Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes. On today's podcast: (1) US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has announced a new maritime task force intended to protect commercial vessels travelling through the Red Sea from attacks by Houthi militants. The countries involved in the new task force — dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian — include the US, the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles and Spain. (2) The Bank of Japan offered little for rate-hike bulls as it stuck with the world's last negative interest rate and kept guidance unchanged on future policy in a decision that pared some of the yen's recent gains. (3) Apple will stop selling the latest versions of its smartwatch in the US due to a patent dispute, taking some of its best-selling devices off the market during the busy holiday season. Engineers at the company are racing to make changes to algorithms on the device that measure a user's blood oxygen level — a feature that Masimo has argued infringes its patents. (4) Nippon Steel has defended the whopping 142% premium it's paying for United States Steel, as the Japanese company seeks to reinforce its position as a global titan to counter a weak domestic outlook. (5) The UK government has lost close to £300 million ($379 million) on the £1.14 billion portfolio of start-up investments it made during the pandemic to prop up struggling young businesses. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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