Snap’s unconventional IPO, Trump overshadows EU summit and when Isis disintegrates

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Snap, which owns Snapchat — the messaging app beloved of tweens and millennials — has dropped the curtain on its initial public offering and says it wants to reinvent the camera. It has also said it wants to raise $3bn.

In the first SEC filing with references to sexting, poop and a cartoon ghost vomiting a rainbow, it proposes to the break with convention in other ways as the first IPO to issue shares with no votes at all. If it succeeds in raising $3bn, Snap could be the third-largest US technology offering, after Chinese ecommerce group Alibaba and Facebook. It could be valued at up to $25bn following the float, one of the highest for a tech group following an IPO. That’s not necessarily a good thing. And investors are already objecting to the voteless shares, with several of the largest US pension funds preparing to send a public letter of objection to Snap ahead of the float. (FT)

In the news

We need to talk about Donald As EU leaders gather in Malta for their first summit of 2017, they have a packed agenda. Not included, but nonetheless likely to dominate the talks, is how to handle the new occupant of the White House. Like much of the world, the bloc is struggling to decipher the new US president. It comes as the European Parliament’s main political parties are making an unprecedented attempt to block Ted Malloch, Mr Trump’s likely choice for EU ambassador, from EU buildings. (FT, NYTimes, Guardian)

US warns N Korea against nuclear attack James Mattis, US defence secretary, has warned Pyongyang that Washington would respond to the use of nuclear weapons with “effective and overwhelming” force, just days after the White House launched a comprehensive review of North Korea policy. (FT)

Louvre attacked A French soldier shot and wounded a knife-wielding attacker with a suitcase as he tried to enter the Louvre museum in Paris. France has been on edge after a series of militant attacks that have killed more than 230 people over the past two years. (Reuters)

Trumpland Donald Trump shifted course on some big foreign policies, including an unexpected appeal to the Israeli government not to expand the construction of Jewish settlements. At home, he is also poised to dismantle the Dodd-Frank reforms that reshaped US banking after the financial crisis. Meanwhile, China is rethinking its approach to the US in light of hostility from the new president. (NYTimes, FT, NAR)

Romania braces for more protests The country’s government is under mounting pressure to drop an emergency decree that opponents say hinders the fight against corruption, after a minister resigned and the president appealed against the decision to the constitutional court. The announcements came after the biggest anti-government demonstrations since 1989. (FT)

Test your knowledge with the week in news quiz. A leaked IMF report predicts Greek debt will hit what share of GDP by 2020?

It’s a big day for

US jobs Global markets are cautious ahead of the US employment report for clues as to the path of Federal Reserve policy. (FT)

Food for thought

France’s search for a ‘providential’ leader The scandal engulfing François Fillon, the presidential favourite, has thrown the election race into chaos. Together with the German general election in September, the French poll is being seen as a test of whether anti-establishment anger will topple the European bloc’s postwar foundations. The FT’s Philip Stephens argues “The EU can survive Britain’s departure. Not so that of France”. (FT)

Queen of Lake Tanganyika The MV Liemnba is the world’s oldest serving passenger ship and has been a vital link for people around Africa’s Great Lakes region for a century, and was thought to be the inspiration for the African Queen. But her continued importance is an indictment of the region’s failure to invest in infrastructure away from coastal cities. (Economist)

When Isis disintegrates While the jihadi group’s demise is far from certain, it is losing territory and weakening. There are two likely scenarios for its future: a strengthened core or, as seen with al-Qaeda, the growth of spin-off centres in Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan. (Foreign Affairs)

Collaborate or resist? A bitter battle is raging in the White House and chief executives must make their voices heard, writes the FT’s Gillian Tett. As Donald Trump’s business advisory council prepares to hold its first meeting in Washington, the question haunts chiefs. Uber chief Travis Kalanick — who had sat on Mr Trump’s business advisory council — made his decision on the eve of the meeting: resist. (FT)

What doesn’t kill us Diet and exercise, society’s twin pillars of good health, are not enough. Our bodies require a constant struggle against the environment we inhabit. There is a growing consensus that humans need stress — the kind that invigorates our nervous systems such as plunging into ice-cold water or a rough trek. Lucy Kellaway is a convert after trying it for herself in Denmark. (Quartz, FT)

Video of the day

Duterte in Davao The Philippine president was mayor of Davao for more than two decades. The FT’s Michael Peel talks to friends and family in his home city to find out more about where it all began. for the man leading a brutal war on drugs. (FT)