The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

 

JIM EDWARDs

NOV. 14, 2014, 

Rob Libetti/Business Insider

Another successful IPO.

Here’s what your planet looks like this morning:

1. Growth has come to a halt in Germany. GDP there grew just 0.1%.That’s pathetic. Europe’s economic powerhouse has run out of steam, it seems.

2. Richard Branson just made another £70 million. The IPO of challenger bank Virgin Money raised £1.25 billion overall.

3. Asian markets are up. Japan’s Nikkei climbed again, closing up 0.56%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is also currently up 0.13% just ahead of the close.

4. David Cameron is warning of more sanctions on Russia.Russia could face further sanctions if it does not commit to resolving the conflict in Ukraine, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday, as he called Moscow’s actions “unacceptable”.

5. The heirs to the Samsung fortune are cashing in on their stakes as succession looms. An IPO for a unit of Samsung put a value of 5.6 trillion won ($5.09 billion) on shares held by the Samsung Group’s three heirs.

6. The US used spy planes to suck up data from citizens mobile phones. Everyone was targeted, the Wall Street Journal reports. Basically, the tin-foil hat people turned out to be right.

7. The Islamic State has announced it will mint its own currency. And yes, they’ve basically chosen a variation on the gold standard. “The highest-denominated 5 dinar coin is set to contain 21.25 grams of 21 carat gold, worth about $694,” The Financial Times reports. “The purchasing power of the money they’re emitting will be wholly dependent on what the purchasing power of gold, silver and copper are,” a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University told the FT.

8. People who leave Britain to go fight for Islamic State will be banned from coming back. PM David Cameron proposed the new law in a speech in Australia last night.

9. The market cap of Apple is now bigger than the entire Russian stock market. Bloomberg reports: “If you owned Apple Inc., and sold it, you could purchase the entire stock market of Russia, and still have enough change to buy every Russian an iPhone 6 Plus.”

10. S&P gave a “junk” rating to Twitter’s debt and its stock price dropped 5%. The ratings agency didn’t like the company’s cashflow. Twitter, naturally, disagrees.

And finally …

It doesn’t look good for AC/DC. The rock band’s drummer was behaving erratically even before he was charged with threatening to kill someone, the band says. Bass player Cliff Williams told The Guardian, “We had a few issues before with him, even when we were recording it was hard even to get to him to do the recording … And then he was supposed to show up to do promos with us, to do video shoots and a few shoots and a few other things, and he never showed up for that either. So, at this stage, it’s a pretty tough call for us.”

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 NOV. 12, 2014

REUTERS/Jason Lee

US President Obama speaks at a joint news conference with Chinese President Jinping at the Apec summit, Nov. 12, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Wednesday.

1. US President Obama and Chinese President Jinping reached a landmark climate deal, with the US pledging to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% by 2025 from 2005-levels and China agreeing to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030. 

2. The climate agreement signals the first time ever that China, the world’s top carbon polluter, has committed to a greenhouse gas emissions cap. 

3. Scientists are making final preparations to deploy the Philae probe from the Rosetta spacecraft and land it on a comet, marking a space history first. 

4. Japan’s Nikkei soared to a 7-year high on Wednesday on news that President Shinzo Abe is preparing to call a snap vote and potentially delay a national sales tax hike planned for October 2015. 

5. Sierra Leone will pay $5,000 (£3,140 pounds) to the family of any health worker who dies of Ebola from treating an infected patient. 

6. The European Court of Justice set a precedent in a ruling that says member states can deny certain payments to unemployed EU citizens who move there just to claim benefits. 

7. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wrote a blog post defending the amount of money the streaming service pays to artists, noting that Taylor Swift was on track to earn at least $6 million this year before she pulled her entire music catalogue from the service last week.

8. An icy blast of air from the Arctic has caused temperatures to drop dramatically in about two-thirds of the continental US.

9. YouTube signed a licensing deal with independent record companies, a partnership that opens the door “to introduce a long-planned subscription feature to compete with online music outlets like Spotify and Rhapsody,” The New York Times reports. 

10. Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital’ has won Business Book of the Year, which comes with a £30,000 prize. 

And finally …

The lemur who starred in the children’s show “Zaboomafoo” has died at the age of 20. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

NOV. 11, 2014

REUTERS/Larry Rubenstein

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dance in the foyer of the White House during a State Dinner in Thatcher’s honor in this file photo taken on November 16, 1988, in Washington.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Tuesday.

