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Good morning! Here’s what you need to know.

VW sales are plunging. The German automaker reported that November US sales fell almost 25% from a year ago. The VW brand sold 23,882 vehicles last month compared with almost 32,000 a year ago.

Poland is paying for new babies. The government approved a program under which families will get monthly bonuses of 500 zlotys ($124) for every child beyond the first. The poorest families will be receiving bonuses for all children.

Brazil’s economy is disintegrating. Gross domestic product fell by 4.5% in the third quarter compared with the same time frame last year, the country’s statistics bureau reported. The cumulative drop of 3.2% for the year so far is the worst since 1996.

Belarus is asking for a loan. Belarus said it is seeking a $3 billion loan for 10 years from the International Monetary Fund and is considering some economic reforms in return. President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, said at a government meeting that an IMF loan offered better value than any alternative, including a deal with close ally Russia.

US construction spending hit an eight-year high. The Commerce Department said that construction spending rose 1% in October from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of more than $1.1 trillion. That’s the highest level since December 2007.

Montenegro could become NATO’s newest member. Foreign ministers from NATO countries were expected to invite Montenegro to join the military alliance despite Russia’s objection to the move. This is the latest sign of discord between the West and Moscow even as they both battle the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Fiat Chrysler sales are booming. The company’s sales rose 3% last month. Jeep sales jumped 20% for the month, making up for lower sales for the Dodge, Chrysler and Fiat brands. Fiat Chrysler sold 175,974 vehicles, its best November result since 2000.

S&P cut VW’s credit rating. Standard and Poor’s cut its credit rating for German automaker Volkswagen for a second time in two months, saying its emissions scandal had “tarnished VW’s reputation and brand perception.”

French voters trust Hollande more since the Paris attacks. Trust in Hollande jumped from 15% in November to 35% in December, back to a level last seen in December 2012, the TNS-Sofres One Point poll for Le Figaro daily showed.

Mark Zuckerberg will give away almost all of his Facebook shares. Along with his daughter’s birth, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will give away 99% of his Facebook shares, valued at around $45 billion, to charity during his lifetime. 

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NOW WATCH: 50 Cent testifies his lifestyle is an illusion

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JERUSALEM (AP) — The Nazi soldiers made their orders very clear: Jewish American prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate.

But Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds would have none of that. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer held in the German POW camp, he ordered more than 1,000 Americans captives to step forward with him and brazenly pronounced: “We are all Jews here.”

He would not waver, even with a pistol to his head, and his captors eventually backed down.

Seventy years later, the Knoxville, Tennessee, native is being posthumously recognized with Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II. He’s the first American serviceman to earn the honor.

“Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds seemed like an ordinary American soldier, but he had an extraordinary sense of responsibility and dedication to his fellow human beings,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial. “The choices and actions of Master Sgt. Edmonds set an example for his fellow American soldiers as they stood united against the barbaric evil of the Nazis.”

It’s a story that remained untold for decades and one that his son, the Rev. Chris Edmonds, only discovered long after his father’s death in 1985.

Edmonds was captured with thousands of others in the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944 and spent 100 days in captivity. His son vaguely knew about his father’s past from a pair of diaries Edmonds kept in captivity that included the names and addresses of his men and some of his daily thoughts.

But it was only while scouring the Internet a few years ago that he began to unravel the true drama that had unfolded — oddly enough, when he read a newspaper article about Richard Nixon’s post-presidency search for a New York home. As it happened, Nixon purchased his exclusive upper East Side town house from Lester Tanner, a prominent New York lawyer who mentioned in passing how Edmonds had saved him and dozens of other Jews during the war.

That sparked a search for Tanner, who along with another Jewish POW, Paul Stern, told the younger Edmonds what they witnessed on Jan. 27, 1945, at the Stalag IXA POW camp near Ziegenhain, Germany.

The Wehrmacht had a strict anti-Jew policy and segregated Jewish POWs from non-Jews. On the eastern front, captured Jewish soldiers in the Russian army had been sent to extermination camps.

At the time of Edmonds’ capture, the most infamous Nazi death camps were no longer fully operational, so Jewish American POWs were instead sent to slave labor camps where their chances of survival were low. U.S. soldiers had been warned that Jewish fighters among them would be in danger if captured and were told to destroy dog tags or any other evidence identifying them as Jewish.

