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The World
Xi Jinping and EU officials “sought to ease tensions over trade and economic disputes at their first in-person summit in Beijing on Thursday. The EU’s relations with China have grown tenser in recent months over the bloc’s trade deficit with China, which doubled to $400 billion in the last two years.” (Wall Street Journal)
Trade between China and Russia “has surpassed $200 billion this year, official data shows, hitting the countries' goal a year earlier than they had anticipated.” Trade totaled $218.1 billion through November. Beijing and Moscow agreed four years ago to hit the to $200 billion target by 2024. (Nikkei Asia)
China’s exports “rose slightly in November, breaking a six-month run of consecutive declines.” (Financial Times)
Russin lawmakers “set the country’s 2024 presidential election for March 17, moving Vladimir Putin a step closer to a fifth term in office.” Members of the upper house of parliament “voted unanimously Thursday to approve a decree setting the date.” (Associated Press)
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has moved the country’s next presidential election to February 7, shortly ahead of the Russian election. The order “did not explain why Aliyev had called an early vote. The next presidential election had been scheduled to be held in 2025.” (Associated Press)
Taiwan spots Chinese weather balloon in strait a month before election: Taiwan's defence ministry said on Friday that a Chinese weather balloon had crossed the Taiwan Strait median line on Thursday, about a month before Taiwan's presidential election. (Reuters)
Two Chinese naval vessels “have become the first ships to dock at a new pier at a Cambodian naval base that the United States and some international security analysts say is destined to serve as a strategic outpost for Beijing’s navy.” (Associated Press)
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has dramatically raised the stakes in his country’s border dispute with Guyana, ordering state companies to exploit contested oil and mineral deposits and redrawing official maps after claiming an “overwhelming” mandate in a referendum last Sunday. Maduro’s bellicose speeches have alarmed Guyana and sparked fears that Venezuela might use force to seize the remote Essequibo area, which accounts for two-thirds of its neighbour’s territory, as well as a big offshore oilfield operated by US oil major ExxonMobil. (Financial Times)
The White House “is putting pharmaceutical companies on notice, warning them that if the price of certain drugs is too high, the government might cancel their patent protection and allow rivals to make their own versions.” The Biden Administration announced that it will “consider overriding the patent for high-priced drugs that have been developed with the help of taxpayer money and letting competitors make them in hopes of driving down the cost.” (Associated Press)
“Although holiday sales and shopping start well before the official beginning of the holiday season, December still brings a rush of holiday shopping. About half (49%) say they will do all or most of their holiday shopping this month, and fully nine in 10 will buy at least some gifts in December.” (Gallup)
Economy
U.S. unemployment benefits claims were up slightly last week, “but the overall number of people in the U.S. collecting unemployment benefits fell after hitting its highest level in two years last week.” About 1.86 million were collecting benefits, “64,000 fewer than the previous week. It’s just the second time in 11 weeks that continuing claims have fallen.” (Associated Press)
“This year was the least affordable year for homebuying in at least in the past 11 years.” A Redfin report found that “someone making the median income in the U.S. — $78,642 — would’ve had to spend more than 40% of their income on monthly housing costs if they bought the median-priced home, which was around $400,000.” Though that is just three percent higher than last year, “monthly costs for homebuyers have increased more than twice as fast as wages.” (CNBC)
Restaurant worker wage growth “has slipped considerably since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, falling below even pre-pandemic rates.” Restaurant workers' wages “grew 4.9% year over year in October 2023. That's slowed from peak growth of 10.5% in December 2021.” (Axios)
Moody’s has “advised staff in China to work from home ahead of its cut to the outlook for the country’s sovereign credit rating, a suggestion staff believed was prompted by concern over Beijing’s possible reaction.” The warning “highlights the unease of many foreign companies doing business in the world’s second-largest economy, where some have suffered police raids, exit bans for staff and arrests amid tensions between China and the U.S. and its allies.” (Financial Times)
Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods is not worried that the Federal Trade Commission will hold up Exxon’s pending acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources. Woods said that “while the $60 billion deal appears large, the transaction is small in the context of the broader U.S. oil market. He said crude production from the acquisition of Pioneer would amount to less than 5% of the U.S. total.” (CNBC)
Technology
Google, Meta, and other major tech players “have dramatically ramped up charitable giving to university campuses over the past several years — giving them influence over academics studying such critical topics as artificial intelligence, social media and disinformation. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg alone has donated money to more than 100 university campuses, either through Meta or his personal philanthropy arm.” (Washington Post)
Apple and its suppliers aim to build more than 50 million iPhones in India annually within the next two to three years, with additional tens of millions of units planned after that, according to people involved. If the plans are achieved, India would account for a quarter of global iPhone production and take further share toward the end of the decade. China will remain the largest iPhone producer. (Wall Street Journal)
“Erratic billionaire conspiracy theorist” Elon Musk “went on a rampage” against Disney CEO Bob Iger over Disney’s decision to pull advertising from X. Musk wrote on the platform, “He should be fired immediately. Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company.” (CNN)
When Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, “its 100 top clients accounted for 70% of American ad sales. Half of them have since left X.” And though “advertisers in other regions may be less bothered by the culture wars” in which Musk engages, “X is unusually reliant on America” for revenue. (The Economist)
Electric vehicles “with batteries that contain minerals and materials sourced from China” will no longer be eligible for the federal $7,500 EV tax credit starting in January 1. “That means a lot of EVs are about to lose their eligibility — chief among them, the Ford Mustang Mach-E.” (The Verge)
Anguilla, a British territory with fewer than 16,000 residents, is expected to take in $45 million in revenue by the end of 2024 “month from AI companies after its .ai domain surged in popularity.” Anguilla has held the .ai domain since 1995. (The Independent)
The race to 5G is over — now it’s time to pay the bill (The Verge)
Smart Links
U.S. Spending on Clean Energy and Tech Spurs Allies to Compete. (New York Times)
Congress and E.U. diverge on AI policy, as Brussels races to reach deal. (Washington Post)
Spotify’s CFO Is Leaving, Follows Marketing Chief Out the Door. (Bloomberg)
The OpenAI Board Member Who Clashed With Sam Altman Shares Her Side. (Wall Street Journal)
Pump Prices Set to Get Even Cheaper With Futures at Two-Year Low. (Bloomberg)
Boeing signals two-month delay to 737 production ramp-up. (Reuters)
Twitch says it’s withdrawing from the South Korean market over expensive network fees. (Associated Press)
QR codes may be a gateway to identity theft, FTC warns. (CNBC)