HMBR and Co.

Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former chief executive of Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, will be sentenced in federal court in Seattle on Tuesday. He has pleaded guilty to violating America’s Bank Secrecy Act by failing to follow its anti-money-laundering strictures. Binance was ordered to pay fines worth $4.3bn for the admission in November, after which Richard Teng, a senior executive with a background in regulation, took over as the firm’s boss.

American prosecutors want Mr Zhao to be sentenced to three years in prison, twice the amount recommended under official guidelines. They hope that will deter potential lawbreakers. In a letter to the presiding judge, Mr Zhao apologised for not establishing the necessary compliance controls.

Binance’s troubles are just one segment in a series of challenges and scandals for crypto exchanges. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive of the now-defunct FTX exchange, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last month on several fraud-related charges.

The International Court of Justice in the Hague usually attracts little attention, issuing judgments on such questions as who has ownership of rocks visible only at low tide. But many people will be watching its provisional ruling on Tuesday on a Gaza genocide case. Nicaragua brought the case against Germany over its arms sales to Israel. The ruling could have repercussions for other countries’ support for Israel.

On the face of it, Nicaragua’s argument looks weak: it wants the ICJ to find immediately that Germany is facilitating genocide by Israel, even though the court will not rule for several years on whether genocide is taking place. (That is the question in a separate case brought by South Africa.) Yet several of the ICJ’s judges have become increasingly outspoken about South Africa’s case, arguing that the court should order Israel to halt its military campaign. Those judges may look favourably on Nicaragua’s argument.

Amazon reports its quarterly earnings on Tuesday. The firm has had a strong start to the year. Its share price has increased by 18%—compared with an average rise of 7% for firms in the S&P 500—partly because it published robust results in February.

Two factors will determine whether Amazon can continue its strong performance. One is Amazon Web Services, the e-commerce giant’s cloud-computing arm. It is the world’s biggest cloud service, accounting for over 30% of global spending. The cloud market is still growing swiftly. Yet both Microsoft and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) have big cloud services that are gaining market share. They reported strong results last week, buoyed by the surge in customers’ interest in artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s retail arm is facing competition from Temu and Shein, two Chinese e-commerce upstarts, which have been splurging on advertising in an attempt to crack the American market. Investors will want to see how Amazon is handling its rivals.

Forget the competition between Real Madrid and Barcelona, Spain’s most successful football teams. The country’s fiercest rivalry is really between Santander and BBVA, its two biggest banks.

Four years ago Santander had a market capitalisation of €56bn ($62bn), €28bn more than BBVA. But by the end of last year the gap between the two narrowed to just €12bn. During the first quarter of 2024 BBVA’s profits rose by 19%. Santander’s earnings, released on Tuesday, will probably be less impressive. That may encourage a further narrowing of the gap between the valuations of the two companies.

Differing fortunes in Latin America are one reason why the valuations are converging. Santander’s biggest market is Brazil, where a weak real and an increase in loan defaults have dragged down profits. BBVA, meanwhile, has concentrated on Mexico. Profits soared after it launched new digital services; BBVA Mexico is now the country’s biggest bank. To stay ahead in Spain’s banking derby, Santander will have to make better decisions abroad.

A stage adaptation of “Spirited Away”, Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning animated film, will open at the London Coliseum theatre on Tuesday. The folkloric, coming-of-age cartoon has been reimagined by John Caird, a director, who is best known for his production of “Les Misérables”, and by Toby Olié, a puppeteer. They bring to life Mr Miyazaki’s fantastical world with lavish costumes and impressive sets: his dragons, gremlins and talking frogs are no less technicolour.

The show, which sold out a tour of Japan, will be performed in Japanese with English subtitles. It follows an adaptation of another of Mr Miyazaki’s films, “My Neighbour Totoro”, which premiered at the Barbican in London in 2022. Each has splendid scores and elaborate puppets, which deftly mimic the movement of cartoon characters. In both music and motion, however, “Spirited Away” is more ambitious. The cartoon—one of Japan’s highest-grossing films—changed animation forever. It may yet change stagecraft, too.

