Category Archives: Business

Global markets rocked as US-China trade and tech rift deepens

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Shares fall sharply in Asia, Europe and North America in intensifying war of words

The deepening trade and technology war between the US and China has sent global stock markets sharply lower and prompted a warning from the IMF of the increasing risks to the global economy.

Shares fell sharply in Asia, Europe and North America on a day that saw investors alarmed by the intensifying war of words between Washington and Beijing, poor news on the American economy, and political chaos in Britain.

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Uber to launch Jump bike hire scheme in Islington borough

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Ride-hailing company hopes to expand to other London boroughs if local trial goes well

Uber is to launch its electric bike hire scheme in the UK, trialling Jump bikes in London through its app.

The global ride-hailing firm will be battling with Lime for the e-bike market, after the retreat of dockless bicycle firms from the UK.

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UK negotiates loophole in Saudi export ban to sell planes to Yemen

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Government will continue to supply aircraft to be used in war, says Jeremy Hunt

The UK government has negotiated a loophole in a German arms export ban to Saudi Arabia that will ensure UK-supplied planes will continue to be used in the war in Yemen, the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has confirmed.

The news is contained in two unpublished letters from cabinet ministers to the parliamentary Committee on Arms Export Controls (CEAC). The aircraft, Tornado fighter bombers and Eurofighter Typhoons, are used in the Saudi bombing raids designed to push back the Houthi rebellion in the four-year civil war in Yemen. The aircraft were developed by consortiums of European companies and Germany supplies spares for them.

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McDonald’s investigated over racism and harassment claims in Brazil

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Federal prosecutors say complaint presents ‘worrying evidence’ of sexual harassment and discrimination

It was a busy day at a McDonald’s branch in São Paulo. Marcelo says he was struggling to keep up with demand while manning the chips and white meat stations when the shift boss called him a “damned stupid blackie”.

Marcelo protested and said he would pursue legal action for racism. The store manager fired him the next day, according to his statement in court documents seen by the Guardian.

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Trump’s China trade war risks damaging US economy, says OECD

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Intensification of tariff dispute also likely to knock almost $600bn off world economy

Donald Trump has been warned by the west’s most influential economics thinktank that further escalation of the US-China trade war would unleash significant damage for the American economy, as well as the rest of the world.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said that an intensification of the dispute between Washington and Beijing would likely knock as much as 0.7% off the level of global GDP by 2021-22.

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Trump reacts angrily to New York Times report on Deutsche Bank transactions

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  • Paper detailed staff concerns over Trump and Kushner entities
  • President claims he doesn’t need banks or money from Russia

Donald Trump sought on Monday to discredit a New York Times report that Deutsche Bank employees flagged concerns over transactions involving legal entities controlled by the president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Related: Deutsche Bank staff saw suspicious Trump and Kushner activity – report

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From bleak to bustling: how one French town beat the high street blues

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Mulhouse has turned around its image and now boasts more shops opening than closing, thanks to smart planning, investment and community efforts

On a lane in what was once considered eastern France’s grimmest town, a street artist is up a ladder finishing a mural, the independent bookshop has a queue at the till, the organic cooperative is full of customers and Séverine Liebold’s arty independent tea shop is doing a brisk trade.

When Liebold opened Tilvist in Mulhouse three years ago, in a space that had been vacant for years, friends tried to persuade her against it. “They said: ‘Not Mulhouse, look elsewhere,’” she recalls. “But I stuck with my instinct, and I was right.”

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Turkey insists on right to drill for energy reserves off Cyprus

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Dispute likely to escalate after Nicosia said it would seek to arrest anyone caught drilling

Tensions over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean have risen sharply after Turkey said it would “exercise its sovereign rights” to drill off Cyprus in flagrant defiance of warnings from western allies.

As the dispute over potential gas reserves intensified, Ankara insisted its state-of-the-art drilling ship, the Fatih, and its support vessels would begin operations in waters viewed by the EU as being within the island’s exclusive economic zone.

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Trump cools trade war by lifting North American metal tariffs

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  • Steel and aluminium imports from Mexico and Canada affected
  • Trump pauses implementation of auto tariffs on EU and Japan

The Trump administration moved to cool the simmering trade war with its major trading partners on Friday, ending tariffs on metal imports from Canada and Mexico and announcing a pause on planned tariffs on cars and car parts.

“I’m pleased to announce we’ve just reached agreement with Canada and Mexico,” Donald Trump said. “We’ll be selling our product into those countries without the imposition of tariffs.”

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Soaring oil prices cast shadow on US ahead of Opec meeting

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Risk to oil market of three simultaneous disruptions becomes lobbying point for Iran and Libya

In November 2018, Donald Trump tweeted: “Oil prices getting lower … a tax cut for America and the world! Enjoy! $54 … Thank you to Saudi Arabia.”

