Azerbaijan Plane 'Hit by Russia', Israel Strikes Yemen & Squid Game Stocks Tank

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This is the Bloomberg Day back here at podcasts available every morning on Apple Spotify or wherever you listen. It's Friday, the 27th of December in London. I'm Caroline Hepka. Coming up today, reports emerged that an Azerbaijani passenger plane was hit by Russian air defence before crashing and killing at least 38 people. Israel has hit Houthi targets in Yemen as the Iranian-backed group continues its attacks.

Plus, Korean stocks linked to the global phenomenon Squid Game have tanked after a less than perfect debut for its new season on Netflix. Let's start with a roundup of our top stories. An official investigation is continuing following reports of a plane crash that killed 38 people

which was down by a Russian air defence system. It was en route from Azerbaijan to Russia city of Grozny when it changed course on Christmas Day. Here is Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

The investigation is ongoing. Any incident should be investigated by special aviation authorities. And it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict. We should wait till the end of the investigation. That was Dmitry Peskov speaking there. Neither Russia nor Azerbaijan have offered any suggestions.

about what may have happened to cause the crash. Kazakhstan's emergency situations ministry says that as many as 29 people survived the crash and are currently in hospital. Israel has struck multiple targets in Yemen. It says were controlled by Houthis, including military infrastructure at Sana'a International Airport.

At least six people died and 40 were injured in the strikes according to the Houthi Health Ministry. The Head of the World Health Organisation says that he was at the airport when it came on to attack. James Jeffrey is a former U.S. ambassador to a number of Middle Eastern nations.

This is a continuation of what has been a region-wide war between Iran and its various proxies and allies. The H group, you can call them, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis against Israel are reluctant, but extremely important supported the United States and bits and pieces of other Arab states and Europeans, particularly against the Houthis. The last man standing, so to speak, right now is the Houthis.

Former U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey speaking there, he now chairs the Middle East program at the Wilson Center. His comments came as Israel's Prime Minister used a TV address to warn that his country is, quote, only at the beginning of its campaign against the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.

The Bank of Japan has signaled that a rate hike is possible next month, despite a cautious decision at their policy meeting earlier in December. According to a summary of the meeting, board members expressed both pro rate hike and wait and see views, citing factors such as wage trends, the US economy and yen depreciation as motivating factors.

The summary comes as BOJ watches look for clues over the timing of the bank's next move. Some economists are predicting a hike in January or March, while others cite political and economic uncertainties as reasons to hold off. The UK's populist reform party claims that its membership is now larger than the Conservatives, despite other politicians crying foul.

Reform says that it now has nearly 132,000 members according to the total on its own website. Here is leader Nigel Farage reacting to the figures.

Farrage is now the bookmaker's favourite to succeed Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, and he recently met with Elon Musk about a possible donation. The Conservative Party leader, Demi Badenox, says that reform has faked their membership numbers. Farrage responded that he would, quote, gladly invite one of the big four firms into audit our membership numbers, as long as the Conservative Party does the same.

Apple is fighting a US proposal to ban Google from making deals in its online search business. The iPhone maker has waded into the legal battle over whether Google has monopolised the market. It says that the court has gone too far and ruled on incorrect assumptions. Bloomberg reported that Apple has paid $20 billion in 2022 under the current deal where Google is the default search option on Apple's web browser.

And lastly, shares in some of South Korea's biggest media companies have fallen after hit-show Squid Games' second season disappointed. Lacklustre reviews saw a marketer, artist United and the production company Dexter Studios, fall more than 20%. Bloomberg's James Walkock has more.

It's the most popular show in Netflix's history. The first season generated $900 million in revenue. But can its second coming live up to that reputation? Reviewers and audience scores think not, raising it roughly 10% lower than the original. The market response shows what a juggernaut the show has become for the South Korean media industry. But the real data people are waiting to see is the viewership numbers. In London, James Wolkok, Bloomberg Radio.

and those are our top stories for you this morning. Now, looking at the markets in Asia, the Nikkei 225 up by 1.7% this morning, the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index also climbing for a fifth day in a row partly. This is led by the slight rebound in the Japanese yen after some comments from the finance minister, Kato. The S&P 500 on Thursday ended flat. US stock futures this morning are looking a little bit

less positive down by two tenths of one percent. US stocks 50 futures though climbing up half of one percent as markets reopen after holidays. Gold and oil prices stable despite a Russian, a reportedly Russian attack on that Azerbaijani plane. Well in a moment we'll get to that top story and also the Israeli hits on Houthi targets in Yemen.

