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The World
The UN ambassadors of the U.S. and North Korea “sparred at the Security Council over Pyongyang’s first spy satellite launch and the reasons for growing tensions in a rare, direct, public exchange between the adversaries.” North Korea has recently returned to Security Council meetings on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs “after a nearly six-year absence.” (Reuters)
Russia’s military spending will increase by around 25% over the next three years under a new national budget signed by Vladimir Putin on Monday. The $415 billion budget for 2024 is the largest in Russian history. (Associated Press)
Though “85% of Americans and 77% of Germans see the relationship between their countries as good,” there are divisions on China policy and climate protection. (Pew Research Center)
President Biden opened the first meeting of his supply chain resilience council “by warning companies against price gouging and saying that his administration was working to lower costs for U.S. families.” Biden said, “We know that prices are still too high for too many things, that times are still too tough for too many families. But we’ve made progress.” (Associated Press)
The White House says Biden “will use the Defense Production Act to improve the domestic manufacturing of medicines deemed crucial for national security.” (The Guardian)
The Biden Administration is directing infrastructure funding “to help small- and medium-sized manufacturers bring clean-energy jobs to former coal communities.” While the program is part of an effort “to reduce American dependence on coal, oil and gas,” it also “points to the broad realization that as the world transitions toward cleaner energy sources like wind and solar, workers in fossil-fuel industries — as well as regions that depend on them — risk getting left behind.” (New York Times)
Could Biden’s Clean Energy Push Be a Victim of Its Success? (New York Times)
Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone is considering backing Nikki Haley for president. Langone, who is a billionaire, told CNBC, “The only person I see who can give Trump a run for his money is Nikki Haley.” He plans to meet with Haley next week in New York. (CNBC)
Amazon Is Eyeing More Miami Office Space as Bezos Moves South: Technology company is looking for roughly 50,000 square feet; Miami’s office market is booming as firms expand in Florida. (Bloomberg)
Economy
U.S. new home sales dropped 5.6% in October “to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 679,000 units.” The decline was greater than anticipated. The September sales pace “was revised lower to 719,000 units from the previously reported 759,000 units.” (Reuters)
‘Stop the price-gouging’: Biden hits corporations over high consumer costs. President Joe Biden took aim at corporations for charging prices he said were artificially high. “Any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even as the supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s time to stop the price-gouging,” Biden said. The White House has struggled to bridge the gap between data that shows an economic recovery from pandemic lows, and voters who still feel stubborn inflation in their budgets. (CNBC)
Investors believe there is a much greater chance the Federal Reserve will soon cut interest rates rather than raise them again. Interest-rate futures “indicated last week a roughly 60% chance the Fed will lower rates by a quarter-of-a-percentage point by its May 2024 policy meeting, up from 29% at the end of October, according to CME Group data.” (Wall Street Journal)
The United Arab Emirates “planned to use meetings about the COP28 climate summit it is hosting later this week to pitch oil and gas deals to foreign governments,” according to leaked briefing documents posted online on Monday. The documents appear to show plans for discussion of fossil fuel deals with 15 countries including Brazil, China, and Germany during the meetings. (Financial Times)
“OPEC+ is looking at deepening oil production cuts” at its policy meeting this Thursday. Analysts expect OPEC+ “to extend or even deepen supply cuts into next year in order to support prices, which on Monday were trading just above $80 a barrel, down from near $98 in late September.” (Reuters)
Barclays is exploring a plan to drop thousands of clients at its investment bank as part of a strategic overhaul that is meant to boost profits and cut £1bn of costs. Barclays executives have met several times this year to thrash out the restructuring, codenamed Minerva after the Roman goddess of wisdom, according to people briefed on the discussions. Chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan is under pressure to reduce Barclays’ reliance on investment banking and return more capital to investors, with a public announcement expected in February. (Financial Times)
Technology
According to internal documents, X “may lose ‘up to $75 million’ as more than 100 major brands — including Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Uber — have stopped advertising, while ‘dozens’ more are considering pausing ads on the platform.” (Ars Technica)
The European Union antitrust regulator has issued a formal objection to Amazon’s planned acquisition of iRobot. The EU said the “proposed deal ‘may restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners.’” However, the “procedural step does not amount to a full veto” of the $1.45 billion deal. The EU has until February 14 to reach a final decision. (Financial Times)
Japanese companies that have relied on China for battery and semiconductor materials “are moving to broaden their sources as Beijing tightens export controls.” Mitsubishi is exploring an Australian partnership to produce graphite in Mozambique and Norway, Panasonic Energy “is conducting joint research with a Canadian graphite company toward mass production of electrode material,” and Nissan may also procure graphite and other critical EV materials from other regions. (Nikkei Asia)
TikTok parent company ByteDance “is cutting around 1,000 jobs in its gaming unit in the biggest shakeup of what was once intended to be a key segment for the Chinese internet company.” ByteDance “will discontinue games that have yet to launch, except for a few innovative projects, one source said.” (Nikkei Asia)
While Meta “says publicly that it does what it can to remove kids’ accounts,” states suing the company “say they have evidence that the company routinely ignores reports of underage users.” An unredacted complaint reads in part, “Within the company, Meta’s actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users are under the age of 13 is an open secret that is routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed, and zealously protected from disclosure to the public.” (Ars Technica)
Amazon Web Services has introduced the Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client, a $195 compact computer “that workers can use to access cloud-based virtual desktops.” The WorkSpaces Thin Client is based on Amazon’s Fire TV Cube. (SiliconANGLE)
Smart Links
Indo-Pacific to see huge missile buildup by 2030s, Carnegie analyst says. (Nikkei Asia)
China’s Fujian aircraft carrier spotted in new position, bringing it a step closer to sea trial, analysts say. (South China Morning Post)
Inside U.S. Efforts to Untangle an A.I. Giant’s Ties to China. (New York Times)
Google will start deleting ‘inactive’ accounts in December. Here’s what you need to know. (Associated Press)
Researchers figure out how to bypass the fingerprint readers in most Windows PCs. (Ars Technica)
Hong Kong private home prices drop to lowest level since March 2017. (Financial Times)
Deloitte and KPMG ask staff to use burner phones for Hong Kong trips. (Financial Times)