Macro & Markets
Americas
- U.S. bans cotton imports from China producer XPCC citing Xinjiang ‘slave labor’ – Reuters (cue the cotton picking cartoons)
- Democrats took a risk to push mail-in voting. It paid off – Guardian (hasn’t paid off yet….)
- Hundreds of Staten Island protesters rally around a bar shut down for defying covid rules – WaPo (voting the idiot-in-chief out still leaves lots of idiots)
- First Thing: US marks record high in daily coronavirus deaths, over 3000 – Guardian (more than one 9/11 attack per day…and probably double that by end of January)
Asia/Middle East
- Japan enacts law to make coronavirus vaccines free to residents – JapanToday
- Japan plans to ban sales of new gasoline cars in mid-2030s – Japantimes
- Coronavirus latest: Indonesia sets daily record with over 8,300 cases – NikkeiAsia
- The number of coronavirus cases reported in Iran surpasses 1 million, the Middle East’s worst outbreak – Bloomberg
- A new report argues “creative accounting” in China’s steelmaking industry is reversing air quality gains in one of the country’s most-polluting sectors – Caixin
Europe (and the UK)
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- Private spies reportedly infiltrated an Amazon strike, secretly taking photos of workers, trade unionists, and journalists. Now a union is taking legal action. – Business Insider
- EU pushes for ‘right to disconnect’ from work at home – DW
- Moldova’s new president calls for Russian troops to withdraw from territory – BBC (in tomorrows news, Moldovan president accidentally falls out of third storey window)
- Lockdowns have pushed Britain’s economy into one of the world’s deepest downturns – Quartz
- Euro zone business activity shrank in November, but optimism surged – Reuters
Oceania
- China threatens ‘lasting punishment’ as Biden backs Australia – news.com.au
- Law firms are pushing staff to come back to the office, with many settling on a model that will allow only two days of working from home each week – AFR
- Alan Joyce wants to play up the recovery, but not too much, given the debt load QANTAS has taken on to navigate its way through the crisis – AFR
- Clive Palmer could be forced to pay millions more after election spend – BrisbaneTimes
- News Corp editors claim Rudd and Turnbull ‘exploited’ Murdoch papers during political ascent – TheAge (shameless!)
- All the recent growth can’t hide the fact that Australia remains in a deep recession – Guardian
…and furthermore…
- Apple will be forced to sell iPhones with included power adapter in Brazil – 9to5mac (how bizarre…)
- More than 2.5 miles of cliff paintings found hidden in the Amazon rainforest show ancient hunter-gatherers killing Ice Age creatures – Business Insider
- Anti LGBTQ Hungarian politician quits after being caught at gay lockdown 25-man orgy – NationalPost
- South Africa’s Lottery probed as 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are drawn and 20 people win. – BBC