So when the German camp commander, speaking in English, ordered the Jews to identify themselves, Edmonds knew what was at stake.

Turning to the rest of the POWs, he said: “We are not doing that, we are all falling out,” recalled Chris Edmonds, who is currently in Israel participating in a seminar for Christian leaders at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies.

With all the camp’s inmates defiantly standing in front of their barracks, the German commander turned to Edmonds and said: “They cannot all be Jews.” To which Edmonds replied: “We are all Jews here.”

Then the Nazi officer pressed his pistol to Edmonds head and offered him one last chance. Edmonds merely gave him his name, rank and serial number as required by the Geneva Conventions.

“And then my dad said: ‘If you are going to shoot, you are going to have to shoot all of us because we know who you are and you’ll be tried for war crimes when we win this war,'” recalled Chris Edmonds, who estimates his father’s actions saved the lives of more than 200 Jewish-American soldiers.

Witnesses to the exchange said the German officer then withdrew. Stern, who currently lives in Reston, Virginia, told Yad Vashem that even 70 years later he can “still hear the words.”

About 6 million European Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. The names of those honored for risking their lives to protect Jews are engraved along an avenue of trees at the Jerusalem memorial.

More than 26,000 have been designated “Righteous Among the Nations,” the most famous being Oskar Schindler, whose efforts to save more than 1,000 Jews were documented in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film “Schindler’s List,” and Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who is credited for having saved at least 20,000 Jews before mysteriously disappearing.

But prior to Edmonds, only four were Americans, who belonged to the clergy or volunteered for rescue groups. He’s the first serviceman and the first whose actions saved the lives of fellow Americans. A ceremony for Edmonds is planned next year. And, thanks to his son’s efforts, Edmonds is now also being considered for a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Irena Steinfeldt, the director of the Holocaust memorial’s Righteous Among the Nations department, said all rescue stories were unique. She said Edmonds actions were reflective of those of a military man, who was prepared to take a quick, clear, moral decision.

“It’s a matter of five minutes and that is it. When he tells the German, ‘No,’ that is something that can kill him,” she explained. “It is something very dangerous that is happening in one moment. … But it is very heroic.”

Chris Edmonds, who leads a Baptist congregation in Maryville, Tennessee, said he believed his father had a “deep moral conviction” instilled in his faith that inspired his actions.

“All he had to fight with was his will power and his wits,” he said. “I’m just glad he did the right thing.”

____

Follow Heller on Twitter https://twitter.com/aronhellerap

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Good morning! Here’s what you need to know on Wednesday.

1. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he’s giving away 99% of his Facebook shares — valued at $45 billion — during his lifetime. The Facebook CEO announced the news in a letter to his newborn daughter, Max.

2. A woman was arrested Tuesday in a Paris suburb for suspected links to an intermediary to the only man charged in connection the Paris terror attacks.

3. Yahoo’s board is reportedly weighing up whether to sell its core internet business. Yahoo’s business is currently valued at less than zero by Wall Street, which assigns all of the company’s value to its Asian investments.

4. Russia may freeze work on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project for several years in retaliation against Ankara for the shooting down of a Russian air force jet.

5. Citigroup plans to keep its bonus pool for traders and bankers unchanged from last year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

6. Several people were reportedly injured after an explosion near an Istanbul subway station.

7. Twitter cofounder Evan Williams sold 1.8 million shares of Twitter stock through his foundation, netting about $47 million.

8. The United States said it was deploying a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to conduct raids against Islamic State there and in neighboring Syria.

9. Global manufacturing conditions continued to meander in November, with strength in Europe and the US offsetting weakness in emerging markets, particularly from Asia.

10. Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich used a secret budget to jump-start the company’s new chip effort.

And finally … this is what it is like to step inside the infamous dark web — the digital back alley of the internet where you can find pretty much anything you normally can’t find on the regular “surface web”.

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KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AP) — Two months after the Taliban rampaged through the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, residents are still sifting through the rubble, wondering how they will ever rebuild and worrying that the insurgents will return.

The Taliban swept into the strategic northern city in late September, holding it for three days and looting and destroying shops before being driven out by a massive counteroffensive backed by U.S. airstrikes.

