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Opec and its allies have reached an agreement to raise oil production at a time of soaring prices after compromising over how the output targets of some of its largest members are calculated. Members of the Opec+ group including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq and Kuwait will all be awarded higher production baselines —

With just over two months to go until polling day, the devastating floods that swept through western Germany this week have catapulted climate change to the heart of the German election campaign. Most of Germany’s political parties agreed that global warming was to blame for a catastrophe that left 103 people dead and visited destruction

The Biden administration Friday warned US companies that they faced serious and escalating risks operating in Hong Kong, as the Chinese government increasingly cracks down on freedoms in the financial hub. The US issued a “business advisory” about threats ranging from China’s ability to gain access to data stored on servers in Hong Kong to

Aurora, the driverless vehicle start-up backed by Amazon and Uber, has unveiled plans to go public in a merger with a blank-cheque company, becoming the first top-tier player in the industry to achieve a stock market listing and setting up a test of investor appetite for such cash-guzzling ventures. Aurora said on Thursday it would

Jay Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said the US central bank was ready to intervene if inflation spiralled out of control, but stressed that he expected price increases to ease later in the year. “Inflation has increased notably and will likely remain elevated in coming months before moderating,” Powell said in prepared remarks

The breakneck pace of US consumer price increases seen since the start of the year accelerated in June, challenging the Federal Reserve’s case that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will prove temporary. The consumer price index rose 5.4 per cent in June from a year ago — above the nearly 13-year

Israel will begin offering third doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine this week to adults with serious pre-existing medical conditions, becoming the first country in the world to officially offer a so-called “booster” jab. The move, confirmed by the health ministry on Monday, comes as US and European health authorities debate the need for booster

Brussels will set out plans this week to increase taxes on polluting fuels and introduce an EU-wide levy on aviation kerosene for the first time, under measures intended to put it at the forefront of global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.  The European Commission will propose a revamp of its 15-year-old rule book on carbon

Big Chinese companies that have the data of more than 1m users will need to pass a security review before issuing shares on overseas stock exchanges, the country’s internet regulator said on Saturday. The announcement from the Cyberspace Administration of China came less than a week after the State Council, China’s cabinet, and the Chinese

Joe Biden is set to sign a sweeping executive order to curb the power of big business by stamping out anti-competitive practices that harm smaller rivals. The White House on Friday unveiled 72 measures in Biden’s order, which include a ban on non-compete clauses for workers and span industries from technology and transportation to healthcare and

US government bonds rallied and global stock markets dropped sharply, as worries about inflation were replaced by concerns that the global economic recovery from coronavirus has peaked. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond, which moves inversely to its price, fell 0.04 percentage points to 1.276 per cent. The move put the world’s benchmark bond

Brussels wants to set up a new anti-money-laundering authority with direct supervisory powers as it seeks to crack down on illicit finance following a series of scandals.  The European Commission will this month table legislation to create the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) according to draft proposals seen by the Financial Times. It should set up operations

Didi shares tumbled in pre-market trading on Wall Street, leading a decline in Chinese companies listed in New York following a clampdown by Beijing’s internet watchdog that rattled investors. Didi, which uses so-called American depository receipts to trade in the US, dropped 25 per cent in early dealings, a day after the Cyberspace Administration of

Beijing has broadened a crackdown on tech platforms, targeting more US-listed companies after ordering the removal of ride-sharing group Didi Chuxing from Chinese app stores in a move that sent tech shares tumbling. The Cyberspace Administration of China on Monday announced it was investigating Boss Zhipin, an online recruitment company, and Chinese truck-hailing apps Yunmanman

China’s cyber security regulator has ordered that Didi be taken off domestic app stores just days after the ride-hailing giant raised $4.4bn in the biggest public listing this year. Didi’s app has “problems of seriously violating laws on collecting and using personal information”, the Cyberspace Administration of China said on Sunday evening, two days after

Opec and its allies failed to reach an agreement on raising oil production on Friday as talks hit a deadlock for a second day, with the UAE remaining opposed to a deal that does not address concerns over its own output target. As oil prices traded close to the highest level in three years, around

The US labour market created 850,000 jobs in June, as the world’s largest economy continued to heal from the Covid-19 shock and hiring caught up with the unrelenting demand for workers. Non-farm payrolls data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday came in well above economists’ expectations of 720,000 jobs created for the

The US and Japan have been conducting war games and joint military exercises in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan, amid escalating concerns over the Chinese military’s assertive activity. US and Japanese military officials began serious planning for a possible conflict in the final year of the Trump administration, according to six

Elevated inflation will compel the Federal Reserve to raise US interest rates at least twice by the end of 2023, according to a new poll of leading academic economists for the Financial Times. The inaugural survey conducted by the FT and the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business

Negotiators in Paris are battling to persuade holdout nations to sign up to a global deal on corporate taxation this week as they become increasingly concerned that the compromises needed to get countries on board will water down the final agreement. China, India, eastern European countries and developing nations have all raised objections to the