But before we have those big conversations with some of our key correspondents around the world, another story caught my eye. It's related to the UK. It was a really great read. John Stodzinski, who's a CB, an American British philanthropist, and he was founder and chairman of Genesis Foundation, and he also happens to be the vice chairman of PIMCO, writing on Bloomberg.

today about how this is the season of goodwill and he has 12 action points for transforming how charitable giving operates in the UK. It starts by saying that charity is part of the UK's cultural landscape, but there needs to be much more institutional and government support for giving. I thought it was a really nice piece.

He has suggested some quite interesting measures, a permanent philanthropy policy unit in government, also a government-backed matching fund for philanthropy giving and incentives for corporate matching. I think this is a point that's really interesting, matching of any funds, but that an individual gives with funds from a big philanthropist or government is actually still relatively new here in the UK. It's very commonly used in the US, but it's less well known.

in the UK. So I thought it was a really good piece on John Sudzinski this morning, a road map for philanthropy in the UK in 2025. Have a read of it if you have time this morning. Now, the Azerbaijan airline plane

crash. It crashed in Kazakhstan with 69 people on board. It was reportedly hit by Russian air defense systems, according to the news website, Calibre. Kremlin spokesperson that you heard earlier, Dmitry Peskov, declining to comment on the report.

And there are, of course, no official explanations for the crash, either from Russia or Azerbaijan. Join me now for more on this. This has been a big senior reporter, Henry Mayor Henry. Good morning. In terms of what happened to the Embraer plane, what do we know? What are we piecing together?

As you said, there hasn't been any official explanation of why the plane crashed. However, a lot of information has been coming out unofficially based on Azerbaijani sources. So both the media report that you mentioned just now, which is published by a news agency linked to the Azerbaijani government and other media have also received some information from Azerbaijani sources.

What the picture shows is that the plane came under attack by mistake. No one is suggesting that this was done deliberately from a Russian anti-air defense. And this happened at a time when it was on the approach to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, that southern Russian region, where there had been a lot of Ukrainian drone activity.

So it was hit, apparently, according to one report by a pan-seer missile. At the same time, the Russians were jamming electronics, so it was the plane didn't have any ability to.

to navigate.

What happened? And the crash killed 38 people, according to the Kazakh authorities. What kind of investigation will there be? What might happen going forwards? Well, I mean, as it's traditional in these cases, you know, there were three countries that involved Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. So all those three countries will be conducting a joint investigation of the manufacture of the plane, Embraer, Brazilian will also be involved.

Clearly, this is a highly sensitive issue. The last time something similar happened, obviously, on a much bigger scale, was in 2014 when the Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down mistakenly over Ukraine by Russian-backed rebels.

that killed nearly 300 people. Of course, the casualties aren't as severe in this case, but nonetheless, a highly embarrassing incident. And it's going to be, obviously, somehow, the Azerbaijan is clearly going to want some kind of recognition of what's happened and compensation, of course, for the passengers who lost their lives.

Yeah. Okay, so that's on the plane. Meanwhile, Russia has rejected this call from President-elect Trump for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. And this is related, obviously, within the region. Will there be a negotiated peace as three years of this Russian war in Ukraine? What do we make of this rejection by Russia?

I mean, this is expected in the sense that the way Russia looks at it is if they agree to a ceasefire, they no longer have any cards to play. They are actually making progress, albeit very slowly and with very high casualties up to 1,000 killed or wounded every day on the Russian side. They are willing to enter into talks, but they have extremely

high demands. So Trump has moved to in their direction, as has President Zelensky, by more or less, conceding that Russia will keep the territory which it's occupied. It will not, of course, no one will recognize Russian sovereignty over that territory.