The street by street fighting devastated wide swaths of Kunduz at a time when Afghanistan’s finances are stretched thin by a seemingly never-ending war. International aid is being scaled down alongside the withdrawal of most foreign troops, who officially concluded their combat mission last year.

The Taliban are meanwhile dug in on the city’s outskirts, and many fear they could return.

“I lost everything I had — my house, my business and my property,” said Ahmad Jan, who sold TVs and DVDs in Kunduz. The Taliban torched his shop, and then his home was demolished during the battle to drive them out, he said. He moved his family to a neighboring province for safety.

“I can’t trust the government anymore, I have lost my hope in them,” he said.

During a visit to Kunduz last week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said the government would protect the city and help residents rebuild. “We won’t allow a repeat of what happened to Kunduz,” he said, as rocket-fire rumbled off in the distance, where near-daily battles have erupted just outside the city.

Ghani has ordered the dismissal and military trial of an undisclosed number of intelligence officials, including the provincial intelligence chief, over the failure to anticipate September’s attack, which was the latest in a series of attacks on the city. He has also ordered a security review by the newly appointed army division commander.

But many residents said they remain fearful, especially after seeing the Taliban make off with armored vehicles and tanks.

As winter sets in, local officials and residents are taking stock of the devastation wrought by the fighting. The damage to public infrastructure alone has been estimated at around $82 million, according to Hamdullah Danishi, the acting governor of Kunduz province.

He said the damage to private property is still being assessed. “It could be that the cost of rebuilding privately owned properties will be several times that of the public infrastructure because they took the brunt of the fighting over several days,” he added.

Zabihullah Majidi, a civil society activist in Kunduz, said the fighting destroyed hundreds of shops and homes, including high-rise apartment buildings. Much of the city is still without water or electricity. Half the city’s 300,000 residents fled during the fighting, and it’s unclear how many have returned.

“The cost of reconstruction will probably be less than it was after the last war with the Taliban, but substantial nevertheless,” he said, referring to the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban.

Among the facilities destroyed in the fighting was a trauma hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders, which was the target of a sustained U.S. air assault that killed at least 30 people and sparked an international outcry. U.S. President Barack Obama apologized for the attack, which came at the request of Afghan forces.

Just next door to the hospital was the warehouse where Abdul Maroof stored electronic goods for his trading company. The attack on the hospital destroyed the building and everything inside, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses and leaving him unable to pay back loans, he said.

“From an economic point of view, I can assure you that for the next five years our Kunduz cannot be the same as it was in the past,” he said, adding that many businessmen have quit the town, fearing another attack.

Shopkeeper Sardar Agha said at least 10 shops on his street were destroyed during heavy fighting, estimating that the owners lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. “There’s nothing left. Many shops and homes in my neighborhood have been destroyed or hugely damaged,” he said.

The acting spokesman for the governor of Kunduz, Abdul Wasi Basel, said the top priority was security, followed by restoring water, electricity and other services. Only then, he said, would government offices be rebuilt.

A commission has been set up to process applications for the recovery of damaged or destroyed assets, but Basel could not say when funds will be dispersed. “The exact cost of the war is difficult to say at moment,” he said.

Mohammad Khan Almas watched as his neighborhood was transformed into one of the main battlefields in the city and airstrikes destroyed eight shops he owned. The $1,200 worth of monthly rent he had collected from them supported his family, including his 11 children.

He said a delegation from the governor visited and assessed his losses at $320,000, but until now he’s received no money.

“There are three culprits here — the government, the Taliban and the United States,” he said. “They are all guilty of the incidents that ended my business and destroyed my shops.”

___

Associated Press writer Lynne O’Donnell in Kabul contributed to this report.

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New York (United States) (AFP) – Electric car star Tesla has joined Apple and Google at the top of an annual ranking of innovative firms by Boston Consulting Group.

Tesla raced into third position in a list of the 50 most innovative companies based on a survey of 1,500 senior executives at a wide array of companies, according to a BCG report released on Wednesday.

“Apple and Google again hold the top two spots,” BCG said in the report, which showed the iPhone maker at the head of the list.

“Tesla, which has been moving up the list at the speed of one of its Model S sedans, reached number three.”