An election in the Solomon Islands on Wednesday will determine whether the Pacific country continues its hard tilt towards China. After the previous vote in 2019, Manasseh Sogavare, the prime minister, switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. In 2022 he signed a secretive security deal with the country. China has since sent police and a flurry of aid and investment to the islands, triggering alarm bells in the West.

Opposition leaders have pledged to curb China’s growing influence. So Australia, fearing a Chinese military base to its north, hopes for a change of guard. Ordinarily there would be one: no prime minister in the Solomon Islands has been re-elected for consecutive terms in office. But opposition figures suggest that Chinese money has helped Mr Sogavare buy political support (he denies that China has undue influence). The election will be followed by weeks of horse-trading, as MPs align behind a prime minister. The incumbent—and China—may emerge victorious.

ASML, which sells chipmaking gear, is Europe’s most valuable technology company with a market capitalisation of nearly $400bn. On Wednesday the Dutch firm announced results for the first quarter. The numbers came in lower than last year because the semiconductor industry is in one of its cyclical downturns. Revenues were $5.62bn, lower than estimates of $5.73bn and around 22% lower than in the first quarter of 2023.

But in the longer term analysts are extremely bullish, which explains why ASML’s market capitalisation is up 32% since the start of the year. Without its cutting-edge lithography machines, chipmakers could not produce the most fine-grained processors, the transistors of which are measured in a few nanometres. They go into smartphones and, more recently, data centres that train and run the artificial-intelligence models that power generative-AI services such as ChatGPT. Demand for these AI chips will probably keep going up for some time.

Data released on Wednesday show Britain’s inflation rate slowed to 3.2% in March, down from 3.4% in February. That is the lowest level since September 2021, but still higher than analysts had predicted. Inflation remains well above the Bank of England’s 2% target. Further declines are expected over the next few months.

The release capped a week of mixed macroeconomic data. On Friday GDP numbers for February suggested that Britain had edged out of recession, but growth remains tepid. On Tuesday labour-market data pointed to rising unemployment and faster wage growth than expected. That all raises the spectre of stagflation. But serious questions remain about the reliability of Britain’s economic data, following a collapse in survey response rates after the pandemic.

The Bank of England’s monetary-policy committee next meets on May 9th. Markets expect an interest-rate cut at some point between May and September, but are unsure of the exact timing.

Last year Columbia University’s president was asked to attend a congressional hearing about antisemitism at American colleges. She had a prior commitment. That may have been lucky: two of her counterparts, at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, resigned in its aftermath, owing to their overly cautious, legalistic answers. On Wednesday Minouche Shafik will appear for her rescheduled hearing.

Jewish students recently filed two lawsuits against Columbia, alleging that it tolerates a “hostile environment” towards Jews. Other top-tier colleges have been sued, too. Yet administrators and lawyers are grappling with how even to define antisemitism in a way that does not curtail legitimate criticism of Israel. Columbia’s task-force has declined to produce a definition. UC Berkeley has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit over its refusal to discipline pro-Palestinian student groups, citing its obligations to protect free expression. At her testimony Ms Shafik will try to tread a fine line—and risks satisfying no one.

On Wednesday Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (better known as Lula), will open one of the biggest events on Latin America’s literary circuit in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. The city’s 36th international book fair is devoted to the relationship between literature, nature and culture. The two-week programme of 2,000 events will encompass editors, publishers and bookworms from more than 25 countries. They will discuss how authors from the region consider the relationship between humans and the wilderness; chronicle the destruction of ecosystems; and eulogise about the lungs of the Earth.

The focus on eco-criticism is well timed. Deforestation in the Amazon dropped significantly last year on the watch of Colombia and Brazil’s green-minded presidents. In October Colombia will also host a UN biodiversity summit. Lula’s presence in Bogotá shows how the two biodiverse countries are bonding over the environment—pleasing bibliophiles in turn.

