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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.