Wednesday Morning Briefing: The Federal Reserve expected to raise interest rates

Highlights

The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates today. Investors widely expect borrowing costs to be lifted by a quarter of a percentage point, making it the fourth rate hike of the year. But it may cut the number of increases it anticipates next year and signal an earlier end to its monetary tightening in the face of financial market volatility and rising recession fears.

A bipartisan criminal justice legislation has passed through the Senate. Long in the making, the “First Step Act” seeks to ease the way for some prisoners to win early release to halfway houses or home confinement. President Trump congratulated the Senate on passing the bill and said he looked forward to signing it into law.

The first of Elon Musk's Los Angeles-area tunnels has been unveiled. The billionaire entrepreneur made a brief public appearance late on Tuesday to unveil the first tunnel completed by the underground transit venture he launched two years ago as an ambitious remedy to Los Angeles’ infamously heavy traffic.

Facebook denies that it shared data without user permission. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the social network allowed Microsoft's Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users' friends without their consent, citing documents from 2017, and allegedly gave companies like Netflix and Spotify the ability to read users’ private messages.

World

Today marks 100 days until Brexit, and the United Kingdom is on the brink of leaving the European Union without a divorce deal. This would be a nightmare scenario for many businesses. The heads of Britain’s five biggest business lobby groups have said some businesses are triggering contingency plans, though hundreds of thousands have yet to start planning. Makers of Scotch whisky, Britain biggest food and drink export, have said it is imperative that lawmakers work quickly to avoid crashing out of the European Union without a deal.

The European Union has agreed to ban throw-away plastics by 2021. Negotiators from the European Parliament and the 28 EU countries agreed a list of 10 single-use plastic products with readily available alternatives that will be banned, including cotton buds, cutlery and straws. Producers of tobacco filters containing plastic will also have to cover the costs for public collection of cigarette stubs.

Commentary: Yemen peace efforts miss a critical factor. Yemen's warring parties made encouraging progress in their latest peace talks. But their efforts overlook a critical strategy - the inclusion of women, write Council on Foreign Relations' senior fellows Jamille Bigio and Rachel Vogelstein. "Research suggests that when women participate in a peace process, the resulting agreement is 64 percent less likely to fail and 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years."

Aung San Suu Kyi was once a global hero. Today, her reputation is tarnished. What happened? A Nobel Peace Prize winner, she emerged from years of house arrest a near-mythical figure and was swept into power in a landslide 2015 election. Reuters speaks to friends, advisers, diplomats and long-time observers of Myanmar’s leader in a virtual history of her life.

 

Two @Reuters journalists have been imprisoned in Myanmar since Dec. 12, 2017. See our full coverage: https://reut.rs/2Eu9FL6

12:14 AM - 19 Dec 2018

Africa

Farmers and headers are gripped in conflict in Nigeria's Middle Belt. The country's growing population and government efforts to diversify the economy away from reliance on oil has caused massive expansion of farming, cutting access to grazing land for nomadic herders. This is fuelling persistent violence as they vie for resources. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, clashes have killed more people in 2018 than the conflict involving Boko Haram.

Dozens have been killed in ethnic clashes in Congo. Fighting in the northwestern province of Mai-Ndombe is some of the worst violence to hit the normally peaceful part of the country. It comes days before Sunday’s long-delayed presidential election, which many fear could turn violent.

South Africa issues arrest warrant for Grace Mugabe over an alleged assault. Zimbabwe’s former first lady allegedly assaulted model Gabriella Engels with an electric cable in an upmarket district of Johannesburg last year. Mrs Mugabe was seen as a potential successor to her 94-year-old husband Robert, who ruled Zimbabwe from 1980 until he was ousted in a coup late last year.

Business

SoftBank telco suffers $9 billion slump on debut after record IPO

The company's shares tumbled more than 14 percent as investor appetite was hurt by a recent service outage and worries over its exposure to Chinese telecoms gear maker Huawei. Such a debut is uncommon in the Japanese IPO market.

2 Min Read

German security office warns German firms about Chinese hacking

Germany’s Office for Information Security has issued warnings to several German firms named by the United States as possible victims of hacking attacks, a newspaper reported, adding that Chinese activity against German firms had increased.

3 min read

Estonia makes first arrests over Danske money laundering

“Six people had been detained by the criminal police on Tuesday and an additional four on Wednesday morning,” the Estonian prosecutor said. Authorities are investigating payments totaling $229 billion made through the Danish bank’s Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015.

2 min read

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Judge delays fate of ex-Trump aide Flynn

Belgian leader offers resignation to king