Tesla, one of three car makers in the top ten spots on the list, made its debut on the list in 41st place two years ago.

The leading trio was followed in order by Microsoft, Samsung, Toyota, BMW, Gilead, Amazon, and Daimler.

The rankings also took into account how the companies performed for shareholders.

The list included 29 US companies; 11 European firms, and 10 based in Asia. Only 12 companies, 24 percent of the group, were in the technology sector, while many were veterans of the Industrial era such as General Electric and Dow Chemical.

– Need for speed –

Nearly 80 percent of those who responded to the survey cited innovation as a priority for their businesses, with more than a fifth of them labeling it a main priority.

“The clearest trend which maybe has been growing over time but really crystallized this year is the importance of science and technology as an underpinning of innovation,” report co-author and BCG Boston office director Michael Ringel told AFP.

“The fact that science and technology are becoming more important then drives a need for speed; it becomes a race to be able to commercialize first.”

Technology platforms and mining valuable insights from the growing mountains of information in data centers are seen as key areas of innovation

“We are becoming more and more capable with new technology like big data,” said Ringel, who reasoned that an “explosion” of genomics data should help shake up healthcare.

Characteristics shared by innovative companies included using new technologies to create value, not increase costs, with new products, services, or ways of operating, according to the report.

BCG refered to General Electric as a “great example,” noting that it used new 3-D printing technology to cut the cost of making probes used in ultrasound equipment.

Pushing down the price opened doors for the components to be used in other industrial equipment, effectively expanding the market for the part, according to BCG.

“GE is now exploring how 3-D printing can be used in additional businesses, including jet engine manufacturing,” the report said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Inspired by his own experience living in a New York City apartment building that was converted into high-priced condos, a 71-year-old former state regulator is taking on developers citywide on behalf of seniors and disabled tenants.

Walter Goldsmith claims in a state lawsuit filed late Tuesday that landlords have ignored a decades-old law that requires them to give tenants 62 and older and those with disabilities the option to stay-on as renters in their apartments rather than move away or buy themselves.

Experts say the case could provide an extra layer of protection to vulnerable market-rate tenants who have lost housing security as rent-stabilized and regulated apartments have decreased in recent years.

“It’s fair to say these people are entitled to some stability and harmony in their lives,” said Goldsmith, who for the past 10 years has lived in a cozy one-bedroom in a 31-story building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Landlords had previously argued, as Related Companies did to Goldsmith in correspondence provided to The Associated Press, that the option for seniors and disabled renters to stay-on only applied in cases where buildings were converted via eviction plans — that is, when 51 percent of the building’s units were purchased by people who live there.

But in so-called non-eviction plans, where only 15 percent of the apartments have to be sold for the plan to become effective, tenants are often pushed out because their leases aren’t renewed or they’re given hold-over leases during the conversion process, real-estate lawyers said.

“A lot of buildings have tenants who are not protected under rent stabilization and rent control, particularly in Manhattan,” said longtime real estate lawyer Kevin McConnell, who is not part of the lawsuit. “What we have been seeing is, where once tenants were all protected and had very few vacancies, now you walk in and there are vacancies all over the place.”

The attorney general’s real estate finance bureau regulates the conversion process and has in recent years stepped up its enforcement and regulation of conversions. On Nov. 10, the office issued new emergency regulations that require building owners to provide seniors and disabled tenants explicit notice of their right to choose to continue renting at rates that won’t soar. A spokesman for the office declined to comment.

The lawsuit, which claims $100 million in damages, seeks class-action status. A spokeswoman for Related Companies, the parent company of Carnegie Park Tower, LLC, which owns Goldsmith’s nearly 300-unit, $483 million apartment building, said in a statement that while officials hadn’t seen the court papers, the company “scrupulously followed the statute and adhered to every applicable regulation.”

Marc Held, the attorney bringing the lawsuit with Goldsmith, said at least a quarter of the building’s renters are either elderly or disabled, including at least one blind tenant.

“These are apartments that are triple in value vacant what they are with a rent-regulated tenant in there,” he said. “There’s a tremendous financial incentive not to comply with the law.”

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Paris (AFP) – A new probe into what sent an AirAsia flight plunging into the Java Sea last year, killing all 162 people on board, has pointed the finger at poor pilot training on how to cope with emergencies.

