There's no shortage of "year in review" coverage and "year ahead" trends predictions this week. Rather than add to the deluge, here are five claims and debates Global Insider thinks stand out among the coverage as ones you'll likely to have to care about in 2023: How hard will Republicans fight for Trump? Once upon a time MAGA world would do anything to protect and promote former President Donald Trump, leaving nearly all the rest of the Republican party afraid to contradict him. While that's been changing for a while now, the real question is around the pace of change: Will it be slow enough to allow Trump to carry his party's 2024 presidential nomination, or will it become a MAGA revolution causing the movement to align with a Trump rival such as Ron DeSantis? Remote working legislation: More than 20 countries, from Angola to Mexico to much of Europe, now have laws on the books governing how remote working can occur. The rules usually involve written agreements with employees covering issues such as provision of necessary equipment and a right to disconnect. You won't find Congress adding U.S. federal legislation to that tally, but debate around how to incentivize office work and how to protect those who don't come back to the office will continue throughout the year. Gen Z, the most valuable generation: They're now 30 percent of the global population, but have an outsize influence in everything from how you receive advertising (the influencer medium is the message), to how our workforce is structured and remunerated (from woke rules to work from home). Climate accountability: Whether you love it (climate activists) or hate it (the Texas and Florida governments) 2023 will bring a reckoning at the Securities and Exchange Commission on corporate climate and other social commitments (often referred to as ESG), which until now have been easy to make but came with little accountability around whether they were delivered. Central bank splits: After a decade of very low or negative interest rates, the world's major central banks are going go take different approaches to controlling inflation and avoiding recession. That's likely to alter investment flows and tweak currency values. 5 ELECTIONS TO CARE ABOUT IN 2023 Argentina, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey Each country teeters on the edge of democracy: sometimes wildly swinging between strongmen or military leaders and elected governments; the burden of corruption often also casts a shadow. In Turkey, having engineered a shift to a presidential system, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will face his toughest test yet in 2023 and is already working to jail opponents. In Pakistan, former Prime Minister Imran Khan is trying to claw his way back to power. In Argentina, Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has been barred from running via a corruption conviction. Both survived assassination attempts this year. ISRAEL — THE AGENDA OF NETANYAHU'S RADICAL NEW GOVERNMENT: Benjamin Netanyahu's latest coalition government, consisting of right-wing and religious parties, plans to introduce policies that it critics say will de facto annex most of the occupied West Bank. The most crucial elements of the new policy is transfer of Israeli management of its West Bank settlements (which are illegal under international law) from military to civilian ministries UKRAINE CORNER WHAT OTHER LEADERS COULD LEARN FROM ZELENSKYY: Ukraine's president continues to set the global pace in political courage and communication. This week he went from the war's dangerous frontline, to Washington, to a meeting with the president of Poland — Ukraine's neighbor and essential partner for supporting more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees. Throughout that itinerary — from his rhetoric to his military casual clothing — Zelenskyy went directly to the heart of problems facing his country. Masha Gessen captures that particular talent here. We knew what he wanted in the U.S. (more weapons and open-ended support), and he got some of it directly from President Joe Biden. Kyiv will likely get extra aid from the Senate soon. WAGNER GROUP CORE TO RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE: U.S. officials are worried that the Wagner Group, a private paramilitary group with ties to the Kremlin, is becoming the predominant Russian military force in eastern Ukraine, POLITICO's Erin Banco reported. The Biden administration plans to designate Wagner as a military end user to ensure the group cannot gain access to any equipment based on U.S. technology. The group is owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch who has become critical of Putin as Russian losses have mounted since February. IMF AGREES TO FOUR-MONTH STABILIZATION PROGRAM: While all eyes were on Zelenskyy's visit to Washington this week, his government reached another important agreement with the International Monetary Fund. It's designed to reopen the country's debt market and "help the authorities implement prudent macroeconomic policies during this particularly difficult period and catalyze donor financing," per a statement from the Fund. PANDEMICS — VACCINE FACTORY READY TO SHIP TO AFRICA: Germany's BioNTech said it has completed construction of a vaccine factory made from shipping containers that will now be shipped to Rwanda for assembly in the first quarter of 2023. U.S. lawmakers are pushing back on the Rwandan regime's human rights record. INTERVIEW — MATTHEW POTTINGER AND WEI JINGSHENG In the latest edition of our POLITICO @ 15 video interview series, Chinese activist Wei Jingsheng and former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger talk about the future of democracy. Video interview | Interview transcript
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