Business

Oil prices rose around 3% on Monday due to hopes that the Omicron COVID-19 variant will have a limited impact on global demand in 2022, even as surging cases caused flight cancellations. Global benchmark Brent crude rose $2.53, or 3.3%, to $78.67 a barrel by 11:01 a.m. EST (1601 GMT). …

French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called Thursday on the EU to reform its fiscal rules in order to allow greater investment spending while acknowledging the necessity to reduce debts. “Just as the rules could not be allowed to stand in the way of our response …

Oil prices rose on Wednesday on fears of tight supply and a drawdown in U.S. inventories, despite worries about the likely hit to economic activity from the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. U.S. inventories fell more than expected, with crude stocks down by 4.7 million barrels, though that is …

Britain on Tuesday launched a £1.0 billion support package for Covid-hit businesses, as staff absences from rising cases began to bite in the run-up to Christmas. Finance minister Rishi Sunak said some 200,000 firms would be eligible for one-off grants to offset losses from what is normally the busiest time …

The World Economic Forum (WEF) will defer its 2022 annual meeting from January to early summer, it said on Monday. The meeting, scheduled for Jan. 17-21 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, was postponed due to the “continued uncertainty over the Omicron outbreak.” “Current pandemic conditions make it extremely difficult to deliver a …

President Tayyip Erdogan said he had lowered Turkey’s inflation to around 4% before and that he will achieve that again soon as annual price rises exceeded 21% due to his push for aggressive monetary easing that has sent the lira crashing. Erdogan has said the new policy based on low-interest …

Russian President Vladimir Putin held extensive talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, earlier this week, with the two world leaders agreeing on plans to establish a new shared international financial framework. China and Russia have been gradually moving towards such an arrangement since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 …

Global stock benchmarks and oil prices fell on Friday while safe havens such as the dollar and Treasury bonds rose as investors wrestled with a hawkish turn from major central banks in the fight against inflation and rising numbers of Omicron cases. Asian shares closed near lows for the year …

The Turkish stock exchange suspended trading after the national currency fell below 17 lira per US dollar on Friday. The lira has lost more than half of its value against the US dollar since the beginning of 2021.

India and Russia signed 28 investment pacts on Monday, including deals on steel, shipbuilding, coal, and energy, India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. India has also begun to receive S-400 missiles from Russia this month, Shringla said, adding that supplies would continue.

Financial markets fell sharply on Tuesday after the head of drugmaker Moderna said existing COVID-19 vaccines would be less effective against the new Omicron variant, but they recovered strongly after more reassuring comments from European officials. European Medicines Agency executive director Emer Cooke told the European Parliament that existing vaccines …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has ordered an investigation into possible currency manipulation after the lira fell sharply to record lows against the dollar this week, the Anadolu news agency reported on Saturday. It said Erdogan had tasked the State Supervisory Council, an auditing agency that reports to the presidency, to …

Global stocks tumbled on Friday and oil fell below $80 a barrel after news of a possibly vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant sent investors scurrying to the safety of bonds, the yen, and the Swiss franc. Little is known of the variant, detected in South Africa, Botswana, and Hong Kong, but scientists …

Lebanon’s president told central bank governor Riad Salameh on Wednesday to provide data for a forensic audit of the bank, saying the restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal(A&M) had said it did not have the information it needed a month after starting. President Michel Aoun made the comments in a meeting …

Turkey’s lira nose-dived 15% on Tuesday in its second-worst day ever after President Tayyip Erdogan defended recent sharp rate cuts, and vowed to win his “economic war of independence” despite widespread criticism and pleas to reverse course. The lira tumbled to as low as 13.45 to the dollar, plumbing record …

Russian energy giant Gazprom will withdraw gas transit to Moldova in the next 48 hours after Chisinau failed to settle its outstanding debt for supplies already delivered, a spokesman for the company announced on Monday. At the end of last month, the Saint Petersburg-based company and Moldavgaz agreed a new …

In a surprise announcement on Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would repeal agriculture laws that farmers have been protesting against for more than a year, sparking celebrations for what farmers called a hard-fought victory. Modi’s decision is a significant climb-down for the combative leader and comes as …

Turkey’s lira weakened to an all-time low of 10 against the dollar on Friday, breaching the key psychological threshold on investor worries about monetary policy after the central bank began cutting interest rates in September. The lira, which has weakened by more than a quarter so far this year, touched …

The US annual inflation has hit a 30-year high amid the coronavirus pandemic as well as the glitch in the country’s supply chain. According to the latest statistics, the consumer price index (CPI) rose 6.2 percent in the US federal government’s fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. …

With national leaders gone from the UN climate conference in Scotland, attention turned on Wednesday to the state treasuries and the businesses and financiers responsible for carrying out the pledges to cut emissions and build infrastructure. A main aim of the COP26 talks is to secure enough national promises to …