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The Biden administration will on Tuesday announce plans for a sweeping crackdown on methane pollution from the US oil and gas sector as it seeks to bolster its pledges to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. The proposed rules from the Environmental Protection Agency go beyond any previous regulation of methane in the US, forcing

Jes Staley is to step down as Barclays chief executive following a regulatory investigation into the way he described his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. In a statement on Monday, Barclays said that it was made aware of the results of the investigation from the FCA and PRA on Friday and that: “In view of those

Manufacturing activity in China shrank for a second-straight month in October, as the fallout from the country’s property sector downturn and energy shortages spreads through the world’s second-biggest economy. China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index was 49.2 in October, below the 50-point threshold that indicates expansion rather than contraction, official data showed on Sunday. The PMI

President Emmanuel Macron has warned that an energy crisis threatens the world’s post-pandemic recovery, calling for leaders at a G20 summit in Rome this weekend to work together to stabilise supplies. In an interview, the French president also urged bigger financial commitments towards the fight against global warming on the eve of the COP26 climate

The eurozone’s economic rebound gathered pace with growth of 2.2 per cent in the third quarter, closing the gap with the US and Chinese recoveries and keeping the bloc on track to regain its pre-pandemic level of output later this year. However, there was a mixed picture between the four largest eurozone countries that reported

Senior Democrats have laid out detailed plans for a new tax hitting about 700 American billionaires, in an attempt to extract revenue from the ultra-wealthy to pay for Biden’s $2tn flagship spending plan. Ron Wyden, the chair of the Senate finance committee, said on Wednesday the plan would apply to taxpayers with more than $100m

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Microsoft both posted strong revenue growth in the third quarter, while Twitter swung to a loss, as the three tech companies released results late on Tuesday. Alphabet Alphabet smashed Wall Street’s profit expectations in the third quarter, thanks to stronger-than-expected ad sales, though the Google parent fell short of expectations

Tesla has become the first carmaker to be valued at $1tn after rental group Hertz said it had ordered 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans to electrify its fleet. Tesla shares rose 9.84 per cent in mid-day trading on Monday to $998.74, bringing year-to-date gains above 40 per cent and lifting the company’s market cap to

Poland’s prime minister has accused the EU of making demands of Warsaw with a “gun to our head”, urging Brussels to withdraw threats of legal and financial sanctions if it wanted to resolve the country’s rule of law crisis. In a move to ease tensions in the long-running dispute, which has raised fears of a

The EU has been warned not to delay the next phase of global banking rules, as draft plans show that Brussels is suggesting giving European banks a two-year extension to an internationally agreed deadline. Carolyn Rogers, secretary-general of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, said the new rules were “a really important final chapter” in

Internal documents have revealed Facebook’s bungled attempt to curb an explosion of hate speech and misinformation ahead of and during the January 6 Capitol riots, causing distress among its employees. The revelations come even as in mid-January, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, downplayed the notion that the social media network played a big part

Evergrande, the embattled Chinese property developer, has repaid a missed interest payment on a dollar bond, state media reported, just days ahead of a deadline that would have forced a formal default. The Securities Times reported on Friday that the real estate group had a day earlier transferred an $83.5m interest payment to Citibank, the

The European Central Bank is pushing banks to add hundreds of extra staff and billions of extra capital to their post-Brexit operations in continental Europe. One of the big surprises of Brexit was how few jobs moved from the City to the EU, with Financial Times research showing only a minimal reduction of London bank

The prolonged suspension of Evergrande’s shares has helped push the value of frozen stocks in Hong Kong to a record US$61bn, throwing into stark relief the city’s limited shareholder protections. Troubled property developer Evergrande halted trading of its Hong Kong-listed stock and that of its property services unit on October 4, stating in an exchange

Japan’s semiconductor industry is doomed to irrelevance unless the government matches the long-term strategic visions being laid out in the US and China, the country’s newly created minister for economic security has warned. Takayuki Kobayashi told the Financial Times that Japan had historically failed to identify the essential technologies that the country’s broad-based industrial economy

Countering the security threat from the rise of China will be an important part of Nato’s future rationale, the alliance’s chief has said, marking a significant rethink of the western alliance’s objectives that reflects the US’s geostrategic pivot to Asia. In an interview with the Financial Times, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said China was already

China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise. Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target.

Goldman Sachs reported a 60 per cent rise in quarterly profits, capping a week of bank earnings in which Wall Street firms reaped billions of dollars from a record burst of dealmaking. On Friday, Goldman reported third quarter group earnings per share of $14.93 on total net income of $5.4bn, up from $3.4bn a year

Japan’s new prime minister has pledged to move the country away from neoliberal fundamentalism as he lambasted his own party’s failure to deliver broad-based growth under the Abenomics programme that defined the economy for almost a decade. In his first interview with international media since taking over Japan’s leadership this month, Fumio Kishida told the

International bond sales by Chinese developers have all but halted as the crisis at China Evergrande stokes fears of defaults across the country’s property sector, throttling a crucial driver of Asia’s high-yield debt market. Just one developer has managed to tap overseas bond investors since Evergrande, the world’s most indebted real estate group, missed an