The licensing regime for grain imports from Ukraine will not be extended, and the country will return to its regular import framework. This was announced by Moldova’s Minister of Agriculture, Liudmila Catlabuga, Point reports.
The current legal framework no longer allows the measure to be prolonged.
“Under Law No. 170, the grain import licensing regime does not provide for any extension. As a result, we will move to the normal regime,” Catlabuga explained.
At the same time, the authorities will maintain a stricter monitoring mechanism for the grain market in order to be able to intervene quickly if serious imbalances arise.
Meanwhile, the Farmers’ Association warned in a press release that if the licensing regime for grain imports from Ukraine is not extended, the local market could face a sharp downturn.
Chinese tablet makers, including Xiaomi and Honor, have begun raising prices for their devices due to a sharp increase in the cost of memory chips, the South China Morning Post reports. The rise is driven by a сокращення in component supplies for consumer electronics, as semiconductor manufacturers shift capacity toward artificial intelligence projects and data centers.
Xiaomi raised prices this week on a number of tablet models by 100–300 yuan ($14–$43). For example, the base Redmi Pad 2, which launched in June at 999 yuan, now costs 1,199 yuan. Prices have also increased for flagship models: the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro is now selling for 4,099 yuan, up 200 yuan from its September launch price.
Honor has also begun adjusting prices. Lin Lin, head of Honor China’s smart life business, said on the social media platform Weibo that industries dependent on both volatile and non-volatile memory are under pressure and are being forced to raise prices.
Smartphones, tablets, and personal computers require RAM to run applications and internal storage to store data. This refers to DRAM and NAND flash chips, which are currently seeing rapid price increases. According to Counterpoint Research, global DRAM prices rose by 40–60% in the fourth quarter and could increase by another 15–20% in the first quarter of 2026.
Xiaomi has previously raised prices on some budget smartphones as well, including models in the Redmi K90 series. Company president Lu Weibing said Xiaomi would try to offset rising costs by optimizing its product lineup and increasing the average selling price.
SpaceX, which is also owned by Elon Musk, has purchased a batch of Tesla Cybertruck electric pickups worth tens of millions of dollars, apparently seeking to partially offset weak sales of the model. According to Electrek, citing sources familiar with the matter, the total value of the vehicles purchased could exceed $100 million.
Tesla does not disclose detailed Cybertruck sales figures, instead combining data for this model with the Model S and Model X. However, experts note that the electric pickup has effectively become a commercial failure. Despite more than one million pre-orders before production began, Tesla has reportedly converted only about 60,000 of them into actual orders over more than two years.
As a result, SpaceX has effectively stepped in to help. According to Electrek, the company has already purchased more than 1,000 Cybertrucks and could eventually expand its fleet to around 2,000 vehicles. Hundreds of the electric pickups have already been spotted at SpaceX facilities in southern Texas.
Starbase has the most Cybertrucks I’ve ever seen together in the wild pic.twitter.com/TFaW0ThWPE
— Ellie in Space 🚀💫 (@Ellieinspace) December 15, 2025
Given the Cybertruck’s base price of $80,000, the deal’s value could range from $80 million to $160 million. For Tesla, this has provided noticeable support at the end of the year, especially amid the rollback of U.S. government incentives for electric vehicles, which ended in the third quarter and hit the company’s key market.
German defense group Rheinmetall has opened a new hybrid plant in the city of Szeged, Hungary, combining civilian manufacturing with military technologies. The opening ceremony took place on December 12 and was attended by Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, Szeged Mayor László Botka, Member of Parliament Béla Mihálffy, and Rheinmetall’s management, the company’s press service reported.
The new facility is the company’s first large hybrid site outside Germany and will be jointly operated by the Power Systems and Electronic Solutions divisions. The total area of the site is 84,000 square meters, with more than 15,000 square meters of production space, including 8,600 square meters of manufacturing halls.
Rheinmetall’s investments in the plant have already exceeded €34 million, while the total project value is estimated at €69 million.
The plant is expected to create more than 300 highly skilled jobs by 2030, with over 60 positions already filled.
Key production areas include components for electric vehicles, hydrogen energy systems, truck engines, and electronic components for military systems.
Szijjártó said the plant will help Hungary become one of Europe’s leading centers for future technologies. Rheinmetall CEO Christoph Müller, in turn, noted that Szeged will become a “home market” for the company, where advanced civilian and military technologies are combined.
Elon Musk has secured the reinstatement of his 2018 compensation package as CEO of Tesla Inc. after the Delaware Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s decision the day before.
