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Israel marks first anniversary of Hamas attacks

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Israel marks first anniversary of Hamas attacks

This article is an on-site version of our The Week Ahead newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Sunday. Explore all of our newsletters here

Hello and welcome to the working week.

It is going to be a difficult start to the next seven days for many as Israel marks the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks when more than 1,200 people were killed and 251 people were taken hostage. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and military leaders hit back and the conflict has escalated over the past 12 months.

But on Monday, people will stop to remember. Thousands of Israelis are expected to pay their respects at the Nova Music Festival memorial, the location of a rave where Hamas killed 364 and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff a year ago. Others will travel to Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, where families and supporters have campaigned for the release of those taken. Memorials will be held in various communities that lost neighbours and relatives in the attacks, notably Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 100 people were killed and 32 taken hostage.

On a more uplifting track, this week will bring rolling announcements on the winners of this year’s six Nobel Prizes. Given the war in the Middle East and beyond, interest in the Peace Prize, announced on Friday, is likely to be high.

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The corporate world takes up a lot of the news diary slack this week as we find ourselves deep in the earnings season. The big moment will be the Wall Street banks, which begin reporting on Friday. I’m not sure they will be mentioning this, but I’d recommend reading the excellent analysis of the rise of secretive trading firms such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities by US banking editor Joshua Franklin.

And then there is the long-awaited Robotaxi launch event by Tesla in Los Angeles on Thursday. What will they cost? When will they be ready to hit the streets? And does this mean Tesla owners can list their cars to be used for ride-hailing? All important questions.

Economic data is on the thin side this week, with US and German inflation figures and a UK monthly GDP estimate about the best of it. More details below.

One more thing . . . 

The matter of Parkrun is also a cause of division, but thank you to everyone who got in contact about it to share your passion for getting your running shoes on or about other group outdoor pursuits. Saturday will bring an outdoor event I could get into: The Peckham Conker Championships. Organisers are promising a 22-carat golden conker — I think it may be spray painted — but it does sound fun.

I’m interested in your priorities for the week ahead. Drop me a line at jonathan.moules@ft.com or, if you are reading this from your inbox, hit reply. And have a good week.

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Key economic and company reports

Here is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.

Monday

  • Germany: August manufacturing, new orders and sales index

  • UK: Halifax House Price Index

  • Results: Ferrexpo Q3 production report, Grainger trading statement, Repsol trading statement, Shell Q3 quarterly update

Tuesday

  • October Prime Day, a global ecommerce shopping event by Amazon, offering deals to its Prime members in 19 countries

  • Germany: August industrial production index

  • UK: British Retail Consortium-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor

  • Results: Imperial Brands pre-close trading update, OMV Q3 trading update, PepsiCo Q3, S&U HY, Unite Group trading update, XP Power Q3 trading update

Wednesday

  • Witan Investment Trust hold a second general meeting of shareholders to vote on the proposed winding-up of the company and combination with Alliance Trust. If approved, the deal is expected to complete shortly after the meeting by means of a voluntary liquidation of the company and combination of the two companies to create Alliance Witan

  • US: Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes published

  • Results: CMC Markets HY pre-close trading update, Marston’s trading update

Thursday

  • Tesla due to unveil its Robotaxi, a launch event postponed, according to post on X (formerly Twitter) by chief executive Elon Musk, because of a design change

  • UK: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Residential Market Survey

  • US: September consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate data

  • Results: Delta Air Lines Q3, Domino’s Pizza Q3, Fast Retailing FY, Liontrust Asset Management HY trading update, Seven & i Holdings Q2, Tata Consultancy Services Q2, Treatt FY trading update, Volution Group FY

Friday

  • Germany: final September CPI and Harmonized Consumer Price Index inflation rate measures

  • UK: August GDP estimate

  • US: September producer price index (PPI) inflation rate data. Plus, University of Michigan consumer sentiment index

  • Results: Bank of New York Mellon Q3, BlackRock Q3, Hays Q1 trading update, JPMorgan Chase Q3, Jupiter Fund Management Q3 trading update, Wells Fargo Q3

World events

Finally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week.

