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The Biden administration has revoked executive orders signed by former president Donald Trump targeting the Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat apps, and issued a new order that steps up scrutiny of Chinese apps and software that could threaten the data of Americans. The order signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday is the latest move to

Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor, is pushing to win a carve-out for the City of London in the G7’s push for a new global tax system to cover the world’s “largest and most profitable multinational enterprises”. Sunak said the weekend’s “historic agreement” by G7 finance ministers would force “the largest multinational tech giants to pay

US regulators have approved the first new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in almost two decades by giving a green light to a drug developed by Biogen despite a rancorous scientific debate over whether the medicine even works. In a significant moment for the roughly 35m people suffering from the cognitive illness worldwide, the US Food

Germany’s Christian Democrats won a decisive victory in elections in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, in a huge boost for their leader Armin Laschet and his bid to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in September. The CDU was able to hold off a strong challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which

The G7 advanced economies have struck what they have termed a “historic agreement” on taxing multinationals in a bid to create unstoppable momentum for a global deal. A communique issued on Saturday showed that the US, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Italy and Canada had found enough compromise both to stop companies shifting profits to low

Facebook has said Donald Trump will be banned from its network for at least two years, a move likely to inflame tensions with allies of the former US president who accuse the company of censoring conservative views. The ban was a revision from a previous indefinite suspension by Facebook, which was criticised by the company’s

The Biden administration is banning Americans from investing in dozens of Chinese defence and surveillance technology companies in an effort to stop US capital from being used by China to undermine national security. President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order banning investments in 59 companies, including marquee Chinese groups such as Huawei, the

Trading in AMC shares was briefly halted on Wednesday after the company’s stock price surged on the back of a promise to dish out free popcorn to investors, in the latest example of how the ‘meme trading’ frenzy is rippling across Wall Street. The shares soared as much as 93 per cent to $61.82 per

Brent crude was on course to settle at its highest level since the start of the pandemic, after Opec and its allies stuck with their plan to only gradually release more barrels into a strengthening oil market. The international oil benchmark rose almost 3 per cent to $71.34 a barrel on Tuesday as Opec+ producers

Investors are no longer falling over themselves to put money into US initial public offerings, reducing the chances that a company will be able to price their shares above expectations or enjoy a big share price “pop” on their first day of trading. New figures show the IPO market has cooled substantially since a red-hot

Russia has agreed to release $500m in credit to Belarus and look to increase the number of flights between the two countries as the Kremlin doubled down on its support for Alexander Lukashenko after his forced landing of a passenger flight that has sparked western condemnation. Russian president Vladimir Putin hosted Lukashenko in Sochi on

The US has moved to punish Belarus for the forced landing of a Ryanair flight last weekend by announcing that it would reimpose sanctions on nine of the country’s state-owned companies and would join the EU in developing a list of additional targets. In a statement late on Friday, Jen Psaki, the White House press

A US inflation measure closely watched by the Federal Reserve posted its biggest year-on-year jump since the 1990s in April, rising more than expected and fuelling concerns about price increases. The commerce department’s core personal consumption expenditure index, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, rose 3.1 per cent last month compared to a

Tesla is set to take the unusual step of paying in advance for chips to secure its supply of the crucial materials and is also exploring buying a plant as part of efforts to overcome the global shortage, according to people familiar with the matter. The US electric-car maker is discussing the proposals to secure

The EU has demanded damages potentially amounting to billions of euros from AstraZeneca if the company fails to increase deliveries of its Covid-19 vaccine by next month. The EU wants the company to pay penalties of €10 a dose a day if it does not supply 20m extra shots the European bloc wants by the

Goldman Sachs Asset Management has won initial approval for a wealth management joint venture with ICBC, one of China’s largest banks, as Wall Street groups expand their presence in the country. Goldman will hold a 51 per cent stake in the venture, while ICBC wealth management, a subsidiary of the bank, will own the rest.

Asian countries that led the way in controlling Covid-19 last year have become laggards in the battle against the virus as their efforts to vaccinate their populations fall behind other parts of the world. The problems with rollout vary from country to country, but across most of Asia one factor is constant: a lack of

European leaders have called for an immediate international response after Belarus forced a Ryanair flight bound for Lithuania to land in Minsk on Sunday and arrested one of its passengers, a top opposition activist. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader, said online activist Roman Protasevich, resident in Lithuania, had been detained in the Belarusian capital.

The chief executive of AstraZeneca has insisted its Covid-19 vaccine has a future, as he revealed the UK had priority access to the jab and hit out at the “armchair generals” behind “traumatic” attacks on the company. In his first interview following a string of setbacks, including the emergence of rare fatal side-effects, Pascal Soriot

The world could “end the pandemic” in mid-2022 by vaccinating 60 per cent of the population at a cost of $50bn, the IMF has said, as rich countries and vaccine manufacturers pledged to address the inequality undermining the global response to coronavirus. Countries with sufficient vaccine supplies could afford to donate 1bn doses in 2021,

WeWork’s losses almost quadrupled to $2.1bn in the first quarter of this year, as the co-working company haemorrhaged more than a quarter of its members and shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to restructure its property portfolio. Documents seen by the Financial Times showed lockdowns and remote working in the pandemic drove WeWork’s losses

An investment firm founded by the son of China’s most powerful financial official has invested heavily in technology companies, including units of leading Chinese internet groups Tencent and JD.com. Liu Tianran, son of vice-premier Liu He, was listed as chair of Tianyi Ziteng Asset Management, also known as Skycus Capital, when the firm was established

Nabil al-Kurd, a Palestinian, remembers the day Jewish settlers moved into his house, a modest one-storey home in Sheikh Jarrah, a mostly Arab neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. Yaacov Fauci, a Jew from New York, arrived with a police guard on a sunny autumn day in 2009, threw out the furniture and moved into the

The World Economic Forum has been forced to scrap its plans for an in-person annual meeting once again, cancelling a gathering planned for August in Singapore as the city state imposed new restrictions and new Covid-19 outbreaks shake its members’ confidence.  “Regretfully, the tragic circumstances unfolding across geographies, an uncertain travel outlook, differing speeds of

AT&T has agreed to spin off and combine WarnerMedia with its rival Discovery in a multibillion-dollar deal to create a media empire that has the programming heft to compete with Disney and Netflix in a global streaming race. The move will create the second largest media company in the world by revenue after Disney. It

Foxconn does not normally care too much about style. Even its investor conferences are held at the drab concrete-block building that houses the Apple supplier’s headquarters in an industrial suburb of Taipei. But in March, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer put on a real show: hosting 500 executives at a chic event space in

Israeli security forces struggled to quell worsening communal violence in its cities as it stepped up operations in Gaza against Palestinian militant group Hamas.  Jews and minority Israeli Arabs fought each other in several Israeli towns overnight as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to quell the rioting with “a lot of force” and warned the

Israel said it had deployed ground troops in its assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip after five days of relentless bombing runs aimed at the Palestinian militant group that has fired more than 1500 rockets into the Jewish state, the Israeli army said.  “Israel Defense Forces air and ground troops are currently attacking in

Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, announced on Tuesday that a public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic would be held within the next year. He said “there will be a time when we must learn the lessons of what has happened” in the government’s efforts to beat Covid-19.  The number of jobs available

US consumer prices rose 4.2 per cent in April over their level a year ago, a bigger jump than economists had expected, which could fuel concerns that inflationary pressures are settling in. The US inflation reading is attracting special attention because of fears among some investors, economists and analysts that hefty fiscal support, supply bottlenecks