine months of the year from the same period in 2021, according to data from Cox Automotive, a research and consulting firm.

+ Sales of conventional cars and trucks fell 15 percent in the same period. Buyers of electric vehicles in 2021 were more likely to be women and tended to be younger than in 2019, according to Cox data.

Nikkei: Vinyl production finds groove in Japan, thanks to social media

+ The Japanese vinyl market has exploded in recent years, with the number of records produced in 2021 jumping 74% from the previous year to over 1.9 million, up more than fourfold from 453,000 in 2012, according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan

The World Cup begins next week. The protests have been under way for years. Years of controversy around Qatar echo the stands countries tried to take against Russia in 2018 and Argentina in 1978, but teams haven’t considered pulling out. WSJ

+ This is not the first time the world’s largest sporting event has been hosted by a regime with a global reputation problem. In 1934, the second time the tournament was held, it went to Benito Mussolini‘s Italy. And just four years ago, the World Cup was in Russia with Vladimir Putin in attendance. England and Iceland responded with diplomatic boycotts.

+ “Participating is not condoning,” the manager of defending world champion France Didier Deschamps said on the country’s primary evening news broadcast this month. “The decision was made more than 10 years ago. But we’ll pay attention, at our level, to what’s happening.”

Anger over FIFA president’s ‘stick to football’ letter to World Cup teams: Amnesty International urges sport’s international governing body to help abused workers and their families rebuild lives. Guardian

+ In the letter sent last month, FIFA President Gianni Infantino had suggested critics were “handing out moral lessons to the rest of the world” and said nations should “not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists.”

FIFA keeps sponsors on board for Qatar World Cup: The FIFA World Cup is usually a huge event for advertisers. Qatar 2022 is mired in controversy, yet it doesn’t appear to have put off too many of the corporate giants associated with the event. DW

Bloomberg: Liverpool Football Club gets takeover interest from billionaire Ambani, Mirror reports

+ The Reliance Industries Ltd. chairman faces competition from other parties from the Middle East and the US, the newspaper said, adding that current owners Fenway Sports Group Holdings LLC have been swamped with tentative offers.

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc

Caracal produces ITK Daily.

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