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The World
President Biden’s top national-security adviser has engaged in recent months in confidential conversations with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict over Ukraine and warn Moscow against using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, U.S. and allied officials said. The officials said that U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has been in contact with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Putin. Mr. Sullivan also has spoken with his direct counterpart in the Russian government, Nikolai Patrushev, the officials added. (Wall Street Journal)
Warmest eight years on record and rising sea levels, as COP27 launches: The past eight years were on track to be the warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organisation said in its latest report, in a planetary “distress signal”, as leaders began to gather for the COP27 climate summit in Egypt. The findings were published during the opening session in Sharm el-Sheikh, where the contentious issue of “loss and damage” was put on the formal agenda for the first time. “Loss and damage” has become the shorthand for the call for funding by wealthy countries for poor countries suffering the consequences of climate change. The matter has grown more urgent this year, marked by a succession of extreme weather events including devastating flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria most recently. (Financial Times)
Smog forces school closures in New Delhi: Hazardous levels of smog have prompted school closures and calls to work from home or carpool. (Deutsche Welle)
North Korea's military said that recent South Korea-U.S. military exercises were an "open provocation and dangerous war drill," and it had responded with measures simulating striking their air bases and warplanes. (Reuters)
China’s daily Covid cases jumped to the highest in more than six months, as outbreaks flared across the nation and health officials declared the nation will stick with its strict virus controls. The country reported 5,436 cases for Sunday, up 27% from the day before to the most since May 2, when Shanghai was in the midst of its months-long lockdown. (Bloomberg)
Iranian students protested and shopkeepers went on strike despite a widening crackdown, according to reports on social media, as demonstrations that flared over Mahsa Amini’s death continued for a 50th day. Saturday’s protests came as President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran’s cities were “safe and sound” after earlier dismissing a pledge from the US president, Joe Biden, to “free Iran”. (The Guardian)
Economy
Raising Money on Wall Street Hasn’t Been This Hard in a Decade: Autumn is usually one of the busiest times of the year in finance but new stock sales, debt raises and corporate mergers all slowed to a trickle in recent weeks. The supply of cash that fuels such deals is evaporating and the slowdown likely is here to stay, bankers, investors and corporate lawyers say. Markets are stalling because the price of borrowed money is spiking as the U.S. Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation. The policy has yet to damp consumer spending. But it is punishing U.S. companies that have accumulated a debt mountain exceeding $10 trillion, much of it in the past decade when the Fed kept interest rates near zero. North American companies will have to come up with at least $200 billion in 2022 and 2023 to cover rising interest expenses. (Wall Street Journal)
China’s export growth suffers first drop in over 2 years, imports also down: China’s exports declined by 0.3 per cent in October compared with a year earlier, down from 5.7 per cent growth in September. Imports declined by 0.7 per cent in October compared with a year earlier, down from 0.3 per cent growth in September. (South China Morning Post)
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to outline £60bn of tax rises and spending cuts: The Guardian understands early drafts of UK government’s autumn statement include at least £35bn reduction in spending. Ministers must submit the key points of the autumn statement to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) by Monday morning. (The Guardian)
Hong Kong Home Prices Plunge Most Since 2016 on Higher Rates. (Bloomberg)
Technology
Meta is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, in what could be the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry’s rapid growth during the pandemic. The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September. Company officials already told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week, the people said. The planned layoffs would be the first broad head-count reductions to occur in the company’s 18-year history. (Wall Street Journal)
Apple is working on shortening the “Hey Siri” trigger phrase to “Siri” by 2024 and plans to integrate Siri deeper into third-party apps and services. While that might seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work. The complexity involves Siri being able to understand the singular phrase “Siri” in multiple different accents and dialects. Having two words—“Hey Siri”—increases the likelihood of the system properly picking up the signal. Apple has also been engineering further changes. It will integrate the voice assistant deeper into third-party apps and services and improve its ability to understand users and take the correct course of action. (Bloomberg)
Twitter Now Asks Some Fired Workers to Please Come Back: Twitter, after laying off roughly half the company on Friday following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition, is now reaching out to dozens of employees who lost their jobs and asking them to return. Some of those who are being asked to return were laid off by mistake. Others were let go before management realized that their work and experience may be necessary to build the new features Musk envisions. (Bloomberg)
Layoffs are never anything but brutal. But few examples have compared to the singular cruelty of Twitter’s overnight purge. Unlike so many of his industry peers, Musk didn’t personally express any remorse at all about his decision. There was no tortured thread about how difficult the cuts would be, no public blog post laying out the company’s reasoning or the benefits fired workers would receive going forward. Instead, as Twitter employees found themselves suddenly locked out of company accounts Thursday night after receiving a companywide email that said layoffs were about to begin, Musk spent the wee hours reacting to posts about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Protocol)
Coinbase's belt-tightening measures show uneven results: Headcount is about 26% higher now than the start of the year, in spite of CEO Brian Armstrong's pledge to slim down after the company's growth ambitions pushed the firm out over its skis. (Axios)
Smart Links
Apple warns of hit to iPhone shipments from China COVID disruption. (Reuters)
The retirees heading back to work. (Financial Times)
Tom Brady first in NFL history to reach 100,000 passing yards. (ESPN)
Advice from an early SpaceX VP on how to work for Elon Musk. (Insider)