Monday

  • Israel: first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel that caused more than 1,200 deaths with hundreds taken hostage

  • Laos: Asean Business and Investment Summit bringing together more than 1,000 CEOs and senior executives with world leaders begins, running alongside the Asean Summit

  • Philippines: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol meets President Ferdinand Marcos Jr for bilateral talks in Manila. The two are expected to sign an agreement and issue joint statements after the meeting

  • Sweden: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine announced, the first of several science prizes that will be given out over the coming todays. Tomorrow is physics, followed by chemistry on Wednesday

Tuesday

  • Luxembourg: Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) meeting of EU finance ministers.

  • UK: Alexander Darwall and his wife Diana Darwall bring an appeal against the decision of the UK Court of Appeal that the Dartmoor National Park Authority can allow wild camping in the national park. The Darwalls own the 4,000-acre Blachford Estate in Dartmoor and previously won a High Court case ruling that there was no right to wild camp on Dartmoor without the landowner’s permission. The Court of Appeal overturned that decision

  • US: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump participates in a town hall presented by Spanish-language network Univision

Wednesday

  • 150th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union under the Treaty of Bern, which unified a complex maze of postal services and regulations into a single postal territory and allowed for the growth of global post deliveries

  • Mozambique: presidential and parliamentary elections

  • UK: Conservative MPs start voting to determine the final two candidates vying to become the party’s next leader, after Rishi Sunak announced his resignation in the wake of the party’s heavy general election defeat. The outcome is announced tomorrow. Party members will then vote on these two options

Thursday

  • World Mental Health Day, raising public awareness about mental health issues

  • Sweden: Nobel Prize for Literature announced

  • UK: Unleashed, a memoir of former prime minister Boris Johnson, is published. The pre-publication publicity promises revelations on campaigning for Brexit, how he nearly died from Covid-19, bikes, buses and the London Olympics

  • US: President Joe Biden begins trip to Germany and Angola

  • US: Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris participates in a town hall presented by Spanish-language network Univision

Friday

  • Greece: government due to present a revised national climate plan, with more ambitious targets for the share of renewable power in its electricity mix and lower carbon emissions

  • Sweden: Nobel Peace Prize winner announced

Saturday

  • Spain: National Day, aka Dia de la Hispanidad, commemorating the day in 1492 when Christopher Columbus caught sight of the New World. Includes annual military parade in Madrid

  • UK: Peckham’s annual conker championship returns

Sunday

  • China: publishes September CPI and PPI inflation rate figures

  • Lithuania: parliamentary elections

  • UK: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s first 100 days in office

  • US: John Donahoe retires as Nike president and chief executive. Elliott Hill succeeds him tomorrow

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Amazon accused of listing products from independent shops without permission

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Amazon accused of listing products from independent shops without permission

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Amazon has been accused of listing products from independent retailers without their consent, even as the ecommerce giant sues start-up Perplexity over its AI software shopping without permission.

The $2.5tn online retailer has listed some independent shops’ full inventory on its platform without seeking permission, four business owners told the Financial Times, enabling customers to shop through Amazon rather than buy directly.

Two independent retailers told the FT that they had also received orders for products that were either out of stock or were mispriced and mislabelled by Amazon leading to customer complaints.

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“Nobody opted into this,” said Angie Chua, owner of Bobo Design Studio, a stationery store based in Los Angeles.

Tech companies are experimenting with artificial intelligence “agents” that can perform tasks like shopping autonomously based on user instructions.

Amazon has blocked agents from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and a host of other AI start-ups from its website.

It filed a lawsuit in November against Perplexity, whose Comet browser was making purchases on Amazon on behalf of users, alleging that the company’s actions risked undermining user privacy and violated its terms of service.

In its complaint, Amazon said Perplexity had taken steps “without prior notice to Amazon and without authorisation” and that it degraded a customer shopping experience it had invested in over several decades.

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Perplexity in a statement at the time said that the lawsuit was a “bully tactic” aimed at scaring “disruptive companies like Perplexity” from improving customers’ experience.

The recent complaints against Amazon relate to its “Buy for Me” function, launched last April, which lets some customers purchase items that are not listed with Amazon but on other retailers’ sites.

