Good morning. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned South African officials about the consequences of violating U.S. sanctions, as the Biden administration tries to balance its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a broader effort to deepen ties with African governments.

• Competing for attention: Ms. Yellen and some of her senior international-affairs and sanctions staff have been meeting this week with top South African officials on the final stop of a three-country tour in Africa. The trip, which overlapped with visits to Africa’s most developed economy by the foreign-policy chiefs of both Russia and the European Union, comes after U.S. officials raised concerns over the South African government’s ties to Moscow.
   
• Growing concerns: In December, a Russian merchant ship, which the U.S. has sanctioned over its owners’ alleged role in moving weapons for the Kremlin, was spotted delivering and loading cargo at a South African navy base. U.S. officials have also criticized plans by South Africa’s military to hold a joint naval exercise with Russia and China during the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine next month.
   
• Pointed message: Ms. Yellen said on Friday that she had urged South African officials to comply with U.S. sanctions in her meetings. “Violation of those sanctions by local businesses or by governments—we would respond to quickly and harshly and we certainly urge that there be compliance with those sanctions,” Ms. Yellen said during a tour of South Africa’s coal-mining region. 
   
• Balancing act for Washington: How aggressively to enforce sanctions on Russia around the world is a key diplomatic question for U.S. officials as they also seek to strengthen their ties to countries like South Africa that have professed not to take sides in the escalating confrontation between Russia and the West.

As more companies introduce or expand sustainability programs, they are often unclear on which initiatives deliver the best results. Join us on Feb. 2 for a two-part webinar featuring executives discussing programs that have improved the sustainability standing of their companies. Register here.

Western nations discuss price caps on Russian oil products. The U.S. and its allies are discussing the levels for two price caps on Russian petroleum products, which the Western nations are preparing to impose on Feb. 5 in an expansion of their sanctions on Russia’s oil industry.

How it works: The West’s price-cap regime works by prohibiting the Western insurers, bankers and shippers that underpin much of global maritime trade from handling Russian oil unless it is sold below the set prices. The planned launch of price caps on petroleum products on Feb. 5 coincides with the EU’s ban on imports of Russian refined products—two steps that some market-watchers say could destabilize global diesel prices.

DOJ suit to break up Google was years in the making for antitrust chief. Jonathan Kanter has been one of Google’s main legal foes for nearly 15 years. Last week, as the nation’s top antitrust cop, he delivered a threat to break up the internet company. 

Kanter's quest: Mr. Kanter is one of the leaders of a movement that sees big technology companies including Google, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc. as monopolists in the tradition of the 19th-century railroad and oil companies that inspired the original antitrust laws.

TikTok’s chief to testify before congress in March. TikTok’s chief executive has agreed to appear before a congressional committee in March, as House Republican lawmakers step up scrutiny of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app. Shou Zi Chew will appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, a committee spokesman said, in what would be the first appearance of a TikTok CEO before a congressional panel.

DOJ seeks to ban Sam Bankman-Fried from contacting FTX employees. The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge to bar FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried from communicating with current and former employees of the collapsed crypto exchange without a lawyer present after prosecutors alleged he recently contacted a potential witness in his criminal case.

• Japan and the Netherlands have agreed with the U.S. to start restricting exports of advanced chip-manufacturing equipment to China, joining efforts by the Biden administration to slow China’s military development by cutting access to advanced technologies.
   
• China’s top nuclear-weapons research institute, meanwhile, has bought sophisticated U.S. computer chips at least a dozen times in the past two and a half years, circumventing decades-old American export restrictions meant to curb such sales.
   
• As lawmakers push to ban or restrict Chinese-owned TikTok, one of the many hurdles they face is a pair of measures passed by Congress decades ago to let films, books and music flow freely between the U.S. and hostile foreign countries.
  ​
• The Justice Department told top Senate Intelligence Committee lawmakers that providing nonpublic information to the panel about the classified material that ended up in the personal possession of two presidents could complicate the ongoing investigations into the incidents.