Five months on, with oil prices more than $70, Trump will be in a less celebratory mood as Opec’s oil ministers and their allies gather in Jeddah on Friday, without Iran. The main agenda item will be the implications for oil of three interconnected American foreign policy crises – in Venezuela, Iran, and Libya. Together these crises, being played out simultaneously, have the potential to scrub as much as 3.5m barrels of oil per day from the markets.

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European companies can’t compete against global giants

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Finance ministers say Europe is increasingly dependent on Chinese and US technology

It boasts the world’s second biggest economy, a huge consumer market of about 500 million people and prodigious pools of talent and capital, not to mention two of the world’s most important financial centres.

But Europe is struggling to match its great rivals, the US and China, in creating the kind of global firms that increasingly dominate the 21st-century marketplace.

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Trump pardons fraudster Conrad Black after glowing biography

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Former media mogul who owned Daily Telegraph spent more than three years in prison

Conrad Black, the former media mogul who owned the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator before being jailed for fraud, has been pardoned by Donald Trump – shortly after writing a book praising the US president.

The Canadian-born British citizen was once known for his extravagant lifestyle as he ran an international newspaper empire that included the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post. But he ended up serving three and a half years in prison after being convicted in 2007 of siphoning off millions of dollars from the sale of newspapers owned by the company he controlled.

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Tax authorities mount raids on 19 German banks and homes

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Investigation is linked to Panama Papers and part of money laundering allegations

Eleven banks and eight private homes and offices across Germany have been raided by police and tax investigators as part of a wide-ranging investigation into tax evasion.

The raids, which began at dawn on Wednesday and went on into the afternoon, were part of the same investigation started last November over money laundering allegations linked to the so-called Panama Papers scandal, alleged to involve Deutsche Bank.

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Pilots confronted Boeing with 737 Max fears after first fatal crash, audio reveals

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  • Boeing appeared to play down concerns of a second crash
  • Audio release comes as House committee reviews FAA role

American Airlines (AA) pilots angrily confronted a Boeing official about an anti-stall system suspected in two fatal crashes of the manufacturer’s 737 Max aircraft, according to a new recording.

Related: Boeing boss rejects accusations about 737 Max jets that crashed

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Trump defends China tariffs and claims ‘great patriot farmers’ will reap benefits

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  • Trump promises new deal with China can be reached soon
  • Chinese retaliation prompted huge stock market sell-off

Donald Trump continued to defend his trade war with China on Tuesday, claiming “great patriot farmers” in the US would benefit from tariff increases that triggered sell-offs in stock markets across the world.

Related: Barr working with CIA to review Trump-Russia investigation, reports say – live

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Adani deal with Myanmar military-linked company raises human rights alarm

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Australian expert worries Queensland coal may help fund armed forces accused of genocide

The Adani Group has signed a US$290m commercial deal with a holding company controlled by the Myanmar armed forces, who have been accused by UN investigators of committing genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Indian conglomerate behind the controversial Carmichael coal project in north Queensland was granted permission in April to develop a container port in Yangon, on land owned by the Myanmar Economic Corporation. The MEC generates significant revenue for the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw.

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Monsanto must pay couple $2bn in largest verdict yet over cancer claims

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California jury holds makers of Roundup weedkiller responsible for couple contracting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

A California jury has ordered Monsanto to pay more than $2bn to a couple that got cancer after using its weedkiller, marking the third and largest verdict against the company over Roundup.

A jury in Oakland ruled Monday that Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, was liable for the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) cancer of Alva and Alberta Pilliod. The jury ordered the company to pay $1bn in damages to each of them, and more than $55m total in compensatory damages.

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Tariffs: Donald Trump’s trust in trade war tactic is big electoral gamble

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Following his instincts, the president has slapped tariffs on $200bn of Chinese imports but the consequences are unpredictable

Donald Trump’s obsession with tariffs may be based on one of his few core beliefs. Or it may be part of a grand strategy to win votes. Either way, triggering a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies represents a huge gamble ahead of next year’s US presidential election.

The US has raised tariffs on $200bn in imports from China to 25% from 10%, with another round in the offing. Beijing vowed to retaliate but Trump, ever the salesman, claimed on Twitter that the new tariffs will bring “FAR MORE wealth” to America.

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Even Trump may ultimately retreat from the cost of the China trade war

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The president’s bullish advisers may be taking a hard line, but the chances of a deal are better than they look

During Donald Trump’s campaign to be president, he regularly cited China’s export subsidies as “evil”, and in his manifesto he pledged to “cut a better deal with China that helps American businesses and workers compete”.

The president turned decades of musings into a policy mission after his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, handed him a book by the academics Peter Navarro and Greg Autry – Death by China – which set out to explain how China manipulated the global trade system for its own ends.

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