The final report from Indonesia’s national transport safety agency said an existing fault in the system that controlled the Airbus A320-200’s rudder had set off a chain of events that caused the crash.

But it was the pilot’s decision to reset the system, which turned off the plane’s autopilot, and inexperience in flying in such difficult conditions that then sent the aircraft into a sharp roll from which it never recovered.

“The flight crew had not been trained for the upset recovery training on Airbus A320,” said the report, adding that the plane had gone into a “prolonged stall condition that was beyond the capability of the crew to recover”.

The report provides the latest clue into what brought down Flight QZ8501 on December 28 last year, during what was supposed to be a routine flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

The bodies of 56 people have never been recovered, despite a huge and lengthy international search involving ships and aircraft from several nations in often stormy seas.

Investigators had previously blamed bad weather for bringing down the plane, but the new findings show both poor equipment and inadequate training for emergency situations were to blame. 

The fault with cracked soldering in part of the plane’s rudder system — which had already caused glitches 23 times in the previous year — sent repeated warnings to the pilots.

The co-pilot was then left to fly as the pilot responded to the fault, but could not cope with the situation, and miscommunication between the pilots as they plunged towards the sea compounded the problem.

“It’s a scenario that has played out in air accidents in the past,” Terence Fan, aviation expert at the Singapore Management University, told AFP.

“Pilots are either distracted by a faulty equipment or cannot properly solve the issue and something else is brewing in the background.”

– ‘AirAsia’s image dented’ –

The loss of Flight QZ8501 was the first major crash for Malaysia-based AirAsia, but analysts said the findings could prove a setback after a successful 13-year run.

“This will have a detrimental impact on AirAsia as a whole and it comes at the worst time for the airline given the very poor third quarter numbers that came out last week,” said Shukor Yusof, analyst with Malaysia-based Endau Analytics.

“AirAsia’s image will be dented because the report alleges that they don’t maintain their aircraft properly and their cockpit crew responded inadequately to such an incident.”

Speaking as the report was released, investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said AirAsia pilots were not properly trained on handling Airbus aircraft when they were severely destabilised as it was not recommended by the manufacturer. 

But the former head of France’s aviation authority, the BEA, which governs France-based Airbus, said AirAsia had not followed the agency’s rules on training.

The BEA set new regulations for pilots after an Air France flight between Rio and Paris was lost in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, under similar circumstances to the AirAsia flight.

“Several recommendations of the (BEA) on the subject of pilot training were clearly not implemented by this aviation company,” former BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec told AFP.

Gerry Soejatman, an aviation consultant with Jakarta-based consultancy CommunicAvia, said both the AirAsia crash and AF447 had happened after a technical problem followed by the plane stalling.

“It’s all in the manual, but we still have these two cases where the pilot did not do the right thing in stall recovery,” he told AFP.

“It’s likely that they did not realise they were in a stall or did not have adequate training in how to exit from a very severe stall at high altitude.”

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In the tense days after a black man’s death at the hands of police, Minnesota’s first African-American congressman stood with protesters as they besieged a police station, even tweeting what he called an “agonizing” photograph showing his son with hands raised in a confrontation with officers in riot gear.

Yet lately, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison has fallen out of favor with some protesters camped outside a Minneapolis police precinct. They’ve carried a scrawled sign calling him a “sellout” and expressed similar sentiments on social media after the congressman joined calls for them to take down their tents and remove their roadblocks and campfires.

The Minneapolis Democrat, who gained international attention as the first Muslim elected to Congress, has been playing a delicate balancing act with protesters whose goals of police accountability he shares and officials who might be able to make changes they want.

“I’m not mad for anyone making an unkind sign about me. I get attacked all the time for my religion. So none of these things bother me. People don’t always understand what you’re doing and why,” Ellison said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Ellison, 52, came home from Washington to support community members upset over the death of Jamar Clark and a difficult history of relations between the north Minneapolis black community and police.

The 24-year-old Clark was shot in the head Nov. 15 during what authorities said was a struggle with two officers after he interfered with paramedics who were trying to help an assault victim.

People who claim they saw the shooting say Clark was handcuffed, but the head of the city’s police union has said Clark had his hands on an officer’s gun. State and federal investigators are still trying to piece together what happened.

