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☆ Opinion: The strategy that can support Ukraine even if Trump is elected
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Christopher Good | Fareed Zakaria | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Between the tragic, ongoing war in Gaza and the Biden-Xi summit, one crucial global crisis is in danger of being forgotten — the war in Ukraine. And this is a terrible time for it to be slipping from public consciousness because Ukraine faces trouble on two fronts. Despite the drones and Starlink connectivity, this is looking like the trench warfare during World War I, which ground on for four years. The second front that is equally worrying is in the West, where support for Ukraine is weakening. An international legal organization and process of adjudicating claims should be established and the funds handled through it.

Persons: Fareed Zakaria, “ Fareed Zakaria, General Valery Zaluzhny, Biden’s, Giorgia Meloni, “, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Trump, Laurence Tribe, Larry Summers, Robert Zoellick, Philip Zelikow, Summers, Zoellick Organizations: CNN, Biden, World Bank, Bank Locations: Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, Kherson, Italian, Moscow, Putin, Switzerland, Belgium, Kyiv, United States

And now Ben Hammou faces another blow as the German government moves to end pandemic-era tax breaks for the hospitality industry. The fiscally hawkish FDP party, which has control of the finance ministry in the three-way ruling coalition, backs letting the tax break expire, calculating that it would cost 3.3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) to keep it going in 2024. Many restaurants operate on tight margins, which makes them quite sensitive to tax increases. In Spain, Italy and France, the VAT on restaurants is at 10%, considerably lower than the expected 19% in Germany from 2024. The question is whether German restaurants are still struggling or have recovered well enough from the pandemic to withstand having the tax break removed, according to Tomas Dvorak, senior economist at Oxford Economics.

Persons: Omar Ben Hammou, Ben Hammou, Christian Lindner, Guido Zoellick, Thijs Geijer, Ingrid Hartges, DEHOGA, Steffen Marx, Tomas Dvorak, Maria Martinez, Christian Kraemer, Tanja Daube, Ulrike Heil, Belen Carreno, Giselda Vagnoni, Thomas Leigh, Matthias Williams, Hugh Lawson Organizations: Restaurant Association, ING, Reuters, Oxford Economics, Thomson Locations: Bavaria, BERLIN, Berlin, Russia, Ukraine, COVID, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Munich, Madrid, Rome, Paris

☆ To help end the war in Ukraine, seize Russia's state assets and use them for reparations
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

To end the war, some argue that Ukraine must make difficult territorial concessions to Russia. People in the United States, after all, do not vote for the president of Russia. The Biden administration has already authorized millions of dollars worth of assets from Russian oligarchs to be transferred to Ukraine. But it has refrained from touching Russia's Central Bank foreign currency reserves, which are estimated to be about $38 billion in the United States alone (and $215 billion in the European Union). As Financial Times economic commentator Martin Sandbu wrote last month, seizing state assets for reparations is an unproven legal strategy.

Persons: Cornel, Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Robert F, Kennedy Jr, there's, —, Vermont Sen, Bernie Sanders, Sanders, what's, Lawrence Summers, Robert Zoellick, Philip Zelikow, Biden, Martin Sandbu Organizations: Service, Harvard, Princeton, CNN, White, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, Republican, Florida Gov, Vermont, New Lines Institute, UN, Assembly, Kremlin, Bank, Central Bank, European Union, Financial Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Wall, Silicon, Washington, United, United States, Florida, America, Russian, West, Iraq, Washington ,, Mariupol

☆ Welcome to Biden’s Tale of WOE
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Robert B. Zoellick | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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Persons: Dow Jones

☆ Decisions the West Must Make on the Russia-Ukraine War in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Robert B. Zoellick | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky transformed from comedian-president to charismatic war leader. Historians might contend that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a leftover from the surprising, peaceful end of the Soviet empire in 1991. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has never accepted Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty. At age 70, Mr. Putin is determined to restore Greater Russia before Ukraine turns fully to the West. A U.S. intelligence official told me that when an American emissary warned Mr. Putin against an attack late last year, the aging autocrat replied, “What choice do I have?” In the face of resistance, Mr. Putin will double down.

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