Here we grow 💪🇬🇧

Good news. Some reassuring news last week, experts at the University of Oxford found us a potential Earth 2.0. In true Oxford character, they adorably named the planet ‘HD 20794 d’, and discovered that it operates in the “habitable zone” - just the right distance from its star to sustain water.

Only downside is it exists 20 light years away - as soon as we can travel at the speed of light, the journey will take a whole 20 years at best. Don’t expect too much too soon, yesterday, America pulled the annual groundhog out of a hole to ask the weather forecast.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: AstraZeneca (AZN), GSK (GSK), Diageo (DGE), Hargreaves Lansdowne (HL.).

Notable US earnings this week: Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Merck & Company (MRK), Alibaba (BABA).

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PROJECT WATCH

🏗️ Sisk wins £300m contract to build new cancer centre at Great Ormond St. Read more

🏗️ McLaren wins £60m contract for London hub redevelopment. Read more

🌊 UK offshore wind win for TGS. Read more

ECONOMY & FINANCE

UK growth strategy in a nutshell
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor with a penchant for big promises, has unveiled an ambitious blueprint to dig the UK’s economy out of its slump. Centring her strategy on infrastructure, Reeves declared war on stagnation, proposing projects from a third Heathrow runway to transforming the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor into "Europe’s Silicon Valley". Critics, though, are circling like a Heathrow departure queue, ready to pounce on the thornier details.

Dubbed "stronger than ever", the Heathrow expansion—parliamentarily approved back in 2018 but endlessly rerouted by legal turbulence—has roared back into the headlines, despite the many protests stuck on its metaphorical runway. Reeves insists a third runway will unlock lucrative growth, galvanise exports, and keep London buzzing as a global hub.

Elsewhere, Old Trafford—once home to the 'Theatre of Dreams' and, of late, many nightmares for Manchester United fans—may be set for a supporting role in Reeves’ plans. Collaborating with Mayor Andy Burnham, the government is eyeing a major redevelopment of the area to create housing, transport links, and entertainment hotspots.

Meanwhile, Reeves dreams of Silicon Valley-style innovation on home turf. A glitzy corridor between Oxford and Cambridge gets top billing, with an East-West Rail project linking the two academic juggernauts. Backing high-tech ventures here could inject £78 billion into the economy by 2035.

Tesco: Every job cut helps
Tesco, the supermarket giant, announced plans to cut 400 jobs across stores and head office operations as part of a much-touted “efficiency programme”.

These cuts come fresh off Tesco boasting its “biggest ever” Christmas takings, with UK sales up 4% in the lead-up to the festive season. It also remains comfortably perched at the top of the UK grocery market share—because nothing says dominant quite like slicing through the workforce after celebrating record-breaking sales. With 1,000 existing vacancies, there’s an element of corporate musical chairs.

POLITICS

The Chagos tango and diplomatic dances
Sir Keir Starmer picked up the diplomatic hotline on Friday, dialling Mauritius’ PM Navin Ramgoolam to chat about the Chagos Islands—specifically Diego Garcia, home to a key UK-US military base. This isn’t your average beachfront resort; it’s a vital geopolitical chess piece that everyone’s keen to protect.

Starmer wants to ensure the base remains secure and free from malign influences (code for: no unwanted guests meddling in military matters). Ramgoolam, however, isn’t rushing to ink any deals. Since taking office, he's ordered a second look at the preliminary agreement made with the UK under his predecessor—because nothing says diplomacy like a few rounds of document redrafting.

Negotiations to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius have been ongoing since 2022. The plan? The UK hands over sovereignty but leases Diego Garcia back for a cool £90m a year—secured for 99 years. Basically, it’s the property equivalent of saying, “You can have it back... but we're keeping the best room.”

For Chagossians—many of whom were displaced decades ago and have long fought to return to their homeland—this latest diplomatic flurry is a mix of hope and frustration. They’ve seen promises before, only to be left with bitter aftertaste. As the talks continue, the future of Diego Garcia and its lagoon-adjacent military base remains a high-stakes balancing act between Mauritius, the UK, and the US.

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ACROSS THE POND

Feeling supersonic?
In a nostalgic nod to the era of the Concorde, Boom Supersonic's XB-1 demonstrator has smashed through the sound barrier above California’s Mojave Desert. Peaking at Mach 1.1, this flight marks the first time in over two decades that a passenger prototype has flirted with the speed of sound (Mach 1, 770mph). This high-speed romp is a significant step for the Denver-based enterprise aiming to restore the thrill of supersonic travel—a full two decades after the Concorde's swan song had us longing for swifter skies.

To the Americans, this breakthrough is not just about speed. It’s a statement, a red, white, and blue nudge saying “let’s not be left at the departure gate” in the race for tech supremacy.

Zuck’s crackdown on leaks, leaks
Irony at its finest. Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has found itself red-faced. This week, Meta threatened its staff with the sack should any more of its secret squirrel updates find their way into the open. The result? The memo itself leaked, taking the scenic route into the public domain.

Zuckerberg, the captain steering the social media ship, appears to have mistakenly left the porthole wide open, letting the memo drift into the headlines. Who would've thought that a company's attempt to plug leaks could become newsworthy spillage itself?

The Trump tariff train sets off
Donald Trump is back at it, shoving tariffs up against Canadian, Mexican, and Chinese goods. This new strategy sees tariffs of 25% on Canadian and Mexican imports and a cheeky 10% extra on Chinese goods from this Tuesday.