Some Western backers of Ukraine worry time might be on Russia’s side. That concern suggests the window for Ukraine isn’t indefinite and it needs powerful Western weapons—main battle tanks, other armored vehicles and more air-defense systems—soon to reinforce the momentum it achieved in offensive successes around Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson last year.

The shift in Western thinking over the need to accelerate supplies to Ukraine has played out publicly in recent days in the decisions by the U.S., the U.K. and Germany to send Western-designed main battle tanks to Ukraine.

Fed debates whether wages or low wnemployment will drive inflation. Stubbornly high inflation is finally easing as supply chain disruptions fade and interest rates at 15-year highs put the brakes on demand. Now, Federal Reserve officials have voiced unease that prices could reaccelerate because labor markets are so tight.

Reading the tea leaves. At issue is what’s the right way to forecast inflation: a bottoms-up analysis of recent readings on prices and wages that puts more weight on pandemic-driven idiosyncrasies—or a traditional top-down analysis of how far the economy is operating above or below its normal capacity.

• U.S. households turned cautious at the end of last year, cutting spending during the holiday shopping season and increasing savings, adding to signs of an economic slowdown.
   
• Israel carried out a drone strike targeting a defense compound in Iran, as the U.S. and Israel look for new ways to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the operation.
   
• A recent spiral of violence between Israel and the Palestinians is worsening after two gun attacks in Jerusalem and a wave of Israeli raids in the West Bank.

Goldman Sachs makes nearly 30% cut to CEO's pay in 2022. David Solomon received $25 million in total compensation last year, down from $35 million in 2021. His 2022 pay package consisted of a $2 million base salary, a cash bonus of $6.9 million and a $16.1 million stock award tied to how well the bank performs in the next few years, Goldman said in a regulatory filing.

Earnings slowdown. Mr. Solomon’s 2022 compensation reflects the bank’s performance compared with 2021, Goldman said in the filing. Profit fell 48% last year, and revenue declined 20%, largely due to a slowdown in corporate deal-making that had previously fueled blockbuster earnings. 

• Salesforce Inc. has appointed three new directors, including the finance chief of Mastercard Inc., to its board as a potential proxy fight with activist investor Elliott Management Corp. looms.

Meta embraces AI as Facebook, Instagram help drive a rebound. After the roughest year in Meta’s history, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is starting to see a path to recovery, internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with people familiar with the matter show.

AI leads the way. Heavy investment in artificial intelligence tools has enabled the company to improve ad-targeting systems to make better predictions based on less data, according to the interviews and documents. Though Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg declared last year that the company would be “metaverse-first, not Facebook-first,” most of the effort involves optimizing its traditional social-media platforms, especially Facebook.

Breakup of Google’s ad business would reshape $500 billion sector. Google spent the better part of two decades building the world’s most powerful digital advertising machine. Breaking it up would send shock waves through the online-ad market.

• Nissan Motor Co. and its French partner, Renault SA, said Monday they have agreed to reorganize their alliance, more than two decades old, in a deal that includes reducing Renault’s stake in Nissan.
   
• Unilever PLC has appointed Hein Schumacher as its new chief executive, tapping the head of a European dairy cooperative to lead its effort to reinvigorate growth and navigate economic uncertainty.
   
• Chevron Corp. banked historic profit last year as the pandemic receded and the war in Ukraine pushed oil prices to multiyear highs, with its shares climbing 53% for the year while other sectors tumbled.
   
• H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB reported a sharp drop in annual profit as rising costs and its decision to exit Russia hampered the fast-fashion giant’s efforts to rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic.
   
• Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. said Friday it was closing an additional 87 of its flagship stores and its entire Harmon chain of drugstores, as the retailer struggles to find financial support to keep its operations funded.
   
• Boeing Co. said it plans to hire 10,000 employees this year, about half the number it hired in 2022.