The state’s highest court ruled that Musk is entitled to the stock-based compensation plan, which is now valued at nearly $140 billion. When Tesla’s board first approved the payout, it was the largest executive compensation package in U.S. history, although it was later surpassed by a separate plan approved by shareholders this year that could be worth up to $1 trillion.
The 2018 pay package had been suspended after an investor owning just nine shares successfully filed a lawsuit to block it in Delaware, where the electric vehicle maker was then incorporated. Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that, despite the compensation plan being approved twice by Tesla shareholders, its size was unfair to shareholders.
McCormick argued that Tesla’s board of directors “bore the burden of proving that the compensation plan was fair, and they failed to meet that burden.”
The Delaware Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that the lower court had erred in its opinion and that canceling the 2018 compensation package was “unfair” because it “left Musk without compensation for his time and efforts over six years.”
More than $125 million in financing from the World Bank has been transferred to Ukraine’s state budget, the Ministry of Finance’s press service reported earlier.
As part of the latest assistance, $105.7 million was allocated to the development of the education sector under the Learn project. The funding was secured as a result of the implementation of the New Ukrainian School reform and the creation of safe conditions for in-person learning.
The remaining $19.5 million was directed to a healthcare system transformation program. Its goal is to improve the quality of medical services and strengthen the capacity of the National Health Service of Ukraine.
Both projects are implemented under the Program-for-Results (PforR) model, a cooperation format in which the World Bank disburses funds as compensation for goals already achieved by Ukraine and successfully implemented reforms.
As of December 19, the private joint-stock company Holding Company Kyivmiskbud has been headed by entrepreneur Dmytro Nikiforov. This is evidenced by data from YouControl.
According to registry records, he replaced Svitlana Samsonova in the position.
As Interfax-Ukraine reports, citing market sources, a complete change of the holding company’s management board is planned in the near future. Eighty percent of the company is owned by the Kyiv City Council.
Dmytro Nikiforov is an entrepreneur, former owner of the Voda UA brand, and director of Unitrade Market, among other roles.
Artificial intelligence is already having a positive impact on Europe’s economy, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said, Bloomberg reports. According to her, investments in AI have been one of the factors that have pleasantly surprised economists in recent times.
This assessment was also confirmed by OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, who said earlier this week that spending on AI has risen sharply. According to him, this is supporting the economy and partially offsetting the negative effects of trade uncertainty.
Lagarde emphasized that activity in the AI sector goes far beyond the public sector. Based on data collected by the ECB and survey results, private companies also play a significant role, and the growth in their investments is largely linked to the development of artificial intelligence.
At the same time, the ECB president warned that it is still too early to draw final conclusions about the sustainability of this effect — time will be needed to determine whether it will be long-lasting.
Chinese company ByteDance has agreed to sell TikTok’s U.S. division to investors from the United States, Reuters reports.
It is noted that ByteDance has entered into a binding agreement to establish a joint venture to manage TikTok in the U.S. In this way, the company is effectively transferring control of the social network’s American division to a group of U.S. and international investors.
The new structure — TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC — will be controlled by U.S. investors and their partners, who will collectively receive a 80.1% stake. ByteDance will retain a minority stake of 19.9%. The largest investors will be Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, which together will own 45% of the company.
The deal is expected to be fully closed on January 22, 2026. It is intended to address Washington’s national security concerns and avoid a ban on TikTok in the U.S. The joint venture will be established as an independent legal entity and will take responsibility for protecting U.S. users’ data, overseeing algorithms, content moderation, and software security.
The investor group will be led by Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison. Technically, this will be a new application that users will need to download again. It will have an identical interface but will operate on U.S.-based infrastructure with algorithms controlled by the U.S. government.
Americans’ personal data will be stored in Oracle data centers located in Texas. More than 170 million people use TikTok in the United States.
Russia and Sri Lanka have begun negotiations on establishing an LNG terminal in Sri Lanka. This was stated by Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Russia, Shobini Gunasekera, according to Russia’s state propaganda news agency TASS.
“In essence, we have begun negotiations, especially after the minister’s visit. We have started some discussions; preliminary talks are underway… As I mentioned earlier, proposals have been submitted,” the diplomat said.
Russia is seeking new markets for liquefied natural gas from projects affected by sanctions, following the European Union’s decision to phase out imports of Russian gas by November 2027.
According to analysts, the development of Russian terminals in countries willing to accept LNG from Russia—despite the risk of secondary sanctions—could partially help Moscow establish new supply routes.
