Your Monday Briefing:

Syphilis treatment drugs are in short supply, and it’s a disease which can spread from pregnant mother to the baby in the womb and often results in death, and if not, in severe deformities. Cases of syphilis are on a dramatic rise even before the shortage of shots. 20 years ago, there were three manufacturers of syphilis shots, and then Pfizer acquired the other two companies, became the sole US supplier, and there are now frequent manufacturing issues.^PP^

Slovakia’s foreign minister met with Lavrov in early March and has faced a lot of criticism from the opposition and the country’s liberal President, Caputova, because diplomacy with your enemies is for pussies and real, heroic men sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives and destroy a country in order to inconvenience a nuclear superpower as much as possible and then actually fail at doing even that, strengthening that nuclear superpower.^BNE^

Armenia is freezing its participation in the CTSO and a permanent exit appears imminent as Armenia blames Russia (not entirely without merit) for their recent defeats. While the US tries to stir up trouble in the Caucasuses to try and weaken Russia and Iran, what’s actually happening is that everybody is banding together against Armenia.^NC^

Putin has proposed a raft of new projects to update the 12 National Projects, which were launched in 2019, in order to improve the conditions of the public. For example, Putin has proposed a six-year long-term financial plan of Russia’s development, as well as progressive tax rates, doubling public and private investment in research and development, new housing construction, support for families with children due to the demographic crisis, extending life expectancy, and so on.^BNE^

A study has found that China will need 6 terawatts of renewables (2 TW of wind and 4 TW of solar) by 2060 to become carbon neutral on time. This is double China’s current energy generation and over five times the generation of the United States. This would also require a large amount of land dedicated to those energy sources.^SCMP^

According to a government official, China’s middle-income population has passed the 500 million mark, or a rise of 100 million over five years.^SCMP^

The Turkish government is keeping a close eye on credit card spending, which has increased 126% year-on-year in January and inflation is at 65%, leading to panic-buys by people ahead of possible measures that would curb that credit spending.^BNE^

With Nigeria in its worst economic crisis in years, with inflation at 30% and the naira at an all-time low against the dollar, citizens are taking food from storage facilities after calls from one of the most powerful trade unions demanded measures to quell hunger. The government is reacting by boosting security rather than distributing food.^AN^

Ghana is planning to establish a $450 million manganese refinery and is banning the export of raw bauxite, and thus refine minerals inside the country and foster economic growth. Ghana is also Africa’s leading gold producer.^BNE^

Haiti has declared a state of emergency and curfew to try and regain control after an explosion of violence over the weekend, with armed gangs storming prisons and releasing those inside. Additionally, there was gunfire towards police stations and the international airport, notably as the Prime Minister Henry was out in Kenya to try and hurry along the deployment of police to Haiti which the US and Canada wants so desperately.^AN^