1. A powerful militant group in Egypt, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, has pledged its loyalty to the Islamic State, an alliance that could provide the Egyptian group with new money and weapons to fight the Egyptian military. 

2. Reports indicate that the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, may have been killed or injured by US-led airstrikes in the Iraq city of Mosul, although it has not been confirmed by the US military. 

3. South Korea has ended the search for nine bodies still missing from April’s ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people. 

4. In a newly-released recording, Ronald Reagan apologises to Margaret Thatcher for not consulting her about the 1983 invasion of Grenada, saying: “We regret very much the embarrassment that’s been caused to you, and I would like to tell you what the story is from our end.”

5. Catalan leader Artur Mas said he would push for a binding independence vote after preliminary results from Sunday’s symbolic referendum showed that 85% of voters supported breaking away from Spain.

6. Tuesday marks Singles Day in China, the world’s largest online shopping day of the year and the country’s anti-Valentine’s Day. 

7. Google is helping to fight Ebola by donating $2 for every dollar raised through its website.

8. Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm must pay his ex-wife close to $1 billion in the most expensive divorce in US history.

9. An Iranian copy of a US drone captured in 2011 has taken its first flight. 

10. A river of lava that has been creeping toward a Hawaiian town for months burned down the first home. 

And finally …

An extremely rare metal, reidite, was found in a 450-million-year-old crater in Wisconsin. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 NOV. 7, 2014

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Executive Vice President of airbag maker Takata Corporation Yoichiro Nomura attends a news conference in Tokyo, November 6, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Friday. 

1. The FBI arrested on Thursday the alleged operator of “deep web” drug marketplace Silk Road 2.0, former SpaceX employee Blake Benthall. 

2. A former safety expert for the European Space Agency told the Financial Times that Virgin Galactic, whose spacecraft exploded killing one pilot last week, did not have enough safety precautions in place. 

3. Honda has expanded its recall of Takata-made airbags — now among nearly 8 million cars made by 10 automakers — because the airbags can explode, causing shards of metal to fly out into the passenger compartment. 

4. In light of the recall, The New York Times reports that Takata allegedly deleted results from 2004 tests showing the potential risks of its airbags. 

5. Israel has reportedly banned entry visas to citizens of the three West African nations worst hit by Ebola, — Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea — according to Haaretz.

6. US President Barack Obama wrote a secret letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in October about fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, The Wall Street Journal reports. 

7. The European Central Bank said on Thursday that it’s prepared for further stimulus if it’s needed. 

8. Chinese officials bought so much illegal ivory on a visit to Tanzania in 2013 that local prices doubled, a report by Britain’s Environmental Investigation Agency has revealed. 

9.  Some military officials and SEALs have sounded doubts about former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill’s claim that he was the man who shot and killed Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden in 2011. 

10. Twitter is reportedly opening a new office in Hong Kong next year, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

And finally …

Here’s a Christmas ad that will make you cry. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

Dina Spector

 Nov. 4, 2014

REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

A researcher of the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) checks an Ebola diagnostic test in Marcoule, November 3, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Tuesday.

1.  In a tentative deal, Russia might convert Iran’s giant stockpile of uranium into fuel rods for the country’s only nuclear power plant, which would simultaneously relive Western concerns that the uranium could be used to make a nuclear weapon. 

2.  Iraq is on “high alert” for Jihadist attacks. 

3.  The former girlfriend of Rurik Jutting, the British banker suspected of killing two women in Hong Kong, claims he was suicidal
. 
4. French researchers have developed a 15-minute test for the Ebola virus, called eZyscreen, which uses a drop of blood or urine to quickly diagnose patients.

5. Taylor Swift had pulled all of her albums off Spotify, reportedly a move to boost CD sales to make the singer’s record label more attractive to potential buyers
. 
6. Venezuela announced it will raise the minimum wage by 15% starting in December to protect workers from runaway inflation.

7. The Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden has reportedly been identified and will be the subject of a Fox News documentary released later this month.

8. Canada launched its first airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq on Sunday. 


9. Germany’s Protectionist won Australia’s Melbourne Cup on Tuesday
. 
10. Bill Gates, who this year has donated $50 billion to fight Ebola and $200 million to combat malaria through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, warned that world is completely unprepared for epidemics
. 
And finally…
An Australian man jumped onto a whale as it was being eaten by sharks — and immediately regretted his decision. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

Dina Spector

Nov. 3, 2014

REUTERS/Kenneth Brown

The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket explodes in mid-air during a test flight above the Mojave Desert in California Oct. 31, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Monday.

