June 17 update

Russia launched 12 missiles and two drones at Kyiv as African leaders arrived in the Ukrainian capital to broker peace talks. The rockets were shot down by the city’s air defences, according to the Ukrainian air force. The African delegation, which includes the presidents of South Africa and Zambia, will meet with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, before travelling to St Petersburg on Saturday to meet Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president. Ukraine’s foreign minister said the attack was evidence that “Russia wants more war, not peace.”

The UN suggested that the use of torture by Russian forces in Ukraine may be “state-endorsed”. Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said she was alarmed by “reports and testimonies” that appeared to indicate that Russia was “intentionally inflicting severe… pain and suffering” on civilian and military prisoners. She and other UN experts have written to the Kremlin about their concerns.

The International Monetary Fund urged the European Central Bank to further restrict monetary policy, a day after the ECB raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.5%, their highest level in 22 years. The IMF said a “sustained period” of tightened policy would be needed to ward off “persistently high” inflation.

Intel, an American chipmaker, will build a $4.6bn semiconductor assembly plant in Poland as it ramps up investments in Europe. Last year the company announced plans for a €17bn factory in Germany, but has since demanded an additional €3bn in government subsidies, citing inflation. Some analysts think the Polish plant—which is the largest greenfield investment in the country’s history—will encourage Germany to acquiesce.

Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, hosts Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, in Paris on Friday. The meeting marks a diplomatic rehabilitation for MBS, nearly five years after the grizzly murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran journalist, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Human-rights activists have accused Mr Macron of hypocrisy.

BlackRock sought approval from America’s securities watchdog to offer a bitcoin exchange-traded fund on the Nasdaq stockmarket. The launch of the first-of-its-kind ETF by the world’s largest asset manager would be welcome news for the cryptocurrency industry, which has been squeezed by regulators in recent months. The Securities and Exchange Commission, however, has previously rejected similar applications.

Japan overhauled its sex-crime legislation, broadening the legal definition of rape, criminalising photo voyeurism and raising the age of consent from 13 to 16. The landmark move follows a string of rape acquittals in 2019, which spurred national outcry and prompted a widespread social movement against sexual violence. Japan had not changed its age of consent since 1907.

Figure of the day: $2.1trn, the American government’s revenue shortfall in the year to May—equivalent to 8.1% of GDP. Read the full story.

---

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

The Bank of Japan sticks to ultra-loose policy

Since Ueda Kazuo took over as the Bank of Japan’s governor in April, he has bolstered his reputation as a man of restraint. Speculation has been rife that the bank might exit from its ultra-loose monetary policy. But Mr Ueda insists it will “patiently” maintain its approach, which was designed to haul the country out of decades of deflation. After the bank concluded a two-day meeting on Friday, Mr Ueda decided to continue existing policies including yield-curve control, which caps ten-year government-bond yields.

Now inflation is back. Prices excluding fresh food and fuel rose by 4.1% in April from a year earlier—the biggest increase in four decades. Some analysts suggest this heralds the beginning of a virtuous cycle, which will lift wages and consumer spending. But the evidence so far is thin. Wages have risen by just 1% over the past year, meaning workers are enduring pay cuts in real terms.

PHOTO: EPA

Britain’s sky-high food prices

Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket, published a quarterly trading statement on Friday. Total sales in Britain stood at £10.8bn, a 9.3% increase from last year. The update for investors comes amid pressure from politicians to tackle Britain’s cost-of-living crisis. According to the Office for National Statistics, hard-pressed consumers now fret more about rising food prices than they do about the cost of energy. The ONS estimates that food is dearer by around a fifth than it was a year ago, the second-highest jump in more than 45 years.

The Conservative government has suggested an agreement with leading supermarkets to cap prices of some basic items such as milk and bread. The British Retail Consortium, a trade body, says the plan will not work. It blames the higher costs that retailers are incurring for energy and labour. For its part, Tesco says it expects its operating profit to remain broadly flat this year.

PHOTO: AP

SCOTUS season heats up

America’s Supreme Court justices have just two weeks to release 20 decisions in cases heard between October and April. The most important of the three rulings handed down on Thursday was in Haaland v Brackeen, a 7-2 decision rebuffing an attempt to hobble the Indian Child Welfare Act. This law, enacted in 1978, protects Native American children from being removed from their families and tribes. Only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas agreed with plaintiffs’ claims that the law amounted to congressional overreach.

More decisions are expected to arrive on Friday. Does the First Amendment give a Christian web designer the right to refuse to make websites for gay weddings, a state anti-discrimination law notwithstanding? Can President Joe Biden proceed with his plan to relieve millions of borrowers of a portion of their student debt? How generously must employers accommodate workers’ religious beliefs? Is race-based affirmative action in university admissions compatible with the constitution? Stay tuned.

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Can “Bazball” win England the Ashes?

The Ashes, a biennial cricket series between Australia and England, is steeped in tradition. But this year’s edition, which started on Friday at the Edgbaston ground in Birmingham, will feature something radical. Over the past year, England has revolutionised Test cricket by injecting pace into a very slow game. English batsmen have been scoring at five runs an over, when the norm is closer to three. This hyper-aggressive style, nicknamed “Bazball” after Brendon McCullum, the team’s coach, has borne fruit: England have won 11 of their past 13 Tests, a form of cricket match that lasts five days, many in record-breaking manner.

The matches against Australia will be Bazball’s toughest test yet: the Aussies won Test cricket’s world championship last week. Still, England could yet lay claim to being the world’s best team. According to our own Test-cricket rankings, if they were to win three tests in the five-match series then they would leapfrog Australia and India into top spot.

PHOTO: ROGER DO MINH/POP. 87 PRODUCTION

Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City”

The robin’s-egg blue skies and sandy stretches of desert in “Asteroid City” evoke a Kodachrome postcard. This charming film is the latest marvel of design from Wes Anderson, an American director who delights fans with his pastel palettes and deadpan characters. In this movie Mr Anderson lovingly and comically sketches a mourning family’s adventures during a science convention for child prodigies, set in a flyspeck town in the mid-century American West.

Mr Anderson’s meticulously crafted world has a crucial quality that a lot of studio output lacks: personality. That extends to the cast. Scarlett Johansson plays a droll film starlet whose daughter is among the prodigies; Jeffrey Wright is a military general who emcees the convention. “Asteroid City” feels nostalgic for a bygone Hollywood era of top-notch production values and casts. Mr Anderson’s distinctive aesthetic has inspired parodies, but the gently bittersweet heart of this film suggests that there is more than meets the eye in his elaborate concoctions.