They have, they factor control of almost 20% of Ukraine. Ukraine is not in a position to recover that. So they would be allowed to keep it, but Russia wants more. It's pushing for two main things. One is a legally binding commitment on the part of Ukraine to maintain a neutral status. In other words, not to go into NATO. And the second thing Russia wants is very strict limits on the Ukrainian military, the size of its armed forces.

Yeah, and so those are the issues at stake. Henry, thank you so much for being with me this morning. Blue Bay Senior reporter Henry Mayer then on the situation with Russia. Join Capital Group CEO Mike Getland on the Capital Ideas Podcast. Investment professionals reveal how they find their next great idea, what gives them their investment edge, and a few personal stories. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Capital Client Group Inc.

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Well, let's turn from that to the Middle East. Israel has hit multiple Houthi targets in Yemen. The last of the Iran-backed groups that still fully engaged in a regional war there, targets hit on Thursday include military infrastructure and the Sana'a International Airport, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Joining me now to discuss is Bloomberg's Paul Wallace, who leads on coverage.

in the Middle East. Good morning, Paul. Israel's called what the Houthis are doing, escalation management. Just explain what that means, exactly. Essentially, what a lot of analysts and some members of the Israeli government and military establishment think is that the Houthis are upping their attacks against Israel. They're joining missiles.

strikes all the way from Yemen about 2000 kilometres from Israel, but they're not necessarily trying to reflect fatalities on the country and a lot of the strikes are now coming at night and Israel thinks this is a way to sort of cause a bit of havoc but minimize casualties and fatalities because they're less people out and about.

So that's the thinking, but it is very hard to tell with the Houthis. They don't specify whether they're trying to inflict huge numbers of deaths in Israel. They're just saying that they will continue attacking the country until there's a ceasefire in Gaza. Yeah. And the head of the World Health Organization and his UN delegation say that they were at the Sinai Airport and have described what happened at the time of the strike.

Yes, and I think yesterday's incident just underscores how this is becoming a bigger problem for Israel and it's having, it thinks it needs to step up its attacks on the Houthis, the Yemen-based Islamist group. They control Sunnah and many other parts of Yemen.

They are, as you said, kind of the last one standing among Iran's main proxy militias since October the 7th last year and the start of the war in Gaza. You could in some way say that the Houthis among the

Iranian proxies have come out of this the best. They've really raised their profile. They've effectively shut the Southern Red Sea to Western shipping firms with their maritime attacks. And they're causing huge headaches for Israel. They haven't, they have killed one person, but their strikes otherwise haven't caused many casualties or long fatalities. But it's very, very disruptive for Israel. And Israel

just doesn't really seem to know how to strike them in a way that really degrades their capabilities. Israel has way less intelligence on the Houthis than it did with Hezbollah, for example, have been massively weakened in recent months. And even beyond Israel, the UK and the US have been striking the Houthis fairly regularly. These strikes are not stopping their attacks on the Israel war on ships in the Red Sea.

This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe. Your morning brief on the stories making news from London to Wall Street and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed every morning on Apple's Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcast. You can also listen live each morning on London DAB Radio, the Bloomberg Business App and Bloomberg.com.

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Not everybody likes talking about money. Some people find it awkward. Sometimes they even find it a little embarrassing. I do not. I like talking about money. Whether it's the boardroom, the newsroom, the trading floor. I've spent the last 30 years talking about money, writing about money, and talking about it and writing about it a little bit more. I'm Marin Zum at Work, and every week senior aboard a John Steppock and I answer your questions about personal finance, and we discuss the best strategies for making the most of your money.

Listen up for the kind of insights and explanations everyone can use to help them make better saving and investment choices for themselves and their families. My question is whether you think maxing out my comfy pension match is enough for when it comes to saving for my pension. Should I attempt to pay my Charles University fees and living costs?

My partner and I have excess savings, so should we overpay on our mortgage, or should we put the money into stocks? From Bloomberg Podcasts, June into Merrittox Money, for the Merrittox Money on Apple Podcasts, or to buy or wherever you listen.