While the holiday spirit will dominate the news agenda, there are notable developments to watch across the world, as the three defining themes of 2024 — elections, war and inflation — continue to hum in the background.

On Tuesday, Moldova’s pro-EU president-elect Maia Sandu will attend her inauguration. Her narrow election victory in October, despite alleged Russian meddling in the process, will set the former Soviet country on a path to EU membership.

Georgia, on the other hand, will on Sunday swear in Mikheil Kavelashvili to the presidency, a pro-Russian firebrand and Croatia will hold a first-round presidential vote on Sunday.

On Monday, Mozambique’s top court is set to give a verdict on the country’s disputed election in October, while Albanian opposition parties block roads demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation

Bank of Japan governor Kazuo Ueda will deliver a speech on Christmas Day. Economists will pore over his words for clues on how president-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs will affect the pace and trajectory of monetary policy.

UK third-quarter GDP figures will be out on Monday, after months of disappointing economic releases for chancellor Rachel Reeves.

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The suspect, identified as 33-year-old Sebastin Zapeta, is believed to have entered the US from Guatemala approximately a year ago. It remains unclear whether he entered the country legally or illegally.

During a press conference Sunday evening, New York Police Department (NYPD) officials, including Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, explained, “As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim. The female victim was in a seated position.”

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“The suspect used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds.”

Officers on patrol at the station were alerted to the situation by the smell and sight of smoke. While responding at the scene, they discovered a person inside the train car fully engulfed in flames. The fire was extinguished with assistance from an MTA employee using a fire extinguisher. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Elon Musk and Mayor Eric Adams condemns subway attack

Zapeta remained at the scene after the incident. He was found seated on a bench outside the train car. Body-worn cameras worn by responding officers captured clear footage of the suspect. Tisch noted, “Body-worn cameras on the responding officers produced a clear and detailed look at the killer.”

Following the release of the suspect’s description and photographs to the public, three high school students recognized the man and called 911. Transit officers confirmed the description and located the suspect on a moving train. The train was stopped at the next station, where officers boarded, identified the man, and arrested him without further incident.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams expressed his condolences to the victim’s family, calling the attack a “senseless killing.”

“Grateful to the young New Yorkers and transit officers who stepped up to help our NYPD make a quick arrest following this morning’s heinous and deadly subway attack. This type of depraved behaviour has no place in our subways, and we are committed to working hard to ensure there is swift justice for all victims of violent crime.”

Tesla boss Elon Musk also took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his frustration. “Enough is enough,” he posted, along with the Guatemala migrant’s subway CCTV shot.

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Donald Trump has tapped Stephen Miran, an economist who served during his first term, to chair his Council of Economic Advisers.

With the nomination, the president-elect is seeking to elevate to a White House economic post not only a critic of Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell but one who has accused the Biden administration of manipulating the economy and “usurping” the central bank’s role.

“Steve will work with the rest of my Economic Team to deliver a Great Economic Boom that lifts up all Americans,” Trump said in a statement on Sunday.

Miran was a senior adviser for economic policy at the Treasury department in the first Trump administration.

Currently a senior strategist at hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital Management, he said he was honoured. “I look forward to working to help implement the President’s policy agenda to create a booming, noninflationary economy that brings prosperity to all Americans!” he posted on X.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers is a three-person group that advises the president on economic policy.

Trump has threatened US trading partners, vowing to impose sweeping tariffs, including 25 per cent levies on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10 per cent on China’s imports, on his first day in office.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to impose blanket levies of 20 per cent on all US imports, as well as tariffs of 60 per cent on those from China, suggesting his second-term policies could be more protectionist and disruptive to the global economy and markets than his first.

The president-elect has also pledged to renew tax cuts he enacted during his first spell in the White House.

Earlier this year, Miran co-wrote a paper accusing Biden’s Treasury department of manipulating the economy during the election, arguing the government’s dependence on short-term debt amounted to “stealth quantitative easing and impedes the Fed’s ability to fight inflation.

“By adjusting the maturity profile of its debt issuance, Treasury is dynamically managing financial conditions and, through them, the economy, usurping core functions of the Federal Reserve”, he wrote with economist Nouriel Roubini.

“We dub this novel tool ‘activist Treasury issuance,’ or ATI. By manipulating the amount of interest-rate risk owned by investors, ATI works through the same channels as the Fed’s quantitative easing programs.”

In FT Alphaville last year, Miran co-authored a piece warning against the perils of a two-tier bond market, which “would impair Treasuries’ ability to serve as risk-free collateral underpinning the global financial system” and bring to the US the chaos of a defaulting emerging economy.

Miran has also hit out at Powell for urging more aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus in October 2020, about a month before that year’s election, to aid the economic recovery amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Powell was wrong politically and economically when he urged Congress to ‘go big’ on fiscal stimulus in October of 2020, on the eve of a Presidential election, suggesting that voters favour Democrats’ $3 trillion proposals over Republicans’ $500 billion”, Miran wrote on X in September. “We know what happened next.”

Miran must be confirmed by the US Senate.

Last month, Trump named Kevin Hassett as chair of the National Economic Council.