In a bold move, Canada, Mexico, and China aren’t taking this lying down in a passive-aggressive queue. They're preparing to don their retaliatory battle gear, with financial analysts advising from behind their decaf lattes that this could spark significant price hikes. This circus of tariffs has economists crooning that cars, booze, and building materials will play a merry tune of inflationary woe.

TECH

Spyware Shenanigans—WhatsApp WhatsApps Back
Privacy, thy name is Paragon... or maybe not. WhatsApp has called out Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions for allegedly targeting 90 of its users—journalists, activists, and others in civil society—in a covert hacking operation. The Meta-owned messaging giant fired off a cease-and-desist letter faster than you can say "end-to-end encryption."

Citizen Lab, a Canadian cyber-watchdog, is now investigating. So far, neither WhatsApp nor Paragon is dishing out names, leaving us to imagine which reporters or whistleblowers were stuck in the spyware’s sights.

Paragon’s spyware operates in the shady corners of tech, enabling remote access to mobile devices without users even knowing. If this sounds like déjà vu, it’s because similar spyware—like Pegasus, courtesy of another Israeli firm—has been caught sneaking onto phones globally, even targeting 50 US officials and several heads of state. You’d think that’s a plot twist too dramatic for a Netflix thriller, but alas, it's modern cyber-reality.

Paragon, co-founded by former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, was sold to US equity firm AE Industrial Partners for a jaw-dropping $900m last year. Its website boasts of “ethically based tools” to tackle national threats, but experts like Natalia Krapiva from Access Now are raising eyebrows. “Responsible spyware? Yeah, sure,” she quipped, pointing out that abuses like these are baked into the commercial spyware game.

DeepSeeking a new course for open-source AI
A little-known Chinese startup called DeepSeek has just pulled off the tech equivalent of a David vs. Goliath upset. Founded in 2023, the Hangzhou-based company released its AI model, DeepSeek-R1, which is giving Silicon Valley heavyweights like OpenAI and Google a serious run for their (billions of dollars’) money. And it's not just a vanity stunt—chipmaker Nvidia saw $600bn wiped from its market cap after the announcement. That’s more zeros than the UK’s Eurovision scoreboard.

DeepSeek’s secret? Ingenuity overindulgence. While US giants throw billions at cutting-edge chips, DeepSeek’s team managed to build their rival model with just $6m and less advanced Nvidia GPUs. They fine-tuned their setup with multiple specialised models—essentially squeezing every last ounce of performance from their hardware and finding hacks like using fewer floating numbers in calculations. This approach had tech insiders like Marc Andreessen and others calling it “AI’s Sputnik moment.”

The shockwaves extended beyond Wall Street. OpenAI’s Sam Altman conceded that DeepSeek’s progress is “impressive”. But Altman, ever the competitive spirit, hinted that OpenAI has new AI releases up its sleeve to defend its title.

The rise of DeepSeek also highlights a strategic flaw in US efforts to throttle China’s access to high-end chips. Turns out, necessity truly is the mother of invention. DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng—part entrepreneur, part philosopher—believes human intelligence is intrinsically linked to language and that human-like AGI could emerge from optimised language models. Bold? Certainly. But with DeepSeek’s rapid success, it's hard to argue against the man. Open source for the win.

WORLD

Mongolian sumo wrestler wrestles a grand champion
In a move that’s truly weighing heavy on tradition, Hoshoryu—or, as his birth certificate prefers, Sugarragchaa Byambasuren—has been anointed the 74th yokozuna. With a white rope belt tied around his waist like a sash of victory, this 25-year-old Mongolian marvel stepped into Tokyo’s Meiji Shine with all the pomp of a heavyweight tea party.

Amid cheers that could rouse even the stiffest of upper lips, Hoshoryu executed ceremonial claps, stamps, and low crouches that left his audience positively bowled over. Our champion is all set to conduct himself as impeccably as a proper cuppa can be. It’s safe to say when it comes to sumo, he’s just the right blend of tradition and modern cheek but let’s see!

Free public transport
In the bustling heart of Bangkok, the city’s residents are in for a ride—quite literally. In a spirited bid to clear the air, Thai authorities have unveiled a week-long initiative offering free public transport on buses and both elevated and underground electric trains.

With schools shuttered and employees logging in from the comfort of home offices, Bangkok is putting the brakes on private car usage—a major culprit behind its murky skyline. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra even took to Facebook to assure everyone that this is merely the opening act in a long concert of environmental reform. Ranked among the globe’s most polluted cities, Bangkok is hoping to ease traffic and trim emissions.

There’s still tea in the pot...
The Teapot weekly quiz

Cuppa Chat: Cheat Sheet

🖥️📊 Harry Watson, a senior systems analyst from Sudbury, ranked 5th in the UK and 52nd globally at the Microsoft Excel World Championships in Las Vegas.

🎨🏛️ The Mona Lisa will be moved to a new exhibition space at the Louvre as part of a renovation project, with changes completed by 2031.

⚽🔥 Arsenal dominate with a 5-1 victory over Man City. Goals from Odegaard, Lewis-Skelly, Havertz, and Nwaneri underline Arsenal's form, extending their unbeaten run to 14 games.

🏎️🐎 Lewis Hamilton joins Ferrari, with his first outing planned for later this week. He partners Charles Leclerc, aiming to secure Ferrari's first drivers’ title since 2007 in the upcoming F1 season.

🎭📺 Natalie Cassidy is leaving EastEnders after 32 years, with her final scenes airing around the soap's 40th anniversary in February. A live episode will also feature a viewer-decided plot twist during the anniversary week.