Retailers said Amazon did not seek their permission before sending them orders that were placed on the ecommerce site. They do not receive the user’s email address or other information that might be helpful for generating future sales, several sellers told the FT.

“We consciously avoid Amazon because our business is rooted in community and building a relationship with customers,” Chua said. “I don’t know who these customers are.”

Several of the independent retailers said Amazon’s move had led to poor experiences for customers, or hurt their business.

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Sarah Hitchcock Burzio, the owner of Hitchcock Paper Co. in Virginia, said that Amazon had mislabelled items leading to a surge in orders as customers believed they were receiving more expensive versions of a product at a much lower price.

“There were no guardrails set up so when there were issues there was nobody I could go to,” she said.

Product returns and complaints for the “Buy for Me” function are handled by sellers rather than Amazon, even when errors are produced by the Seattle-based group.

Amazon enables sellers to opt out of the service by contacting the company on a specific email address.

Amazon said: “Shop Direct and Buy for Me are programmes we’re testing that help customers discover brands and products not currently sold in Amazon’s store, while helping businesses reach new customers and drive incremental sales.

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“We have received positive feedback on these programmes. Businesses can opt out at any time.”

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Trump says Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to US | CNN Business

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Trump says Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to US | CNN Business

President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, to be sold at market value and with the proceeds controlled by the US.

Interim authorities in Venezuela will turn over “sanctioned oil” Trump said on Truth Social.

The US will use the proceeds “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” he wrote.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been directed to “execute this plan, immediately,” and the barrels “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

CNN has reached out to the White House for more information.

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A senior administration official, speaking under condition of anonymity, told CNN that the oil has already been produced and put in barrels. The majority of it is currently on boats and will now go to US facilities in the Gulf to be refined.

Although 30 to 50 million barrels of oil sounds like a lot, the United States consumed just over 20 million barrels of oil per day over the past month.

That amount may lower oil prices a bit, but it probably won’t lower Americans’ gas prices that much: Former President Joe Biden released about four to six times as much — 180 million barrels of oil — from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022, which lowered gas prices by only between 13 cents and 31 cents a gallon over the course of four months, according to a Treasury Department analysis.

US oil fell about $1 a barrel, or just under 2%, to $56, immediately after Trump made his announcement on Truth Social.

Selling up to 50 million barrels could raise quite a bit of revenue: Venezuelan oil is currently trading at $55 per barrel, so if the United States can find buyers willing to pay market price, it could raise between $1.65 billion and $2.75 billion from the sale.

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Venezuela has built up significant stockpiles of crude over since the United States began its oil embargo late last year. But handing over that much oil to the United States may deplete Venezuela’s own oil reserves.

The oil is almost certainly coming from both its onshore storage and some of the seized tankers that were transporting oil: The country has about 48 million barrels of storage capacity and was nearly full, according to Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group. The tankers were transporting about 15 million to 22 million barrels of oil, according to industry estimates.

It’s unclear over what time period Venezuela will hand over the oil to the United States.

The senior administration official said the transfer would happen quickly because Venezuela’s crude is very heavy, which means it can’t be stored for long.

But crude does not go bad if it is not refined in a certain amount of time, said Andrew Lipow, the president of Lipow Oil Associates, in a note. “It has sat underground for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, much of the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been around for decades,” he wrote.

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Video: Nvidia Shows Off New A.I. Chip at CES

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Video: Nvidia Shows Off New A.I. Chip at CES

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Nvidia Shows Off New A.I. Chip at CES

At the annual tech conference, CES, Nvidia showed off a new A.I. chip, known as Vera Rubin, which is more efficient and powerful than previous generations of chips.

This is the Vera CPU. This is one CPU. This is groundbreaking work. I would not be surprised if the industry would like us to make this format and this structure an industry standard in the future. Today, we’re announcing Alpamayo, the world’s first thinking, reasoning autonomous vehicle A.I.

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At the annual tech conference, CES, Nvidia showed off a new A.I. chip, known as Vera Rubin, which is more efficient and powerful than previous generations of chips.

By Jiawei Wang

January 6, 2026

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