Protesters are demanding the release of any video that authorities have of the shooting. Officials have refused, saying it would compromise the investigation.

Ellison supports releasing the videos but has been saying for days that the protesters need to break camp, reopen the street and turn to other ways of pressing their cause, which he considers “righteous.” He repeated that call Monday at a news conference with Mayor Betsy Hodges, longtime black community leaders and city officials who said the occupation is hurting the neighborhood. He has engaged protesters in a lively debate about tactics via Twitter but hasn’t been able to persuade them to budge.

One of the most visible protest leaders, University of St. Thomas law professor and civil rights attorney Nekima Levy-Pounds, said government leaders are trying to exploit a generational and leadership divide in the black community — and she faulted Ellison for being part of it.

“It’s unclear to me what his role has actually been,” said Levy-Pounds, who stressed that she was speaking only for herself and not the Minneapolis NAACP, of which she is president. “On the one hand, I’ve seen him out at the protests encouraging people. And then on the other hand, I’ve seen press releases saying that he doesn’t support the protesters. And he stood with the mayor yesterday.”

Steven Belton, interim president and CEO of the Minneapolis Urban League, who also spoke at the mayor’s news conference, said their critics need to understand that they’re not asking them to stop protesting, just to end the occupation.

“It’s a little disingenuous for them to be attacking the congressman who has staked his career and his personal passion on representing north Minneapolis,” Belton said. “It’s disingenuous to say he’s out of touch.”

University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs said Ellison, who represents one of the most liberal districts in the country, bears little political risk. If the protesters can’t work with “one of the most influential progressives in Congress,” he said, it’s hard to imagine who they could find as a partner for bringing about practical change.

Ellison said that police accountability is a nationwide problem that must be addressed but that’s going to require changes at both the local and national level. Burning bridges won’t help advance that policy agenda, he said.

“It’s been a very difficult balance. It’s hard for people to understand that when you criticize and raise issues of police accountability you’re not trying to attack all police. … At the same time some of the protesters think that if you say anything critical of the encampment you’re 100 percent against the encampment,” he said.

“It’s hard for people to understand you can be for them but question the particular methods they’re using at the moment.”

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Frankfurt (AFP) – Falling oil prices can be both a boon and bane for the global economy, but for the European Central Bank they are now a major headache because they are keeping eurozone inflation much lower than it would like.

On paper, low oil prices should be positive for the economy because they boost purchasing power.

But in the current environment, they could also be seen as a sign of slowing demand, observers argue, posing a challenge for the ECB’s monetary policy and putting its credibility to the test. 

“The weakening of oil prices is currently the most important factor in the ECB’s analysis,” ING DiBa economist Carsten Brzeski told AFP. 

Low oil prices were pushing inflation lower and fuelling concerns within the ECB’s governing council about the threat of deflation, or a downward spiral of falling prices, the expert argued. 

So far, the drop in oil prices — 60 percent since mid-2014 — has been seen by many central bankers and economists as a result of over-abundant supply, helping to slash energy bills for households and businesses alike.

But the ECB’s own chief economist Peter Praet said in a recent interview with Bloomberg News that a “significant” part of the decline was attributable to the slowing global economy. 

“A lot of the latest wave of commodity price declines is demand related. At some point in the recent past you had a supply side issue, which is a windfall for consumers, but now a significant part is also coming from weak global conditions,” he said. 

ECB president Mario Draghi put forward similar arguments at the end of October. 

And a global economic slowdown could undermine the still very tentative recovery in the 19 countries that share the euro. 

For the ECB’s part, “it’s tactically smart to focus the debate on demand shocks”, said Gilles Moec at Bank of America.

“But the real problem for the central bank is whether it remains credible or not,” he said. 

“Markets’ inflation expectations have fallen sharply,” he noted, pointing out that only time could tell whether they would prove correct.

– Bank is ‘powerless’ –

But the ECB is concerned that the pessimism of market players reflects a lack of confidence in its ability to counter future oil price shocks, Moec said. 

Praet hinted as much himself.

“We have seen, on occasions, longer-term inflation expectations responding to short-term movements in oil prices. That is unacceptable for a central bank, insofar as it implies that people’s expectations of its reaction function have become less certain,” he said. 