1. Pro-Russian rebels in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk held elections on Sunday, the results of which have been declared a breach of constitutional law by the United Nations, but will be recognized by Russia.

2. German chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly warned British prime minister David Cameron that she would support a British exit from the European Union if Cameron attempted to restrict immigration within Europe.

3. Investigators of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crash are looking into the rocket’s fuel propulsion system, which used nitrous oxide rather than a traditional carbon-based fuel.

4. The latest report on climate change from the United Nations warns that failure to reduce emissions could change the climate so drastically it, “might become dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year,” The New York Times writes.

5. Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank has just ended what one analyst called “the mother of all IPOs.”

6.  Burkina Faso’s army pledged to install a unity government on Sunday, while taking over national television headquarters in the capital Ouagadougou.

7. China’s services sector hit a nine-month low in October.

8. A British banker has been charged with the murder of two women in Hong Kong.

9. Despite being thousands of miles from the outbreak, North Korea has imposed some of the world’s toughest measures against the Ebola virus.


10.  Wilson Kipsang, 32, from Kenya won first place in the New York City Marathon on Sunday with a time of time of 2 hours 10 minutes 59 seconds.

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOr 

REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

An Israeli policeman aims his weapon during clashes with Palestinians inside the old city of Jerusalem Oct. 30, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Friday.

1. The Bank of Japan unexpectedly announced Friday morning that it would ease monetary policy due to concerns about falling oil prices. 

2. Israel is reopening a holy site in Jerusalem, which was closed on Thursday for the first time in many years “after an Israeli counter-terrorism unit killed a Palestinian man suspected of trying the night before to assassinate a leading agitator for increased Jewish access to the site,” The New York Times explained. 

3. Sweden has become the largest European nation to recognize Palestine as a state. 

4.  A Human Rights Watch report released on Thursday describes a horrific incident in which ISIS militants lined up 600 Shia, Christian, and Yazidi male prisoners and executed them at point blank range. 

5. Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly come out as gay. 

6. After months of drawn-out negotiations, Russia has guaranteed it will deliver gas supplies to Ukraine through March. 

7. Andy Rubin, the Google executive who created Android, is out of the company. 

8. Doctors Without Borders warned that its “too early to draw conclusions” about the spread of Ebola following the World Health Organisation’s promising announcement that Ebola might be slowing down in Liberia. 

9. In an effort to curb climate change, Australia said it was going to pay companies to reduce emissions, a plan that has been harshly criticized as being ineffective. 

10. Beijing has banned the wearing of Halloween costumes on the subway because it might cause “panic.”

And finally…

People are upset that the mannequins at Top Shop have legs that are unrealistically thin. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 OCT. 30, 2014

REUTERS/Stringer

Rescue teams from the Sri Lankan military engage in rescue operation work at the site of a landslide at the Koslanda tea plantation in Badulla October 29, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Thursday.

1. The World Health Organization issued promising news about the state of Ebola,noting that the epidemic in Liberia “may be slowing down.”

2. A mudslide set off by monsoon rains may have been killed in hundreds in Sri Lanka.

3. NATO said on Wednesday afternoon that it has intercepted an unusually high number of Russian bomber planes over the Atlantic, Black Sea, and Baltic Sea over a 24-hour period since Tuesday.

4. OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla Salem el-Badri said he expects a sharp fall in US shale output if oil prices stay low. 

5. It could take months for investigators to determine what caused a rocket built by Orbital Sciences and carrying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station to blow up seconds after launch, obliterating an estimated $200 million in an instant.

6. Fiat Chrysler plans to spin-off Ferrari, its most valuable brand. 

7. Samsung posted a 49% drop in profit, the lowest in three years as the electronics maker loses its grip on the smartphone market. 

8. Former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan believes that the third installment of the government’s stimulus program, known as QE3, did not meet its goals, which he revealed after the Fed announced the program’s end on Wednesday.

9. US government officials have openly criticized Secretary of State John Kerry,comparing him to a lost astronaut in space because he often gets “out of sync with the White House in his public statements.” 

