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5 Things You Need To Know, Today, on Friday 3rd December 2021
5. Fears about the Omicron Covid variant have led to a raft of cancellations at hotels, with many customers changing their Christmas plans.
Best Western GB, which runs 300 UK hotels, told the BBC that around three-quarters of its hotels had experienced event and room booking cancellations.
4. Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) including the U.K. have agreed a landmark deal which could cut trade costs by £113bn a year.
Some 67 members agreed to cut red tape around licensing and qualifications.
3. Oil giant Shell has pulled out of the controversial Cambo oil field development west of Shetland, saying the economic case for investment in the North Atlantic project was "not strong enough".
The company had a 30% stake in the field, which has faced sustained criticism from environmental groups.
2. The government failed to put adequate measures in place to prevent fraudsters stealing billions through its Bounce Back Loan scheme to businesses, the National Audit Office (NAO) has said.
Counter-fraud activity was "implemented too slowly", which resulted in "high levels of estimated fraud" and the NAO say worth £4.9bn, 11% of the total, as of March.
1. Retailers are continuing to put up fuel prices when they should reduce them in line with savings in wholesale oil prices, the RAC has claimed.
In response to concerns about the Omicron variant, oil prices fell by around $10 a barrel last week but retailers added on average another 3.1p to a litre of unleaded petrol and 2.7p to diesel in November.
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