We’ve summarised the top stories of the last week into an easily digestible briefing, so that you can stay up to date on what’s happening around the world. You can subscribe to receive the briefing in your inbox each week.

Business & Economics

1. Jerome Powell will serve a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Given current economic uncertainty, the decision to keep the leader of the Fed the same is perhaps unsurprising. Powell has said he will continue to lead monetary policy that benefits all citizens equally and addresses the financial risks from climate change.

2. Year on year inflation in the US is up to 5%, more than twice the Fed’s policy rate of 2%. Amid mounting inflationary pressure, the US government released 50 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves in a bid to raise supply and lower prices.
   
   
3. The Turkish lira dipped 15% after President Erdogan defended controversial rate cuts. The Turkish central bank has already reduced the base rate on three occasions this year, despite inflation running at over 20%.

4. Brazil’s foreign minister rebuked a new EU policy which requires producers to prove that they have not engaged in deforestation after 2020, calling it a form of “trade protectionism”. The policy comes during a concerted stand against climate change after COP26, but Brazil sees the regulation as a beggar-thy-neighbour policy to help European producers.

5. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised rates to 0.75%, following a surge in house prices. The raise came as the second in just two months, before which base rates had not been increased in over seven years. New Zealand is one of very few economies with both inflation and employment above target levels, causing central bankers to reel in their monetary stimulus.

6. Indian e-commerce company Paytm suffered a terrible IPO, with share prices dropping by almost 40% within its first two days of trading. The dramatic drop reflected an initial overvaluation of the company by investors, compounded by the release of an underwhelming monthly performance. The stock has since recovered however.

7. The share price of Zoom briefly dipped, following a slowdown in monthly sales. However, fears of future lockdowns as a result of the new Covid variant later pushed the stock up over 5%.

Politics

1. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps unveiled the much-anticipated Integrated Rail Plan last week. Expectations of “levelling up” were destroyed as the promised Northern Powerhouse Rail line from Manchester to Leeds was cancelled, as was the eastern leg of HS2, from Birmingham and Leeds.

2. Health Secretary Sajid Javid has defended the “swift” and “proportionate” response to the Omicron variant of Covid. Face masks will be mandatory in shops and public transport from Tuesday. However, the government has stopped short of recommending that people work from home. The measures were introduced so that people may “enjoy Christmas with [their] families” and will be reviewed in three weeks, when most schools break up. The government’s UKHSA (UK Health and Security Agency) – the renamed Public Health England – has started research to confirm whether the new variant is more transmissible and more vaccine resistant than prior variants. The R-number is just above 1 in the UK.

3. Priti Patel has warned that lack of co-operation will lead to a worsening of the migrant crisis in the Channel. On Wednesday this past week, 27 people perished, the biggest single loss of life since 2014 according to the International Organisation for Migrants. On Friday, Boris Johnson announced a five point plan, which revolves around returning migrants to France. This year, already 25,000 have crossed the Channel, up from 2 000 in November 2019. Asylum claims have also rocketed to the highest levels since 2004. The UK had the fifth highest claimants of European nations (around 7% of the total), but only the 17^th highest claimants per capita.

4. In a dramatic U-turn, Narendra Modi, India’s nationalist PM, has dropped the major agricultural reforms introduced in 2020. The three laws were designed to liberalise the farming sector, allowing farmers to sell their goods directly to customers rather than through state-controlled markets. The reforms were massively unpopular – mass protests resulted in 750 deaths – among small-holders who felt that the end of subsidies and price guarantees threatened their survival.
   
   
5. Germany’s Social Democrats (SDP), liberal Free Democrats (FDP), and Greens reached a deal on Wednesday to form a government after negotiating since 26 September. The chancellor will be Olaf Scholz, the vice-chancellor and finance minister under Merkel. It is expected that climate change will be top of the government’s agenda, but in the short term, the pandemic will continue to dominate. 

6. President Putin has vowed to maintain “tension” with the West over Ukraine “for as long as possible”. Ukrainian intelligence estimates that there are 92 000 Russian troops preparing for an invasion, but other analysts believe that Russia wants to destabilise the government and make it think twice over increasing cooperation with NATO. 

7. Following the COP26 summit, which President Jair Bolsonaro did not attend, where Brazil pledged to end deforestation by 2030, deforestation in the Amazon has been found to be at the highest level in 15 years. Before Mr Bolsonaro’s presidency, deforestation was at 6 500 square kilometres per annum (between 2009 and 2018). In 2021, 13 235 square kilometres were deforested, a 22% rise from last year.

Written by Vimal Kamath and Faris Lovejoy