While the world was watching votes roll in from the U.S. election early Wednesday morning, Ethiopia was sliding into what could be a devastating civil war.
The big picture: The conflict is between Ethiopia's federal government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and leaders in the northern Tigray region. It's part of a broader struggle over who really holds power in Ethiopia.
A new(ish) International Energy Agency analysis outlines the importance — and immense challenge — of China's pledge to become "carbon neutral" by 2060.
Why it matters: Its recommendations get to the scope of the tech deployment needed, and what a seismic shift it would represent for China's economy.
European leaders are learning that the longer you wait to address the coronavirus, the harsher the mitigation measures to address an exponentially growing caseload must be.
Driving the news: Much of Italy will be placed under a strict lockdown as of Friday in the most drastic steps the country has taken to fight the coronavirus since it led the world into lockdown nearly eight months ago, Axios' Dave Lawler reports.
Much of Italy will be placed under a strict lockdown as of Friday in the most drastic steps the country has taken to fight the coronavirus since it led the world into lockdown nearly eight months ago.
The big picture: Italy managed to keep the spread of the virus largely under control for months after a brutal first wave. But like much of Europe, it's currently recording unprecedented daily case counts and scrambling to avoid a return to overcrowded hospitals and climbing death tolls in the coming weeks.
While Joe Biden and Donald Trump were giving their initial election night reactions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ordering ministers from his Likud party to refrain from any public statements on the vote, two ministers tell me.
Why it matters: Netanyahu has closer relations with Trump than any other world leader, but he doesn't want to give even the slightest impression that he's taking sides before the results are final, Israeli officials told me.
Jack Ma is brilliant. He's innovative. He's one of the world's richest men, and even has a lovely singing voice.
Driving the news: He also made one of the weightiest unforced errors in the history of global business, scuttling what was expected to be a $35 billion IPO for Chinese financial services company Ant Group.
China's suspension of Ant Group’s $35 billion IPO is "just the beginning of a renewed campaign by China to rein in the fintech empire controlled by Jack Ma," Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Details: "Authorities are now setting their sights on Ant’s biggest source of revenue: its credit platforms that funnel loans from banks and other financial institutions to millions of consumers across China," the article noted, citing unnamed sources.
Here's why Ant Group's IPO was pulled on Tuesday: It is one of the most systemically important financial institutions in the world, and at the moment it's barely regulated.
The big picture: Ant provides the technology that powers much of the Chinese economy, from borrowing to saving to investments to insurance. A failure of its systems could have devastating consequences for hundreds of millions of people.
