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### Turkish Lira Crashes
On Wednesday, Turkey's currency, the lira, plunged 7% to a record low against the dollar in what's been described as the biggest daily selloff since a historic crash in 2021. In the weeks following President Erdogan's re-election on May the 28th, the lira has been under serious pressure and has fallen rapidly, hitting 23 against the dollar today. In fact, Goldman Sachs had said last week that it expects the lira to fall to this level in the coming three months. So their forecast became reality a lot sooner than expected. It all comes as Erdogan has been reassembling his economic team post re-election last week. Erdogan appointed well respected former minister Mehmet Simsek as finance minister, a post he previously held from 2009 to 2015. Simsek appointment signals a likely return to a more conventional economic policy after years of Erdogan's unorthodox approach of cutting interest rates amid high inflation. Following his re-election, Simsek told a press conference that Turkey has no choice but to return to rational ground. Nevertheless, Simsek will be treading a very fine line, according to Ulrich from the Center for European Policy Analysis, who added that the appointment is good news for markets. But it's worth remembering Erdogan has already fired two deputy central bank governors who opposed his unorthodox views on the economy. Despite Erdogan's shakeup of his finance team being largely welcomed by foreign investors and observers, the value of the lira continues to sink for a few reasons. Many analysts see the lira as still being overvalued and think it's falling back to a fairer level. Turkish authorities have been defending or, in other words, propping up the lira by reaching into Turkey's reserves of foreign currency, which have been significantly depleted as a result. Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek says when handling the economy, price stability will be our main target, adding that reducing inflation to single digits in the medium term is of vital importance for our country. 

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### TikTok Accused with Spying
Tiktok owner Bytedance has been accused of allowing the Chinese government to access data of Hong Kong civil rights activists. This news came from a US court filing in which a former Bytedance executive called Yamato Yu found that users who uploaded protest related content were identified and monitored. For their part, Bytedance refuted this claim, saying that we plan to vigorously oppose what we believe are baseless claims and allegations in this complaint. In an attempt to discredit their former employee, Bytedance said in a statement that they never raised these allegations. In the five years since his employment for Flipagram, a now defunct app that was being worked on by Bytedance and was terminated in July 2018. His actions are clearly intended to garner media attention. However, in the filing brought by Yu, he claims that the Chinese government was given superuser credentials, also known as God user credentials, which allows them to view all data collected by Bytedance. He also claims that CCP committee members were present at Bytedance's company office in Beijing. This case comes amid worsening hostilities towards TikTok across the world, with Montana becoming the first US state to ban the Chinese owned app. 

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### UK Government Approves Drug
The UK government has today said that new drugs that can combat obesity, known as appetite suppressants, could be a game changer, with them allocating £40 million to a pilot scheme to try and increase access to these drugs. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or Nice, gave approval for some of these kinds of drugs earlier this year. But they made clear that this should only be available through specialist services. The government has claimed that this requirement means that only around 35,000 people are able to access the treatment, which is where the pilot scheme comes in. Its purpose is to try and find how the approved drugs can be made available to more people by expanding the specialist weight management services outside of hospitals. Speaking about the benefits of these drugs, the Prime Minister said using the latest drugs to support people to lose weight will be a game changer by helping to tackle dangerous obesity related health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer, reducing pressure on hospitals, supporting people to live healthier and longer lives, and helping to deliver on my priority to cut NHS waiting lists. 

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### LIV and PGA Join Forces
There's been a shock in the golfing world after the PGA Tour abruptly announced that it would merge with the Saudi Arabian owned Liv golf venture, ending a bitter dispute between the two organizations. Last year, the Saudi backed Liv Golf tour launched as a competitor to the US based PGA Tour, which is the world's largest professional golf organization. Thanks to the immense money pumped in by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. Liv Golf was able to lure top golfers away from the PGA Tour by offering the likes of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and others vast amounts of money to join the breakaway league. Unsurprisingly, the PGA Tour was not happy, and the two organizations have since been embroiled in rival lawsuits. But this has all come to an abrupt and stunning end. The PGA Tour announced that the two entities would merge their commercial businesses to create a new for profit company. Saudi Arabia's public investment fund will inject billions into the new entity whose board is set to be chaired by Yasir Al-rumayyan, who already chairs the Saudi Investment Fund and the state oil company. Pga chief Jay Monahan, who will be the CEO of the new body, acknowledged that some people will call him a hypocrite, but said golf would be better off together than apart. The merger is the latest move by Saudi Arabia to work its way into the world of sport. The country's wealth fund owns English Premier League side Newcastle United and has lured or is luring world class players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to join domestic Saudi teams with hugely valuable contracts. The move has been criticized as sportswashing or, in other words, trying to shift focus away from the country's poor public image over things like human rights abuses.