China’s economic data were encouraging in the first two months of the year. Both inflation and exports were stronger than forecast. Indeed China’s trade surplus has fanned fears about its industrial overcapacity. On Monday Janet Yellen, America’s treasury secretary, warned during a trip to Beijing that flooding the global market with “artificially cheap Chinese products” could put the “viability” of foreign firms into question.

Can China’s upturn last? The data for March will provide some clues. Figures released this week showed that consumer prices rose by only 0.1% compared with a year earlier, suggesting the rise in inflation earlier in the year was largely a result of the Chinese new year holiday. Trade figures released on Friday are also likely to be weak in comparison with last year, when China’s ports enjoyed a post-pandemic boost. If the data are disappointing, China can at least claim that its export machine is not as scary as its critics think.

Kishida Fumio, Japan’s prime minister, received a pomp-filled welcome in Washington this week. Nippon Steel has faced a far frostier reception in the Capitol since the Japanese steelmaker struck a deal to buy US Steel, America’s third-largest producer of steel, for $15bn in December. On Friday US Steel’s shareholders will vote on the aquisition. They will probably approve the agreement, but staunch political opposition to the transaction could still cause it to fall apart.

Last month President Joe Biden said the steelmaker should remain domestically owned, joining Donald Trump and the union representing steelworkers in calling for the deal to be scrapped. Nippon is yet to throw in the towel, though the transaction now faces scrutiny from America’s investment-screening watchdog and antitrust authorities. Markets do not rate Nippon’s chances of success—shares in US Steel currently change hands at around a 25% discount to Nippon’s all-cash offer.

Three of America’s biggest lenders—Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo—will report first-quarter earnings on Friday. Investors will be watching for signs of trouble. Data released on Wednesday showed a bigger rise in the consumer price index than expected, suggesting that inflation is yet to be vanquished. Interest rates may remain higher for longer than bankers expected.

That has upsides for lenders (more interest income) but also risks. It will keep up the pressure on their borrowers, who might struggle with repayments. Commercial-property losses have piled up at smaller banks, while consumers have been falling behind on auto and credit-card loans. Bankers’ interest costs have been climbing, too, as customers take advantage of high-yield savings accounts.

Shareholders will be watching Citi especially closely, after it completed an overhaul of its business at the end of March. The bank laid off 5,000 people, including 1,500 in management roles. Its earnings should reveal the cost of the transition.

Between 1999 and 2015 almost 1,000 sub-postmasters in Britain’s Post Office were wrongfully convicted for theft and other charges owing to a faulty online payments system. For decades, the scandal was under-reported. The company insisted the system worked, while campaigners strove to prove otherwise. The arguments were technical and a little dull: neither politicians, nor the public, paid much attention.

That all changed in January, when a hit television series dramatised the affair. Politicians promised exoneration and compensation. Some suggested executives should hand bonuses back or be criminally prosecuted. Paula Vennells, the Post Office’s former chief executive, returned her CBE, a national honour. A public inquiry that will last months is now hearing from many of those involved. On Friday Alan Cook, another former executive, will face questioning. He has said he will “never forgive himself” over the scandal. It is unlikely that others will be ready to forgive either.

In 2011 Amy Winehouse, a British singer, died, aged 27. She was a figure about whom fans knew everything and nothing. Each salacious detail of her chaotic life was exposed in the media glare. But the reality of what made her—and her music—tick was more obscure.

Alas, a film biopic, “Back To Black”, released in Britain on Friday, offers few insights. It focuses on Winehouse’s troubled marriage and her time in the public eye. The narrative of a tragic celebrity addict overshadows the impact of her work, which was not only thrilling in its own right but also defined a style of pop music. One artist after another has vied for her vacant throne as the queen of dramatic retro soul. None has yet claimed it. But the breakout success of Raye—a record winner at this year’s Brit Awards—could change that. And prove that Winehouse’s musical legacy is greater than her tabloid legend.

