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Lawmakers voted 432-202 against the Brexit divorce deal just 10 weeks before it is due to leave. It is the worst defeat in modern British history causing political chaos that could lead to a disorderly exit from the EU or even a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave.

President Donald Trump urged Congress to give him $5.7 billion this year to help build a wall on the US border with Mexico however he did not declare a national emergency to pay for the barrier with military funds. Trump said in his first prime-time address from the Oval office that there was a growing security and humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border.

US manufacturing activity slowed sharply to a two-year low in December as orders and hiring at factories plunged. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey published on Thursday, offered a downbeat assessment of the manufacturing sector with almost all components declining last month.

On Tuesday the US Federal Reserve kicked off a two-day monetary policy meeting. The FED stuck to its plan of withdrawing support to the economy and raised interest rates for the fourth time this year pushing the central bank’s key overnight lending rate to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent.

Theresa May postponed a parliamentary vote which she admitted she would lose. A day after withdrawing the vote in the face of hostility from lawmakers, Prime Minister Theresa May sought Angela Merkel’s support to save her Brexit deal ….

In a meeting in Vienna, on Thursday OPEC agreed on a tentative deal to cut oil output but was waiting for a commitment from non-OPEC Russia before deciding on the exact volumes for a production reduction with the aim to stop oil prices from falling, said two sources from the group.

The world’s biggest economies, the Group of 20 Nations (G20) are meeting on 30th November and 1st December in Argentina with the trade war between Washington and Beijing on top of the agenda. Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia are all present and oil policy is expected to be discussed.

Bitcoin has plummeted more than 75 percent this year from a peak of $20,000 reached in December 2017. On Tuesday Bitcoin reached its lowest level this year, tumbling as much as 10 percent breaching the $4,300 and taking losses in the world’s best-known digital coin to 25 percent within a week.

May formally started on the Brexit divorce in March 2017 negotiating on everything from space exploration, fishing territories, selling complex financial products and the future of the border with Ireland. After more than a year of talks Britain agreed a draft divorce deal with the European Union.

In mid-term elections two years after winning the White House, Trump and his fellow Republicans expanded their majority in the US Senate following a divisive campaign marked by fierce clashes over race, immigration and other cultural issues.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed on Monday she would not seek re-election as chairwoman of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in December, starting the beginning of the end of her 13-year era in European politics.

More than $6.7 trillion in value has been wiped off the global equity-market capitalization since late September, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, compared with $7.8 trillion in the February correction.