| |  |  | The Reuters Daily Briefing | Friday, March 18, 2022 by Linda Noakes | Hello Here's what you need to know. A Chinese aircraft carrier sails through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, Western companies are wrestling with Russia 'half-exits', and how a Columbia professor became the scourge of activist short sellers | | | | | Today's biggest stories  Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, March 17, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid BUSINESS Global stocks clung to their gains for the week but a heady cocktail of rising interest rates, high oil prices and no end to war in Ukraine kept a lid on the rebound as yields sent a warning signal for the economy.
As they switch off the lights in Moscow, the world's top banks face a risk-ridden retreat, juggling obligations to anxious clients and staff while complying with sanctions that have rewritten the rules of doing business in Russia.
Western companies that maintain a presence in Russia to provide essential goods such as food and medicines are trying to strike a balance between President Vladimir Putin's government and advocates of Ukraine pulling them in opposite directions.
Russia's central bank kept its key interest rate at 20% following an emergency rate hike in late February designed to support financial stability and warned of higher inflation and an economic contraction.
The Bank of Japan maintained its massive stimulus and warned of heightening risks to a fragile economic recovery from the Ukraine crisis, reinforcing expectations it will remain an outlier in the global shift towards tighter monetary policy.
You may not have heard of Joshua Mitts, a young Columbia University professor who is making some powerful enemies on Wall Street. The 36-year-old securities law specialist has become an increasingly influential figure in the hot debate over activist short selling since publishing a 2018 analysis of trading data that suggested some players were manipulating the market.
|  China's foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian speaks during a news conference in Beijing, March 18, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins AROUND THE WORLD China sailed an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait, shadowed by a U.S. destroyer, just hours before the Chinese and U.S. presidents were due to talk. "We should not associate this with the communication between the heads of state of China and the United States. You may think it is too sensitive. What is sensitive is you, not the Taiwan Strait," Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing.
Moderna sought emergency use authorization from U.S. health regulators for a second COVID-19 booster shot, as a surge in cases in some parts of the world fuels fears of another wave of the pandemic.
The world is at a 'dangerous moment' in the fight against diseases like polio, a senior World Health Organization official said, as efforts begin to immunize 23 million children across five African countries after an outbreak in Malawi.
The Taliban will allow girls around Afghanistan to return to class when high schools open next week, an education official said, after months of uncertainty over whether the group would allow full access to education for girls and women.
Peru's top court reinstated a controversial pardon for polarizing former President Alberto Fujimori, who governed the Andean nation during the tumultuous 1990s before being sentenced for human rights violations.
| | | | | | | | | | | Video of the day  Volunteers drive Ukrainian refugees to Spain A convoy of Spanish taxis arrived in Madrid from Poland, carrying exhausted and emotional refugees. | | | Thanks for spending part of your day with us. | | | | | |