10. The San Francisco Giants won the World Series Wednesday night, beating the Kansas City Royals in Game 7. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 OCT. 29, 2014

REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

Tens of thousands of Hungarians hold up their mobile phones as they march across the Elisabeth Bridge during a protest against new tax on Internet data transfers in center of Budapest, Oct. 28, 2014.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Wednesday. 

1. An unmanned resupply rocket headed to the International Space Station blew up just a few seconds after launching in Virginia. 

2. Roughly 100,000 Hungarians gathered in central Budapest on Tuesday to protest a proposed tax on Internet data transfers, a levy that was reduced but not repealed after initial demonstrations on Sunday. 

3. Russia and Ukraine are set to hold negotiations on Wednesday over the delivery of winter gas supplies. 

4. Australia has angered health experts after calling for a full stop to the processing of visas from those West African nations worst hit by Ebola: Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.

5. Deutsche Bank, Germany’s top lender, reported a quarterly loss of € 92 million ($117 million) on Wednesday.

6. For the first time in history, the UK’s Disaster Emergency Committee has launched an appeal for a disease outbreak, declaring the Ebola epidemic in West Africa a humanitarian crisis. 

7. The US Federal Reserve is likely to announce the end of its quantitative easing stimulus program on Wednesday. 

8. Zambian president Michael Sata has died in London.

9. Despite reporting solid third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, Facebook stock tanked after management warned in an earnings called that new investments in 2015 will increase expenses.  

10. An unstoppable lava flow from Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano has reached the homes and businesses of Pahoa after advancing toward the community of 950 people for months. 

And finally…

Singapore, New Zealand, and Hong Kong have been named the top three spots to run a business by the World Bank.

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 OCT. 28, 2014

Reuters

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Tuesday.

1. Sweden just cut interest rates to zero. 

3. Lloyds banks has confirmed its plan to cut 9,000 jobs over the next three years and to close 200 branches.

3. The world population is growing so fast that not even another world war or a devastating pandemic would reduce the amount of people to sustainable numbers, a new study suggests.

4. A US nurse who was involuntarily quarantined in New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone is preparing to take legal action. 

5. The European stress test results published on Sunday had “isolated errors and inconsistencies,” The Wall Street Journal reports, including a mistake in reporting the key capital ratio of one Italian bank. 

6. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly had ankle surgery. 

7. The United States Postal Service has revealed that it “approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations,” The New York Times writes. 

8. Rob Ford’s brother, Doug Ford, was defeated by a moderate conservative in the Toronto mayoral election on Monday. 

9. Wal-Mart said it will not accept Apple Pay. 

10. British Prime Minister David Cameron is preparing to fight the European commission’s request to fork over £1.7 billion. 

And finally …

Six-year-olds in New York City now have a place to party at night. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 OCT. 27, 2014

REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Supporters of Brazil’s President and Workers’ Party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff, react to the first results of the Brazil general elections.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Monday.

1. Dilma Rousseff narrowly beat her rival Aécio Neves for another term as Brazil’s president. 

2. Investors have not taken the re-election news well. 

3. Twenty-five banks failed the European Central Bank’s stress test due to capital shortfalls.

4. Nine of those banks were in Italy.

5. Pro-western parties are expected to dominate Ukraine’s parliamentary elections in a show of support for new leader Petro Poroshenko.

6. Canadian authorities say Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman who killed a solider in Ottawa before opening fire in the Parliament building, made a video recording of himself before the attack. 

7. South African soccer captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead Sunday night by intruders, police say.

8. After 10 years, US and British forces officially ended military operations in the the Afghan province of Helmand, allowing Afghan’s army to take control of two camps. 

9. Thousands of Hungarians protested in Budapest on Sunday over a proposed Internet tax on data transfers.

10. Criticism of the US government’s response to Ebola has reached new heights after Kaci Hickox, a 33-year-old nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, expressed anger after being subjected to a state-imposed quarantine at New Jersey’s Newark Airport even though she did not show symptoms. 

And finally …

In the wake of Tesco’s massive profit scandal and lagging sales, new CEO Dave Lewis kicked off the company’s turnaround by taking a crew of senior execs on an overnight trip to a remote cottage, where they were ordered to shop at a local Tesco and then prepare food from the purchased groceries. “It’s been a very frenetic time and I wanted to get to know the people and talk about where the business was and where it was heading,” Lewis told The Guardian.

