What to watch for today
Onward for Abe’s Japan. Look for reaction in Tokyo stocks and the plummeting yen after Japan voted in a snap election called by prime minister Shinzo Abe. Abe extended his huge majority (paywall) in the lower house of parliament, a boost for Abenomics as a cure for the country’s recession.
Baidu invests in Uber. How will investors in the Chinese search engine react to news that Baidu will announce an unknown level of investment (paywall) this week to help the taxi app grow in China? Uber recently said it had raised $1.2 billion to “make substantial investments, particularly in the Asia Pacific region,” valuing the firm at $40 billion.
The economic data download. US industrial production data is released by the Federal Reserve. Elsewhere, the markets will be digesting Israeli inflation, Turkish unemployment, and more data on UK housing prices.
Powerful people powwow. EU foreign ministers meet to discuss the ongoing conflict with ISIL in Iraq and Syria and the disintegrating Libyan state. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s chief foreign representative, will be occupied with the Ukrainian prime minister, and the British chancellor speaks at the Economic Club of New York.
Over the weekend
Climate change talkers reached deal. Two days late, negotiators in Lima reached an agreement that, for the first time, commits even the fast-growing, heavy-polluting developing countries to cut emissions (pdf). But they postponed the hardest talks to the major UN conference in Paris next year.
The US protests against police brutality. Demonstrations were held on Saturday in several large US cities over the killings by police of unarmed black men. A “Millions March” in New York attracted about 25,000-50,000 people, and an estimated 10,000 marched in Washington DC.
Haiti’s PM calls it quits. The country’s prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, has resigned after violent demonstrations over delayed elections. Protestors want the president, Michel Martelly, to go as well. Unless elections are held, Martelly will be able to rule by decree once parliament’s term expires in January.
The year’s largest US private equity deal. Pet retailer PetSmart agreed to be bought by a consortium led by London-based private equity firm BC Partners in an $8.7 billion deal, including debt. Activists had been pressuring the company to sell itself as competition ramped up from Amazon.com and other retailers.
London air traffic suffered disruption. A computer glitch the likes of “which has not been seen before“ led to air traffic control chaos affecting airports across London and southeast England.
Quartz obsession interlude
Kabir Chibber compares the style guides of The Economist and Bloomberg News, where you can’t say ‘but.’ ”Somewhere in the 1970s, when two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, helped make ‘investigative journalism’ a romantic, holy endeavour, the news profession lost a great deal of sense.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Wanna learn how to run your business? Try working in a McDonald’s.
If you’re being micromanaged, your boss doesn’t like you. Here are nine more signs.
Sale pricing manipulates the brain. It’s called the “asymmetric dominance effect.”
Your opinion on CIA torture is irrelevant. Dick Cheney says he would do it all again.
The French are obsessed with national decline. “Le Suicide Français” is the latest indictment of contemporary France.
Mobile tech is erasing the rhythms of life. People are foregoing planned lifestyles for bouts of spontaneity.
Surprising discoveries
China has a new microwave-powered pain gun. The futuristic non-lethal weapon is just one of its many innovations.
Many Americans got married on Saturday. Because the date was 12/13/14, the last sequential calendar date for 20 years.
A worm’s brain can control a Lego robot. Watch the video—it’s really weird.
The English Premier League no longer wants to play a game abroad. But it has said this before.
Click here for more surprising discoveries on Quartz.
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