The ECB has unleashed an unprecedented series of policy measures to try and push eurozone inflation back up to levels conducive to healthy economic growth. 

It has slashed key interest rates, made vast amounts of cheap loans available to banks and most recently embarked on a programme to buy around 60 billion euros of bonds each month until at least September 2016. 

But area-wide inflation is still chronically low, standing at just 0.1 percent in October, far below the ECB’s target of just under 2.0 percent. 

November inflation data are scheduled to be published on Wednesday, with analysts pencilling in a meagre 0.2 percent. 

In view of this, the ECB’s governing council is expected to announce a stepping up of the asset purchase programme at its meeting on Thursday, and possibly even a further cut in key interest rates, already at historic lows. 

“Inflation has now been below target for a long period of time and even probably the most optimistic  forecasts suggest that it could well be quite some time before inflation returns to target,” said Oxford Economics analyst Ben May.  

“There’s not much the ECB can do to control the oil prices. So to a certain degree, the ECB is powerless,” he said. 

But for the ECB’s chief economist Praet it was “essential that uncertainty does not give rise to indecision”.

In other words, in order to safeguard its credibility and give the impression that it remains in control, the ECB should not hesitate to act. 

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Deron Williams had a season-high 30 points and the Mavericks defeated the Trail Blazers 115-112 in overtime Tuesday night in Wesley Matthews’ first trip back to Portland since signing with Dallas as a free agent.

Dirk Nowitzki added 28 points and Matthews finished with 18 points in his return as the Mavs snapped a four-game losing streak on the road.

Matthews hit consecutive 3-pointers to pull the Mavericks to 89-85 as Dallas closed in on Portland in regulation. Nowitzki’s 3-pointer narrowed it to 96-94 before his tip shot tied it, and Damian Lillard missed a 3 at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.

The Mavs outscored the Blazers 9-3 to open the extra period, taking a 103-99 lead on Nowitzki’s long jumper with 1:20 left. Lillard’s layup got Portland to 108-103, but ultimately the Blazers couldn’t catch up.

Lillard finished with 25 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds. Meyers Leonard had 23 points and Portland’s bench outscored the Dallas reserves 73-16

Both teams were playing the second game of a back-to-back. Portland lost 102-87 at the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night, and the Mavericks were beaten 112-98 in Sacramento.

Matthews was a fan favorite during his five years in Portland and was rewarded with a standing ovation from the crowd when he was introduced before the game.

Last spring, the Blazers were in the midst of a five-game winning streak on the way to the playoffs when Matthews tore his Achilles during a game against the Mavericks.

Portland went on to lose to Memphis in the first round, and four starters from that team — Matthews, Nicolas Batum, Robin Lopez and LaMarcus Aldridge — all left in the offseason. A free agent, Matthews signed a four-year, $70 million deal with the Mavericks.

Lillard is the only starter remaining with the Blazers, who got off to a slow start on Tuesday, falling behind 20-5 in the opening quarter. Lillard played only about 16 minutes on Monday night against the Clippers because of a stomach virus.

Matthews’ 3-pointer stretched the Mavericks’ lead to 27-18 at the end of the opening quarter. Portland responded with a 9-2 run to close to 29-27 in the second, but couldn’t sustain the rally and Dallas went up 44-32 on Charlie Villanueva’s 3-pointer.

The Blazers came back again to tie it at 48 on CJ McCollum’s 3-pointer, and Portland finally pulled ahead on Gerald Henderson’s corner 3 to beat the buzzer.

Portland stretched the lead to 63-52 on Leonard’s short jumper, but Nowitzki hit a jumper that gave Dallas a 74-71 lead as the third quarter drew to a close.

Portland took an 87-79 lead on Lillard’s left-handed layup with 6:17 left.

TIP-INS

Mavericks: Zaza Pachulia has 12 double-doubles this season. … Dallas was without J.J. Barea for a third game because of a sprained right ankle. … It was the first overtime game of the season for the Mavs.

Trail Blazers: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver attended the game. … Allen Crabbe has made a 3-pointer in 10 straight games, the longest such streak for a Blazers player this season.

UP NEXT

The Mavericks host Houston on Friday.

The Trail Blazers host Indiana on Thursday.

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from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1Xx3Qkx