Quartz Daily Brief—Russian rate hike, calm in Sydney, Uber’s many woes, one sober navy
Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
John Kerry tries to mollify the Palestinians. Palestinian officials plan this month to apply for a UN security council resolution giving Israel a two-year deadline for pulling out of the West Bank. The US can use its veto if it has to, but the secretary of state is meeting Palestinian negotiators in London and will presumably try to talk them out of it.
China’s economy suddenly swells. The country’s official 2013 GDP figure could rise by 5%-10% after an economic census and recalculation of the official figures. That could alter other closely-watched ratios such as debt-to-GDP, credit-to-GDP, and consumption as a share of GDP.
The Fed meets. The US central bank’s policy committee begins its two-day monthly confab where it’ll discuss when to start raising interest rates next year. Also, Sweden’s Riksbank is expected to announce it’s keeping rates at zero.
An unpleasant day for British banks. Imagine the UK with collapsing house prices, rising inflation, and rocketing unemployment. The Bank of England did, and will publish the outcome of what’s likely to become an annual stress test of British banks. European regulators ran their own stress test back in October; Britain’s biggest banks passed, but others had a mixed record.
General Electric talks 2015. Top executives meet investors to provide their outlook for the coming year. The firm is still slowly building its shareholder dividends back up since slashing them in 2009 in response to the financial crisis.
Spaniards find another way to read the news. Google News shuts down in Spain in response to the country’s new intellectual property law (pdf, Spanish), which bans the search engine publishing snippets from local publishers. The publishers, meanwhile, are in full retreat, begging Google to keep the service alive.
While you were sleeping
Sydney’s hostage crisis ended. After more than 16 hours, police stormed a cafe where a self-proclaimed Muslim cleric had taken several hostages. He and two hostages were killed. Australians launched a hashtag to show they didn’t hate Muslims. They did hate Uber, though, which had to hurriedly cancel its automatic surge pricing in Sydney.
Russia’s central bank took emergency measures. Days after increasing its key interest rate from 9.5% to 10.5%, the central bank boosted it to 17%, after the ruble fell by nearly 10% in one day in response to tumbling oil prices (which hit a new five-year low) and general emerging-market jitters.
France partly banned Uber. Starting Jan. 1, UberPop, which connects passengers to private drivers with cars, will be banned because France considers it “a real danger,” said an interior ministry spokesman (paywall). Uber will still be usable for taxis. The decision comes days after a Parisian judge overruled cabdrivers’ objections to Uber.
An Al-Qaeda linked group seized a Syrian military base. The al-Nusra Front, as they’re known, joined forces with another group known as Jund al-Aqsa, and have taken over Wadi al-Deif. It’s being reported that 31 soldiers and 12 rebels were killed. The Syrian Observatory says the group used tanks and heavy weaponry that they captured from the Syrian Revolutionary Front, which is backed by the West.
BT began talks on buying EE. If the former British telecoms monopoly absorbs the country’s largest mobile operator, it would be a force to be reckoned with, though negotiations over the details—an estimated £12.5 billion ($19.6 billion) is expected to change hands—are expected to last “several weeks.”
Quartz obsession interlude
Matt Phillips on the worst bet investors could have made this year. “There was plenty of ugliness to be found in the markets this year. Ukranian and Venezuelan sovereign debt. High-yield, energy-related corporate bonds. Argentine pesos. Russian rubles. Greek stocks. But none of these investments has been as atrociously awful as bitcoin, the heavily hyped crypto-currency that stormed onto the financial scene in the last few years, threatening to disrupt the cornerstone of global finance that is fiat currency.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
“Uber rapes” aren’t Uber’s fault. In India, at any rate, the government’s lax attitude to sexual assault and taxi licensing are the real problem.
Saudi Arabia is using its oil as a weapon. The price drops are deliberate, and meant to hurt US shale and Iran.
Don’t buy a hydrogen fuel-cell car; buy a hybrid. Making that hydrogen still creates a lot of greenhouse gases.
The space race is over. The next phase of exploration will be more a global collaboration than a global contest.
The US needs to prove it’s still top dog. Barack Obama’s lack of clear action is making the country look weak.
We should grow more genetically modified food. It reduces the need for pesticides, it increases output, and it helps farmers in poor countries especially.
Surprising discoveries
Canada’s navy is now sober. Booze on boats is now banned following drunken misconduct aboard the HMCS Whitehorse.
Denmark says it owns the North Pole. An uncharacteristically belligerent move from a generally peace-loving nation.
Can a marriage proposal go any more badly wrong? This Dutch groom-to-be should really have just got down on one knee like everyone else.
Forgetful? Get yourself checked. According to research done in the Netherlands, highly educated but forgetful people are at a higher risk of stroke.
Comets are extremely gray. The first color photos of Comet 67P are in, and they look exactly like the black-and-white ones.
Click here for more surprising discoveries on Quartz.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, spare navy rum, and awkward marriage proposals to [email protected]. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day.