Last week’s performance of oil was lackluster and directionless despite the US-China trade agreement.

World leaders will begin arriving on Monday for the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss alpine town of Davos. Fifty years is a huge benchmark for the organization founded by Klaus Schwab with the aim of “improving the state of the world.”

President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Turkey last week went largely unnoticed amid the growing tensions between the US and Iran, but it underlined Russia’s growing influence in the Middle East.

Climate events with catastrophic consequences are on the rise; wildfires causing loss of life and property in California and Australia, hurricanes in the Atlantic, super typhoons in the Pacific, drought in vast stretches of Africa.