Welcome to Aposto Digest in English!
We are excited to share our first issue with you. As our selection of publications keeps growing, this publication is going to share highlights from the English-language Aposto publications every week. Curated by the editors at Aposto, the issues will feature the best articles from our media service from business to technology, travel to literature, philosophy to wine...
We hope you enjoy your reading!
Aposto Team
Aposto Europe delivers your daily briefing on markets, politics, business, tech and more - all under 5 minutes. Don't miss out on what's happening in the world.
• Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said they plan to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine by the end of March, a day after confirming to deliver 14 tanks from their own stock, following weeks of diplomatic pressure. Meanwhile, the US said that their delivery of 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine will be in "weeks, not months," as Pentagon finalizes a training plan.
• Tesla reported Q4 earnings after the bell late Wednesday, beating market expectations on both earnings and revenue. Adjusted earnings fell to $1.19 per share from $2.52 in the same period a year ago, against a forecast of a fall to $1.13 per share. Meanwhile, income rose to $24.32 billion, slightly more than the $24.16 billion expected. Full-year vehicle deliveries amounted to around 1.31 million, a record for Tesla.
• Eurozone business activity unexpectedly returned to modest growth in January, an S&P Global survey revealed on Tuesday, adding to signs the downturn in the bloc may not be as deep as feared and that the currency union may escape recession. A flash estimate for the Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 50.2 from 49.3 in December, registering above the 50 mark —which separates growth from contraction— for the first time since June 2022.
Aposto Finance gathers the best articles on finance at Aposto, curated by our editors. Topics include micro and macro economic developments, market reports and more.
Rescuing Economic Growth in Highly Indebted Developing Countries
By Dani Rodrik, Reza Baqir, and Ishac Diwan
CAMBRIDGE – This year may prove devastating for the developing world, as more and more countries find themselves engulfed in debt crises. Several (Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Russia, Suriname, and Zambia) are already in default, and scores of others urgently need debt relief to ward off economic collapse and sharp rises in poverty.
The prevailing response to debt crises is to negotiate complex packages involving the debtor country, international financial institutions (IFIs), and other external creditors. Domestic bondholders, labor unions, and others play a part, too, as they have their own interests to protect. The bargaining process among all these parties can be lengthy and feature significant domestic and global efforts to game the outcome by pushing a larger burden of losses onto others, even as debtor-country conditions continue to deteriorate.
The rise of emerging markets as major bilateral official creditors has added further complexity to an already difficult process. China, India, countries in the Middle East, and others have not been part of conventional debt-resolution arrangements. Besides complicating coordination, heterogeneity among creditors can unleash more destructive processes led by self-fulfilling expectations, such as sudden capital-flow reversals and banking crises.
The key to making debt deals more compelling to all parties is to design them in a way that unlocks growth opportunities. The prospect of large enough gains would attract all parties to the negotiating table, as they could share among themselves the benefits that such a package unleashes.
Circular Economy 101 writes about circular economy, a model of production and consumption of sharing, renting, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible.
Plastics: the EU vs. the world
The transition to circular economy continues to gain momentum under the leadership of different countries and regions. Thanks to the European Green Deal, all EU countries are willingly or unwillingly involved in this process, while countries such as the Netherlands, France and Finland stand out by leading this transition process. The United Kingdom, which left the European Union, continues to work rapidly in order to maintain its global leadership position in the transition to circular economy.
So how does the process of transition to circular economy work outside EU countries? In our previous articles, we have discussed what the EU's Circular Economy Roadmap integrated into the European Green Deal will mean for non-EU countries. Of course, when we consider the impact of the EU's leadership of this transition process on other countries, it is necessary to discuss whether EU-oriented regulations cover the rest of the world. Considering the socio-economic situation, time will tell how accurate it is to include non-EU countries in this transformation process only through regulations.
Soli is a weekly journal of neighbourhoods to dig into urban culture, people stories, and sociocultural dynamics.
🚏 ROUTE: PAZAR-HOPPING IN ISTANBUL
Early morning. The most crucial time of the day. Tarpaulins, heavy iron sticks and the ropes that bind them are the tools needed to construct the roof of one of the oldest gathering places in human history in the narrow streets of the neighborhood, which are occupied with different purposes for the remaining six days of the week. These are the fixed elements of this nomadic structure. Then there is the labor, bargaining, land, crops and realities that fill it. The physical space it occupies, one or several streets of the neighborhood and the height up to the tarpaulins. And it will take some time to calculate the area it occupies in the city. For sure.
The distance from the clean Black Sea coast to Tarlabaşı and the space covered by the plastic crates of ispit transported along this distance; the weight of Larissa's recipes for cookies with a pickling technique, who knows how old the recipe is, which she carried from Ukraine to Kurdela Street; and the length of the list of products she put on sale that day, written in Cyrillic; the distance that the anchovies, horse mackerel and chinook that fisherman Murat put on the counter traveled on time despite all the early hunters at sea and then on land; the weight of Ezine cheese that Ömer brought from Çanakkale and the time it took until the best Ezine recipe was found; the waiting time for a mixed gözleme with spinach, cheese and potatoes; the number of walnuts cracked to be tasted by the customers; the close and distant kinship of sweet pepper like honey with chili pepper; the psychological distance of two neighboring districts and the centuries it took for social acceptance.
