Your quick, casual, and sharp rundown of what’s shaping Nigeria and the world — made for the scroll generation.

Issue: Friday, December 5, 2025
Theme: Cheaper Money, Weaker Deals & Shaky Democracies

Hey there,

Happy Friday! and welcome to the first real “year-end energy” week of December.

In the last five days, the world quietly pivoted around three big axes: money, climate, and democracy. Markets are betting hard that the era of painful high interest rates is fading. India just doubled down on a rare “Goldilocks” moment. Climate negotiators walked out of the Amazon with a deal that talks money but dodges fossil fuels. In Gaza, an Israeli-backed militia leader’s death exposed how unstable proxy strategies really are. And in Honduras, a presidential election turned into a live-fire case study in foreign interference — with Donald Trump right in the middle.

Let’s break it down.

Global markets spent the week obsessed with one question: will the U.S. Federal Reserve cut rates again next week? Traders are pricing in an almost certain 0.25% cut at the December 9–10 meeting, with a few more cuts expected in 2026. As a result, the dollar has been hovering near a five-week low, U.S. Treasury yields have slipped, and stocks across major markets have inched closer to record highs

Context: The Fed is trying to steer out of its most aggressive tightening cycle in 40 years without crashing the U.S. economy. Weak jobs and inflation data have convinced many investors that the risk now is doing too much tightening, not too little. But Fed officials remain split as some fear cutting too fast will re-ignite inflation, others warn that holding rates too high will break labour markets and debt-heavy economies.

👉 Why it matters to you: When the Fed moves, everyone else dances. A weaker dollar can give the naira some breathing room and ease pressure on imported fuel, food, and medicine. But it also makes riskier markets like Nigeria, more attractive and more volatile, as global investors start hunting for yield again. If you’re thinking about remote work with dollar pay, studying abroad, or raising capital, this coming rate-cut cycle will shape FX rates, loan costs, and investor risk appetite for years. For policymakers in Abuja, it’s a reminder: you don’t control the music, but you can decide how exposed Nigeria is to the global sound system.

Sources: AP News | Reuters

While everyone watched the Fed, India’s central bank quietly executed one of the boldest moves in emerging markets. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut its key repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.25%, its fifth cut this year and a cumulative 125 bps of easing. It did this while raising its growth forecast for next year to around 7.3% and lowering its inflation forecast to just 2%. Officials are openly calling this a rare “Goldilocks” period: strong growth, record-low inflation, and room to cut.

Context: India is taking advantage of timing: a manufacturing push, strong services exports, and investment inflows are lifting growth just as food and energy prices cool. The central bank is adding liquidity, including through FX swaps, and signalling confidence that even U.S. tariffs on Indian goods will only have a “minimal impact” on its trajectory.

👉 Why it matters to you: India is basically showing what Nigeria wishes its macro story looked like: credible central bank, clear growth strategy, and enough trust to cut rates without FX collapse. For young Nigerians, especially those in tech, services, and manufacturing, India is both a competitor and a case study. Its success will pull foreign capital, supply chains, and jobs in its direction. The lesson for Abuja and for anyone building a business here is simple: stability is not a slogan; it’s an asset class. Countries that provide it get cheaper borrowing, more factories, and more jobs. Those that don’t become “high-risk, high-noise” zones investors only touch when they’re desperate.

Sources: The Print

COP30 in Belém, Brazil, wrapped up last week, but the political aftershocks dominated this week’s climate conversation. Countries agreed to a compromise deal that boosts climate finance for poorer nations and launches a “Just Transition” mechanism, including a pledge to triple adaptation funding by 2035. But the final text completely sidestepped any explicit roadmap to phase out coal, oil, and gas — despite intense pressure from over 80 countries and climate-vulnerable states.

At the Reuters NEXT summit in New York this week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the outcome “disappointing” but argued that it still proved multilateralism can function, even without the U.S. fully on board and with the fossil-fuel lobby actively resisting.

Context: The big fight at COP30 was over whether the world would formally commit to a fossil-fuel phase-out roadmap. Petrostates and heavy fossil consumers pushed back hard. The compromise: more money and metrics, but no hard language on oil, gas, or coal. Activists see it as a survival-level minimum; diplomats see it as the best that could pass without the whole process collapsing.

👉 Why it matters to you: Nigeria sits on both sides of this story, as a fossil-fuel exporter and a climate-vulnerable country. A climate regime that talks money but dodges fossil-fuel timelines buys Abuja time in terms of oil revenues, but it also delays the global pivot to the green industries that will power future jobs. For you, this shapes everything from the viability of climate-tech startups to how often Lagos floods. The countries moving fastest on green infrastructure will attract the next waves of capital and talent; those stuck defending old revenue streams risk being left with stranded assets and stranded citizens.

Sources: The Guardian | Reuters

In Gaza, a development that barely made some front pages may end up reshaping Israel’s war strategy. Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader and head of the Israeli-backed Popular Forces militia, was killed this week after being shot in what Israeli sources describe as an “internal clash” in southern Gaza.

Abu Shabab’s group had been Israel’s main local proxy against Hamas in parts of Gaza, operating from Israeli-controlled zones and involved in “securing” humanitarian aid amid repeated accusations of looting and abuses. His death comes after months of criticism from Israeli and international experts who warned that arming local militias in Gaza echoed past failed experiments, like the South Lebanon Army, and risked deepening lawlessness instead of building alternatives to Hamas.

Context: Israel’s long-term problem in Gaza is not just military; it’s political. It wants to weaken Hamas, avoid giving power back to the Palestinian Authority, and yet somehow avoid full-time occupation. Militias like Abu Shabab’s were one attempt at square-peg-round-hole governance: local enough to look Palestinian, tied closely enough to Israel to be controllable. That model is now in serious doubt.

👉 Why it matters to you: For Nigeria, Gaza is a mirror of all the problems that come with outsourcing security to proxies whether vigilante groups, local militias, or “community” forces. Once armed actors build their own power base, they can become ungovernable and erode state legitimacy. For young Nigerians in the North-East, North-West, and Middle Belt, this is not theory; it’s lived reality. The Gaza story is a warning to policymakers: you can’t subcontract political solutions to armed groups and expect stability.

Sources: Al Jazeera | Reuters

Honduras just held a razor-thin presidential election, and it has become a live demo of how foreign influence and weak institutions can tangle democracy. With more than 80% of votes counted, the race between centrist Salvador Nasralla and conservative Nasry Asfura has swung back and forth multiple times. Asfura backed openly by U.S. President Donald Trump, now holds a narrow lead, while Nasralla alleges algorithmic manipulation of vote tallies after a suspicious blackout of the results system.

Complicating things further, Trump publicly warned of fraud before the count was finished and previously endorsed Asfura as the candidate who would keep Honduras in Washington’s good books. Nasralla says those interventions damaged his chances and deepened public mistrust. Separately, Trump’s controversial pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández convicted in the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges, has been interpreted by many as a political signal to Honduras’ old guard.

Context: Honduras has a long history of disputed elections, U.S. involvement, and elite impunity. This vote is shaping up to be another stress test for whether institutions can handle close results in a highly polarized environment, or whether external actors and domestic power brokers will again tilt the scales.

👉 Why it matters to you: Honduras might seem far, but the pattern is familiar: tight elections, weak electoral tech, heavy foreign influence, and citizens left wondering if their votes counted. For Nigerians, it echoes 2007, 2019, even 2023. In a world where great powers treat smaller democracies as chessboards, the quality of institutions such as electoral commissions, courts, independent media, matters as much as the ballot itself. For young Nigerians who care about migration, trade deals, and diplomatic reputation, what’s happening in Honduras is a reminder: credibility is currency. Lose it, and everything from aid to investment gets more conditional.

Sources: Reuters

Quick, curious, and global — the week’s top breakthroughs shaping tomorrow.

1. Did We Just Glimpse Dark Matter?

A Japanese-led team analysing data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope claims to have spotted a halo of high-energy gamma rays at the Milky Way’s centre that matches predictions for dark matter particles annihilating each other. The study, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, is being hailed as possible first “direct” evidence of dark matter — though other scientists are urging caution until alternative explanations are ruled out. - ScienceDaily

Why it matters: If confirmed, this would rewrite physics textbooks and open a flood of investment into detectors, simulations, and data science — the same skills African researchers and engineers can plug into from anywhere with a decent internet connection.

2. Quantum Networks: IBM and Cisco Plan the “Internet of Qubits”

IBM and Cisco unveiled plans to link quantum computers over long distances by the early 2030s, effectively building a prototype quantum internet. The idea is to convert fragile “stationary” qubits inside cryogenic tanks into “flying” qubits that can travel through fibre-optic cables, then back again — a hardware and networking challenge they’ll tackle with universities and national labs. - Reuters

Why it matters: Today it’s research; tomorrow it’s secure finance, logistics optimisation, and AI models no single machine can run. Countries that build talent in quantum-safe cryptography and advanced networking now will be ready when this tech hits commercial scale.

3. Smarter AI Weather — From Forecasts to Resilience Planning

Google DeepMind rolled out WeatherNext 2, an AI model that generates high-resolution global forecasts up to 15 days ahead using a new architecture that simulates many possible futures rather than a single deterministic outlook. It’s already being integrated into Google Search, Maps, and Pixel Weather, and early tests show major gains in predicting heavy rain and extreme events. - TechRader

Why it matters: For countries like Nigeria, which juggle floods in some states and drought in others, tools like this can be the difference between “reacting to disaster” and planning around risk if agencies, startups, and city governments actually plug these models into their decisions.

This week’s thread is simple: we’re entering a phase where expectations matter as much as events. Markets are trading on the expectation of cheaper money. Climate negotiators delivered a deal that works more on expectations of future finance than hard fossil-fuel cuts. In Gaza and Honduras, both sides are fighting as much over narratives of legitimacy as over territory or vote counts.

For Nigerians, this is both risk and opportunity. Risk, because a world that runs on expectations punishes countries with low credibility faster and harder. Opportunity, because individuals who understand these moving parts of central banks, climate regimes, proxy wars, election games can position themselves, their careers, and their businesses ahead of the next move.

If you’ve made it to this line, your attention span is officially stronger than most timelines.

Share this with one friend who keeps saying “I don’t follow the news like that” and give them a shortcut.

See you next edition.
— Mr. Mo, Editor, All That Happens News