In February Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s deputy prime minister, warned that inflation in the city-state remains high. He announced a package of handouts to help Singaporeans cope with rising prices, after the country raised its goods and services tax to 9% in January. Data released on Monday justified the assistance. The core inflation rate, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose by 3.6% year on year in February, up from 3.1% in January and the fastest pace in seven months. The jump was partly caused by an increase in consumer spending over the lunar new year.

Singapore expects output to grow by 1-3% this year, but the government warns of “significant” global risks. An important one for the trade-dependent city-state is further disruption to supply chains, given the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Nonetheless, experts surveyed by Singapore’s central bank have raised their GDP forecasts for the year, mostly because of faster-than-expected growth in manufacturing and construction.

On Monday America’s vice-president Kamala Harris will welcome Bernardo Arévalo, Guatemala’s newly inaugurated president, to the White House to talk about Central American migration. The Arévalo administration is trying to re-engage in international diplomacy and work with officials in the United States to improve economic conditions at home so fewer feel compelled to leave.

When Ms Harris was tapped to be Joe Biden’s border czar three years ago she was tasked with tackling the “root causes” of migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras. But as the number of border crossings has since swelled to record highs, she has consequently garnered immense criticism for that narrow focus. Migrants from the Northern Triangle make up a much smaller share of arrivals than they used to. In December the US border patrols intercepted roughly 60,000 migrants coming from there—from elsewhere the number was up to 190,000. The changing nature of America’s border crisis makes the Biden administration’s job of defending its policies on the campaign trail even harder.

On Monday Belarusians mark Freedom Day. The unofficial holiday commemorates the day in 1918 when the first independent Belarusian state emerged from under 150 years of Russian occupation. It is rejected by President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Celebrating it has thus become a way for his critics to show defiance.

Few in the country will openly disobey him. The Belarusian strongman has clamped down on dissent and locked up some 1,500 political prisoners, according to Human Rights Watch. And with a presidential election coming next year, Mr Lukashenko is curbing civil society.

Instead, Freedom Day will be marked by the growing number of Belarusians who have fled the country—roughly a tenth of the population since Mr Lukashenko came to power in 1994. The opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, herself in exile, encourages them to write to political prisoners and fly Belarusian flags. That is no substitute for freedom itself.

As Africa’s digital economy expands, the continent’s network providers have been on a roll. Smartphone use continues to grow, and businesses and consumers demand faster mobile internet. All this has seen Africa’s major telecoms providers enjoy sales growth of 29% over the past five years, despite pandemic-related setbacks, according to Bloomberg. The Johannesburg-based conglomerate MTN, Africa’s biggest telecoms firm by revenues, reports its financial results on Monday.

They will be watched closely. For all its recent success, MTN has problems. Its largest user base is in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, which is in the grip of a crippling currency crisis after a series of devaluations. MTN’s Nigerian subsidiary, which is responsible for up to a third of the company’s earnings, has reported foreign-exchange-linked losses of $570m. Group-wide headline earnings per share (a measure of profitability) are expected to fall by over 60%. It is a worrying signal.

German electronic-music giants Kraftwerk fantasised about a “Trans-Europe Express” as far back as 1977. On Monday Europe finally gets the real thing: a 15-and-a-half-hour overnight service linking Brussels to Prague. The 720km-journey is already covered by several daily flights, which take around 14 hours less than the train. But planes are out of favour with those mindful of their carbon footprints (and trains retain a romantic appeal for many).

Leaving in the early evening three times a week, the train will putt-putt its way through Antwerp, Rotterdam, Berlin, Dresden and a dozen other stops before arriving in Prague just before 11am. Sleeper carriages, inevitably stuffed with snoring fellow travellers, are available.

