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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Good morning. The Pakistan Muslim League-N has nominated former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif to be Pakistan’s next leader as it looks to end a stalemate following contested election results last week.
The party, considered favourites going into the polls, got fewer seats than expected thanks to a surge of support for jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s candidates, who ended up as the largest group in parliament.
But with no one winning a majority, the PML-N began coalition talks with other parties. Those efforts advanced late Tuesday when a potential partner, the Pakistan Peoples Party of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, announced that it would support the PML-N’s choice for prime minister.
Sharif, the younger brother of veteran leader Nawaz, was prime minister between 2022 and 2023 during a turbulent spell in which Pakistan was beset by an economic crisis.
Earlier in the day, Khan hit out at his political opponents via his sister, who spoke to the FT after visiting him in prison near Islamabad. The rival parties lacked a mandate to rule after the vote was marred by allegations of vote rigging, Aleema Khan quoted her brother as saying.
“He said: ‘There’s no moral ground for them to make a government after having stolen other people’s seats’,” she said. Read the full interview — and follow Pakistan election updates on our live blog.
Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:
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Indonesia’s general election: More than 204mn Indonesians will vote for the country’s next president today. The latest polls suggest former general Prabowo Subianto has a chance of winning the 50 per cent of votes needed to avoid the election going to a second round in June.
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Economic data: The EU releases its preliminary fourth-quarter GDP and employment change estimate, while the UK publishes January inflation figures.
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India-Qatar ties: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to hold bilateral meetings with Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha. The meeting come days after Qatar released eight Indians sentenced to death last year for spying for Israel.
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Results: Sony reports third-quarter earnings.
Five more top stories
1. Exclusive: Latham & Watkins is cutting off automatic access to its international databases for its Hong Kong-based lawyers, in a sign of how Beijing’s closer control of the territory is forcing global firms to rethink the way they operate. A person with knowledge of the matter said the world’s second-highest-grossing law firm was now “treating Hong Kong as the same as mainland China”. Read the full story.
2. Exclusive: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is intensifying efforts to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, as he pushes for a diplomatic breakthrough with the dictator in a bid to save his faltering premiership. The summit would seek to secure the release of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago, according to people familiar with the diplomatic talks — some of which are being conducted via a channel in Beijing.
3. Joe Biden sharply rebuked Donald Trump for saying he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies that did not spend enough on defence, as the US president pleaded for Republicans in Congress to pass a $95bn funding bill including aid for Ukraine. Speaking at the White House yesterday after the Senate approved the national security legislation with bipartisan support, Biden said about Trump’s comments: “For God’s sake, it’s dumb, it’s shameful, it’s dangerous, it’s un-American.”
4. Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be freed after serving just six months of an eight-year jail term for graft and abuse of power, the government said yesterday. It was the second concession granted to the former leader since his return from exile last year. Thaksin is an ally of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who belongs to the Pheu Thai party that is in effect controlled by the powerful Shinawatra family. Here’s the latest on Thai politics.
5. The head of Macquarie’s booming commodities business, who was paid more than JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon and 75 per cent more than the Australian financial group’s own chief executive last year, is to leave this month after almost three decades. Nick O’Kane had been one of Macquarie’s most feted executives after a modest bet on the US energy trading market was transformed into its largest and most profitable division.
News in-depth
A $600mn solar panel factory is due to start production this month in rural Ohio, where it will employ more than 1,000 workers in a boost to the local economy. But not everyone is excited. The factory is a joint venture between US renewables developer Invenergy and Longi, the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer. The latter partner has aroused local suspicions because it is based in China. The FT’s Amanda Chu reports on the local pushback to the project and the conundrum for US policymakers as they seek to build a domestic supply chain for solar power.
We’re also reading . . .
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The uninsurable world: Rising insurance premiums are a de facto “carbon price” on consumers as extreme weather events become more frequent.
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Artificial intelligence: The technology is too important to be monopolised and public investment is needed to level the playing field, writes Marietje Schaake of Stanford University.
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Israel-Hamas war: Only the US can stop an Israeli move into Rafah, writes the International Crisis Group’s Michael Wahid Hanna. To do so, it will have to exert a degree of pressure it has so far been reluctant to apply.
Chart of the day
The profitability of Hawaiian Holdings — the parent of Hawaiian Airlines — has historically hinged on the once reliable Japanese yearning to visit the Aloha state. But this is less so now, and the dollar-yen exchange rate bears much of the blame, writes Leo Lewis. His latest column explains why Alaska Air’s December approach for Hawaiian Airlines is a big bet on the Japanese currency.
Take a break from the news
As Indonesia goes to the polls today, read the epic story of the country’s independence struggle in David Van Reybrouck’s Revolusi. The Belgian historian shines an overdue spotlight on a country that is at last taking its place on the world stage, writes FT foreign editor Alec Russell.
Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo
