Global business
Uber became mired in a public-relations mess after one of its executives suggested that the firm should employ private investigators to dig up dirt on journalists who criticize it. Emil Michael, the senior vice president who made the remark, said it was "born out of frustration" with media sniping about the app-based taxi service.
Nokia surprised many tech observers by unveiling its first Android-powered tablet, the N1, marking its return to consumer electronics. The Finnish company left that market when it sold its wireless-devices business to Microsoft.
Britain's legal challenge to the European Union's cap on bankers' bonuses suffered an almost certainly fatal blow when the advocate-general to the European Court of Justice found that the rule that limits bonuses to 100 percent of salary (or 200 percent with shareholders' approval) was valid.
The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect opened for business with much fanfare. The scheme allows Âforeign investors in Hong Kong to buy A-shares on the Shanghai stock exchange without a license and Chinese investors to tap the Hong Kong market, subject to limits.
The head of Russia's central bank defended her decision to let the ruble float, saying it had reduced speculation. Elvira Nabiullina also reiterated that she would intervene to prop up the ruble again "if events develop negatively."
Bill Ackman, an activist investor, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals saw their joint bid for Allergan, the maker of Botox, defeated by a $66 billion rival offer from Actavis. Ackman's lengthy quest for Allergan had become increasingly hostile.
Australia signed a free-trade deal with China, its biggest trading partner. The agreement cuts tariffs for most Australian agricultural imports, including wine but excluding rice and sugar, into China and eases the rules for Chinese investment.
A court in Mumbai ruled in favor of Royal Dutch Shell in its $3 billion tax dispute with the Indian government. Shell was accused of avoiding tax when transferring shares from its Indian subsidiary. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, has promised to bring order to India's capricious tax policies on foreign firms.
Political economy
The scale of Ebola's economic impact was made clearer after a survey for the World Bank found that almost half of Liberians employed before the outbreak are now out of work. The bank estimates the disease is now likely to trim economic output in the affected countries by about $3 billion.
France bolstered its ability to strike at the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant by basing six jets in Jordan (it already has nine fighter planes in the United Arab Emirates). This came after the revelation that two Frenchmen were among the militants in a video depicting the beheadings of 18 Syrians.
Police investigating allegations of corruption at Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company, arrested 18 people, including a former director at the firm and executives from several big construction and engineering companies.
Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, called a snap election for Dec. 14 after figures showed that the economy shrank 1.6 percent on an annualized basis in the third quarter, after a contraction of 7.3 percent in the second. Most economists had thought GDP would grow in the latest quarter.
Police in Hong Kong began removing barricades erected by protesters who are angered by China's plan to restrict democratic reform in the territory and have occupied some major roads since late September. Students who tried to travel to Beijing to raise their grievances also were barred from their flight.
Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, left the G-20 summit in Brisbane early after receiving a barrage of criticism from Western leaders, including Germany's Angela Merkel, Britain's David Cameron and Canada's Stephen Harper, who bluntly told Putin to "get out of Ukraine."
Portugal's interior minister, Miguel Macedo, resigned over a scandal involving official corruption in the granting of "golden visas" to wealthy non-Europeans who invest a certain amount of money in property in the country.