Cheap air travel saw off once-common night trains in Europe. But they are enjoying something of a renaissance, thanks in part to public money. A Paris-Berlin service was launched last year, and a train linking Amsterdam and Barcelona is planned for 2025.

On Thursday the leaders of the EU’s 27 countries will attend the first of four summits to be held in the next 100 days. The confab will focus on defence and foreign policy, and especially on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

Politicians will discuss how Europe can spend more—and better—on defence to deter Russia. They will debate about (but probably reach no firm agreement on) how to use windfall profits on frozen Russian assets. More contentious still will be discussion of the recent suggestion by Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, that some countries may send troops to Ukraine. That would cross a red line for many, including the EU’s largest member, Germany.

On the situation in Gaza the rifts within the EU are wider yet. The discussion between backers of Israel and governments more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause will be heated.

Nike, the world’s largest maker of sportswear, announces its quarterly results on Thursday, covering the three months ending in February 2024. In the last fiscal year, which ended in May 2023, Nike’s annual sales were up by a tenth. But the company expects only a 1% growth in sales this year. The slowdown is partly caused by softening consumer demand, especially in China and Europe. Nike is also losing ground to upstart footwear brands like Hoka and On Running.

To “reignite” its growth, the company announced in February that it would cut more than 1,500 jobs, or 2% of its workforce. This was part of a plan to trim costs by $2bn over the next three years. The company is also investing in smaller, techier stores designed to showcase its products and encourage people to shop online. By 2025 Nike aims to sell 60% of its wares directly to consumers, either online or through its own stores, cutting out traditional retailers. The brand is also expecting a boost from the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where it will be the official sponsor of the American gymnastics team.

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee kept interest rates flat at 5.25% after meeting on Thursday, as widely expected. But the shifting composition of the vote suggests that the committee is moving gradually towards rate cuts. In January, two members called for further rate increases. This time, none did. One member, Swati Dhingra, voted for a cut at both meetings. Earlier the same day, the Swiss National Bank became the first major central bank to cut interest rates this cycle with a surprise 0.25% cut.

Britain’s economy looks feeble. The country entered a technical recession in the second half of 2023, though the economy expanded a bit in February. The annual inflation rate continued to fall from 4% in January to 3.4% in February. Further declines towards the Bank's 2% target are widely expected. But chatter is emerging about a pre-election fiscal event in the summer or in early autumn. That may nudge the Bank to be cautious: tax giveaways could risk reigniting inflation.

On Thursday shares in Reddit will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The social-media platform is seeking a valuation of around $6.4bn. The listing is reportedly four to five times oversubscribed. But some are sceptical that the stock will be a hit.

Founded in 2005, Reddit is a forum-based website where members talk on “subreddits” about shared interests, ranging from do-it-yourself plumbing to cat photos. The site claims to have 267m average weekly active users. Even so, its annual revenues of $800m, almost all from advertising, are lower than those of rivals such as X (formerly Twitter). It recorded a loss of $91m in 2023.

It has other worries, too. America’s Federal Trade Commission is probing the company’s licensing of user data to firms that are developing artificial-intelligence models. (Reddit says it has done nothing wrong.) Even if investors do not flock to Reddit’s stock, they may still cheer its listing as a sign that America’s IPO market is slowly coming back to life.

Thursday marks 30 years since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change first came into force. The treaty committed signatories to stabilising greenhouse-gas concentrations in order to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. But despite being ratified by 197 countries and the EU, pessimists would say the convention has failed to achieve its aim.

Since 1994, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has risen from around 360 parts per million to around 425. By the end of the century average global temperatures are expected to be roughly 2.7°C higher than those before the industrial revolution, well above the generally accepted upper limit of 2°C.

Optimists, however, might point out that things once looked much worse: when the UNFCCC was forged, business-as-usual projections showed temperatures rising by 3.5°C or more. The shift is due, in large part, to international climate commitments, including the Paris agreement in 2015, hammered out under the UNFCCC.