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Pfizer’s Covid-19 oral antiviral drug cut the risk of hospitalisation or death by 89 per cent in a late-stage trial, creating a potential new tool in treating patients and combating the pandemic. The US pharmaceutical company said on Friday that it was stopping the trial due to the “overwhelming efficacy” and will add the data

Opec and its allies declined to accelerate plans to increase oil production, rejecting calls from President Joe Biden to help ease rising crude prices and increasing the odds of a retaliatory move by the US. The Opec+ group, which has included Russia since 2016, said on Thursday it would stick with a plan formulated this

The US has added NSO Group, the Israeli military spyware company that created software that has been traced to the phones of journalists and human rights activists, to a trade blacklist in a bid to tackle the growing surveillance threat posed by technology companies. NSO and a smaller Tel Aviv-based company, Candiru, were among four

Pfizer has more than doubled the 2021 sales forecast for its Covid-19 vaccine since February and predicted another bumper year in 2022 as it expands global distribution and begins shipping jabs for boosters and children. The US company said on Tuesday that it expected to generate $36bn in sales this year and $29bn in 2022,

World leaders warned of the severe consequences of nations failing to strike deals to limit global warming to 1.5C since pre-industrial times at the opening session of the Glasgow COP26 UN climate conference. UK prime minister Boris Johnson, the host of the summit, used a James Bond analogy to drive home the urgency of action

G20 leaders have sealed a deal to end international financing of coal power in a boost ahead of the opening of the COP26 climate summit. Leaders at a G20 summit in Rome agreed to end financing for coal-fired power plants overseas by the end of this year, according to the final text of their communiqué.

Mario Draghi has warned the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies that “going it alone is simply not an option,” as they gathered in Rome to start a two-day race to reach a deal on global climate change targets. The Rome G20 summit will set the tone for the COP26 meeting in Glasgow next

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

US economic growth slowed considerably in the third quarter due to supply-chain disruptions, a resurgence of Covid-19 and slower consumer spending. The world’s largest economy expanded 2 per cent on an annualised basis in the three months to the end of September, according to data from the commerce department on Thursday, marking the weakest quarterly

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

One of the world’s largest pension funds, ABP of the Netherlands, is to sell its entire holdings in fossil fuel companies worth more than €15bn as pressure mounts on retirement schemes to protect long-term savings from the threat of catastrophic climate change. ABP, the Dutch pension fund for educational workers and civil servants, said on

Facebook’s senior executives interfered to allow US politicians and celebrities to post whatever they wanted on its social network, overriding rules designed to curb misinformation and harmful content, leaked internal documents suggest. In particular, employees claim in the documents that while Facebook has long insisted that it is politically neutral, it allowed rightwing figures to

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

Saudi Arabia has pledged to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2060, while also maintaining its role as a leading producer of oil and gas, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a speech on Saturday. The announcement comes just days before the opening of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow and the G20

US intelligence officials have launched a campaign to warn American companies about the risks of interacting with China in critical industries, in a push to make it harder for Beijing to obtain technology and data. The National Counterintelligence and Security Center wants to raise awareness about the links that Chinese companies have with the government,

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

Jens Weidmann has decided to step down after a decade as head of Germany’s central bank in a move that comes weeks after the country’s general election and shortly before a crucial decision on the future of eurozone monetary policy. Since he joined the Bundesbank, Weidmann has been one of the most vocal critics of

The European Commission will take steps to punish Poland for challenging the supremacy of EU law, its head has vowed as she condemned Warsaw for “calling into question the foundations of the European Union”. Ursula von der Leyen, commission president, said on Tuesday that Brussels would use one of three tools to hit back at

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.