Quartz Daily Brief—Pakistan mourns, Russia’s ruble defense, “Interview” terror threats, Santa bank robbery
Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Grief in Pakistan. Mass funerals begin for the 132 children and nine adults massacred in the Pakistani Taliban’s attack on a school. Prime minister Nawaz Sharif has approved a decision to reinstate the death penalty.
Will Germany keep it in the family? German family-held companies don’t pay an estate tax; the country’s constitutional court will decide whether that should change. The decision affects an estimated 130,000 family businesses employing 1.3 million people.
Europe talks Turkey. When Turkey arrested dozens of journalists earlier this week, it prompted the European Parliament to host a debate about Turkey’s long-standing—and increasingly improbable-looking—bid to join the EU.
A look at Oracle’s cloud. The software giant’s earnings are expected to focus on growth in its cloud computing services (paywall). The company has fallen short of analyst estimates for the past three quarters.
FedEx delivers earnings. Investors will be scouring the logistics company’s quarterly numbers to see how cheap oil and holiday shopping levels have affected its margins.
While you were sleeping
Russia mounted a ruble defense as it tries to stem the currency’s increasingly disorderly decline. The finance ministry said it started selling some of its $7 billion in foreign-currency holdings, giving the ruble a pop in early trading. But the biggest effect will come from the central bank, which has more than $400 billion in cash, gold, and other holdings it can swap into rubles if necessary.
Apple halted online sales in Russia. Extreme fluctuations in the ruble forced the iPhone manufacturer to close its primary sales channel in the country. Last month, Apple had to raise the Russian price of an iPhone 6 by 25% to keep pace with the currency’s declining value.
Sony cancelled its New York premier for The Interview. The decision came after Guardians of Peace, the group that leaked a massive trove of Sony documents, invoked September 11th in a threat to audiences of the North Korea-themed comedy. Carmike Cineamas, the fourth-largest US chain, won’t screen the film, according to Bloomberg.
Britain’s job market perked up. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits fell by a larger-than-expected 26,900 in November, but the total jobless rate remained unchanged at 6%.
SpiceJet grounded its flights. India’s fourth-biggest airline by market share cancelled flights after being cut off by its fuel suppliers. The move came a day after SpiceJet won a government-backed reprieve to give it more time to repay its debts.
Alaska may lose its AAA credit rating. Low oil prices could squeeze the state government’s tax revenues (paywall), Moody’s said. Last year about half of the state’s income came from the oil industry.
Quartz obsession interlude
Matt Phillips on the changes in the world economy illuminated by cheap oil. ”The decline in oil prices—the global benchmark of Brent crude is down 48% over the last six months—is part of a particularly fast reshuffling of economic facts that’s whipsawed the world’s financial indicators. Investors have suddenly woken up to the fact that the global economy today looks much different than the one that they’ve been betting on in recent years.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Cheap oil is costing Elon Musk dearly. It could have cost the electric car entrepreneur $1 billion personally so far.
Inequality is the secret to the “Uber economy.” Its business model requires lots of poor people working for rich ones.
“Garbage” should be the word of the year. It applies to journalism, tweets, and political candidates.
Gated communities make crime worse. They break down the social cohesion that prevents crime.
Surprising discoveries
A million mummies were discovered in Egypt. Bodies in the mass grave were preserved by the arid environment.
A non-profit group wants to compost your dead body. One human ought to be enough to fertilize a tree.
Bad Santa robbed a San Francisco bank. And he got away with it, thanks to thousands of Santas in town for a pub crawl.
New Zealand is trying to eradicate most of its mammals. Predatory rodents are decimating native species.
Ukraine’s most-Googled recipe is for Molotov cocktails. Search engine evidence of a violent year.
Click here for more surprising discoveries on Quartz.
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