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China’s independent refiners have been discreetly buying Russian oil at steep discounts as western countries suspend their own purchases and explore potential embargoes because of the war in Ukraine. An official at a Shandong-based independent refinery said it had not publicly reported deals with Russian oil suppliers since the Ukraine war started in order to

In a battered market for technology stocks there may be hope: call it the “private equity put”. On Tuesday, Elliott Management disclosed a $1bn — or roughly six per cent — stake in Western Digital, the maker of hard drives and flash memory devices. Elliott urged Western to break up those two halves of its

US president Joe Biden called on the Supreme Court to uphold the landmark Roe vs Wade abortion rights ruling following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn it, which the court’s chief justice condemned as a “betrayal” and insisted was not indicative of its final decision. “I believe that a woman’s right to

On Monday morning, with volumes thinned by the UK’s bank holiday, Citigroup briefly crashed the European market. Nearly two trading days later, we’re still struggling to figure out how. Citi has placed the blame on one unfortunate in its London office, saying a unidentified trader “made an error when inputting a transaction”. As excuses go,

The writer is a science commentator It seems like a ingenious solution to an intractable problem. The world may be bungling its promise to limit global temperature rise to less than 2C above pre-industrial levels, but could solar geoengineering ride to the rescue? Methods vary but the basic idea is the same: to reflect sunlight

BrewDog staff are in line for potential payouts of up to £120,000 after its chief executive pledged to share with them £100mn of his personal stake in the UK’s largest craft brewer. James Watt said on Tuesday that he would donate a fifth of his 24 per cent stake in the company to an employee

When the UK’s furlough scheme was announced near the start of the pandemic, Paul Stephenson thought he would be eligible. He was working via a temp agency in a small manufacturing company where other staff were being furloughed. But he wasn’t employed by either the manufacturer or the agency. Instead, his employer was an “umbrella

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Federal Reserve poised to raise rates a half-per cent Jess SmithGood morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, May 3rd. And this is your FT News Briefing. [MUSIC PLAYING]  US central bankers are meeting today amid expectations for a half point interest

A drilling boom in America’s oil heartlands has triggered a sharp reversal of fortunes for the country’s long-suffering oilfield services groups as they reap the rewards of the scramble to pump more crude. Many producers have rushed to open the taps to capitalise on soaring oil prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ratcheting up demand

The head of ProSiebenSat.1 has compared merging Germany’s top broadcasters to the futile quest of Don Quixote, as he championed an independent future for his media company. Rainer Beaujean, chief executive of the Bavaria-based ProSieben, queried the consolidation case sweeping Europe’s broadcast sector, arguing it amounted to either commercially unsound cross-border deals or regulatory impossible

The writer is an adjunct lecturer at William & Mary and author of an upcoming book on confidence-driven decision-making “The markets are plotting against me,” an international student told me recently. Between the dramatic rise in US used-car prices, the increase in short-term interest rates and the strength of the dollar, the monthly loan payment

The slow build-up towards Simon Rattle’s departure from London seems as drawn-out as the long anticipation of his arrival in 2015. Such is the lead-time involved in the contracts of top conductors, though at least it allows plenty of scope for planning in advance. With a year to go before he steps down as music

The US Federal Reserve is expected to accelerate its monetary policy tightening this week with its first half-percentage point rise since 2000 and signal more aggressive action to come until there is clear evidence that red-hot inflation is under control. Mounting inflationary pressures stemming from a tight labour market coupled with price increases extending beyond

Democrats in Congress sounded alarm bells after a leaked draft ruling indicated the US Supreme Court was set to overturn the landmark Roe vs Wade ruling that has guaranteed abortion rights across the country for almost five decades. The draft opinion, dated February 10 and signed by Justice Samuel Alito, part of the court’s staunchly

In March the co-founder and head of consumer engineering at DoorDash, Andy Fang, could be found dropping off an order from a sushi restaurant to a customer’s apartment in San Francisco. The food delivery app had restarted its WeDash programme that requires all of its salaried employees in the US, Canada and Australia to get

Your article (“The road to energy independence starts at home”, Opinion, April 29) perfectly defined one of the key steps we should all be taking to limit Russia’s ability to attack in Ukraine — energy efficient consumer behaviour. It is one of the essential ways we all can make a contribution while helping Ukrainians to

Sarah O’Connor was right to hail the success of auto enrolment in transforming pensions saving as a rare British policy success (Opinion, April 26). Before memories fade we should pay tribute to Adair Turner, whose vision it was to promote the idea in 2006, which was then taken on, albeit too slowly, first by the

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister who built the foundations for the city-state, was different things to different people. Former British foreign secretary George Brown called him the “best bloody Englishman east of Suez”. The Chinese government described Lee upon his death as a “strategist embodying Oriental values”. Singapore’s next leader will find it

At least 350 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in the past two days, despite the British government’s new plan to fly thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda. One refugee charity cast doubt on the government’s assertion that its Rwanda plan will deter migrants from making clandestine boat journeys across

Germany has warned that EU consumers should brace for a big economic hit and higher energy prices as Berlin said it was willing to back an embargo of Russian oil to punish Moscow for its war on Ukraine. Europe was prepared to bear the strain of cutting its use of Russian crude, said Robert Habeck,