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 OCT. 24, 2014

New York Post/YouTube

Crews in protective suits at Bellevue Hospital

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Friday.

1. The US military said Thursday that forces in Iraq are “months away from being able to start waging any kind of sustained ground offensive against the Islamic State,” Reuters reports.

2. A doctor who traveled to the Ebola-stricken country of Guinea and then returned to New York has been place in isolation after testing positive for Ebola. 

3. Canadian authorities said the gunman who killed a solider at Ottawa’s war memorial before being shot dead in the Parliament building was not identified as a threat, “despite his criminal record in three cities, embrace of extremist ideas and intent to travel to Syria,” The New York Times reports.

4. The 58-year-old guard credited with killing the man who opened fire in Canada’s parliament on Wednesday morning recieved a hero’s welcome when he returned to work the following day.

5. North Korea has banned tourists from entering the country over concerns about the spread of Ebola. 

6. The UK has been ordered to pay an extra €2.1 billion to the EU budget by December “because the UK economy is doing better relative to other European economies,” The Guardian writes.

7. Venezuela has placed fingerprint scanners in grocery stores to ration food as shortages of basic goods, like cooking oil and milk, worsen. 

8. Following a four-day plenary meeting, China’s Communist Party unveiled a blueprint for legal reforms as part of its push to stamp out government corruption. 

9. The European Central Bank will release stress test results for 130 eurozone banks on Sunday, with many banks are expected to fail. 

10. Chinese housing prices fell for the fifth consecutive month in September, continuing the country’s real estate decline.  

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

 OCT. 23, 2014

NIAID / Flickr

Ebola virus.

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Thursday. 

1. Much of downtown Ottawa was on lockdown on Wednesday after a gunman, identified as Canadian Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, shot and killed a soldier at the National War Memorial on Parliament Hill. 

2. Russian prosecutors have detained four Moscow airport workers, which officials say might be responsible for the plane crash that killed the CEO of French oil giant Total, 63-year-old Christophe de Margerie. 

3. The World Health Organization updated its Ebola figures, warning that the virus could infect 10,000 people in West Africa by early December, while a total of 4,877 people have died from Ebola so far. 

4. The National Institutes of Health has begun early human testing of an Ebola vaccine, called VSV-ZEBOV. 

5. Tesco, the world’s second-largest retailer, confirmed on Thursday that its first half pre-tax profit had been overstated by £263 million and announced that chairman Sir Richard Broadbent would step down. 

6. US-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria have killed 553 people over the last month, with most of the dead being members of the terrorist group. 

7. Swedish forces are still hunting for what it believes are mysterious foreign vessels illegally operating in its waters. 

8. Britain’s National Health System says it needs an extra £8 billion a year after warning of a £30 billion annual shortfall that would develop by 2020. 

9. Apple said the company will open 25 stores in China within the next two years. 

10. Scientists have unraveled the oldest DNA ever, which comes from the femur of a man who died around 45,000 years ago.

And finally…

Mark Zuckerberg speaks Mandarin. 

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

DINA SPECTOR

OCT. 22, 2014

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know for Wednesday.

1. Islamic State militants continue to shell the Syrian town of Kobani after US aircraft drop weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies to Kurdish forces there. 

2. The World Health Organization said its fast-tracking the testing of two experimental vaccines for Ebola, which could be ready for use on 20,000 health workers in Liberia by January, The Guardian reports. 

3. A televised first meeting between student leaders of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and government officials showed little progress.  

4. A new poll showed Wednesday that Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff gained 1 percentage point on her pro-business candidate Aecio Neves, ahead of the Oct. 26 runoff to the presidential election.  

5. Traders say three major changes — stablizing energy stocks, a possible delay in US interest rate hikes, and subsiding panic over Ebola — have sent markets surging back. 

6. Swedish forces reported two new sightings of unidentified vessels in its waters. 

7. South African athlete Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years in jail for shooting and killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. 

8. After reporting a drop in global same-store sales of 3.3% in the last quarter, McDonald’s has unveiled a plan to get the burger chain back on top, including “going back to the basics.“

9. Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes, will make $780 million by selling off its stake in Tesla.

10. Ben Bradlee, the legendary Washington Post editor who oversaw the newspaper’s covers of the Watergate scandal, died on Tuesday at the age of 93.

And finally…

Sleeping lions have nabbed first place in London’s Natural History Museum’s wildlife photographer of the year 2014 competition.