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Microsoft is chasing a deal to buy all of TikTok’s global business, including the viral video app’s operations in India and Europe, according to five people with knowledge of the talks. The US software company said on Sunday it was in negotiations with ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to explore “a purchase of the

Women around the world will have to wait another two centuries for the global gender gap to fully close. That’s what the World Economic Forum predicted last December, when it stated that at the current rate of change it could take a startling 257 years to close the workplace gap — which measures factors such

The death toll from the explosion that ripped through Beirut climbed to at least 100 on Wednesday, while some 4,000 people were reported to have been wounded in the massive blast at the city’s port. Two fires were still burning at the scene of the explosion on Wednesday, which the authorities said took place at

For more than two years, Mariam al-Mheiri had been preparing for a crisis. So when aeroplanes stopped flying into the United Arab Emirates as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the Middle East in March, the country’s first food security minister knew what was expected. She had to guarantee that her desert nation, which imports 90

The founder of TikTok has defended a plan to sell the US arm of the viral video app, as his investors threw their support behind a bid for the business by Microsoft. In a second letter to employees in as many days, Zhang Yiming, the chief executive of ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, said he

Donald Trump has abandoned his opposition to Microsoft buying TikTok while vowing to ban the Chinese-owned video app in the US unless an American company acquired it by September 15. In remarks at the White House, Mr Trump added another complication to Microsoft’s pursuit of the app, insisting the US government should receive a portion

Satya Nadella, Microsoft chief executive, pictured in silhouette, spoke with Donald Trump after the US president said he did not want the company to acquire TikTok © AP Microsoft has said it will press ahead with talks to buy TikTok’s US operations from the video app’s Chinese owner ByteDance despite the reservations of Donald Trump,

The video-sharing app TikTok is accused by the US secretary of state Mike Pompeo of feeding data to the Chinese Communist party © HAYOUNG JEON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock The Trump administration has vowed to “take action” in a matter of days against Chinese software companies that it perceives as a risk to security, in a sign that Washington

The Wirecard scandal will galvanise efforts by Brussels to upgrade EU level financial supervision, according to one of the bloc’s top officials, who said the company’s downfall showed the need for stronger defences against fraud.  Valdis Dombrovskis told the Financial Times that the German payment group’s collapse had reinforced his belief that a previous thwarted

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is racing to save the video-sharing app’s US operations by making a last-ditch plea to the Trump administration to allow it to sell the unit to Microsoft. ByteDance has told the White House it is willing to divest its US operation in full through a sale, according to people

Donald Trump has vowed to ban TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, from operating in the US as his administration finalised a national security review of the company. The move, announced by Mr Trump as he flew back to Washington from Florida on Friday night, is likely to further inflame geopolitical tensions with China. It also

US chip company Nvidia is in talks to buy the UK chip designer Arm from SoftBank in a cash-and-stock deal that would value the unit at more than $32bn, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter.  The talks began in recent months after Nvidia approached SoftBank, which has been pursuing a series of

Apple revenues rose 11 per cent to a new record for the June quarter, trumping forecasts that its business would decline because of the coronavirus-induced slowdown and the closure of its stores around the world. The result — which put Apple’s shares over $400 for the first time ever — was a highlight of a

The US economy contracted the most in postwar history in the second quarter as unprecedented shutdowns closed businesses and left millions of Americans out of work during the pandemic. Gross domestic product, or the value of all goods and services produced by the economy, shrank at an annualised rate of 32.9 per cent, according to

The Federal Reserve has warned the fate of the world’s largest economy would “depend significantly on the course of the virus” as the US central bank extended measures to deal with an international shortage of dollars. After a two-day meeting on Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee made no significant changes to monetary policy, holding

Santander slumped to a €11.1bn loss in the second quarter after the coronavirus pandemic forced the eurozone’s largest retail bank to take large writedowns on the value of several of its businesses, led by its UK arm. The Spanish lender wrote off €6.1bn of goodwill left over from the purchases that created Santander UK in

Moderna is pitching its coronavirus vaccine at about $50 to $60 per course, according to people familiar with talks between the company and potential buyers — higher than other vaccine makers have agreed to charge governments. The price would apply to the US and other high-income countries, which the company intended to prioritise, said other

The European Central Bank has called on lenders to continue to freeze dividend payments until at least January 2021, in a move that further undermines the investment case for the sector. The central bank has also written to lenders, asking them to be “extremely moderate” when setting bonuses in order to help absorb losses and

The dollar weakened to a two-year low on Monday as sharp increases in US coronavirus cases and flare-ups around the world weighed on investor confidence. The dollar index, which measures the currency against a basket of trading peers, slipped 0.7 per cent to its lowest level since June 2018, as fears mount that the continuing

When Chinese diplomats began burning documents in the backyard of their Houston consulate after the US demanded its closure over spying allegations, it echoed a scene that played out in California a few years ago. Then, in September 2017, it had been Russian diplomats in San Francisco burning documents ahead of their eviction — also

As 2020 kicked off, Dan Gocher at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder advocacy organisation, was feeling “pretty optimistic” about its plans to force big Australian energy companies to tackle climate change. BlackRock, the $6.8tn asset manager, and other large investors had proclaimed an urgent need to arrest global warming. With the renewed

Florida overtook New York on Saturday to become the US state with the second-highest number of coronavirus infections over the course of the pandemic.  A further 12,199 confirmed cases — the state’s sixth-biggest one-day jump — took its overall tally to 414,511. That is about 3,300 more than New York and leaves it second only

Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte was unrestrained in his triumphalism about the deal he secured at this week’s crisis summit in Brussels. The unprecedented pan-European rescue package, he boasted, “would change the face of Italy”. Even Mr Conte’s most hardened domestic critics found it difficult to dismiss the agreement by EU leaders to create a

A stunning slip in Intel’s manufacturing development reverberated through Wall Street on Friday, as the chip industry contemplated a decisive shift in leadership in the world’s most advanced manufacturing technology. The US chipmaker warned the day before that it had fallen a full year behind in the process technology required for its next generation of

China has announced the closure of the US consulate in Chengdu, just days after Washington gave Beijing 72 hours to vacate its Houston consulate.  Tensions between the world’s two superpowers have risen to their most dangerous level in decades as the coronavirus pandemic rages through the US and Beijing cracks down on Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment benefits has levelled off near 1.4m, as Covid-19 outbreaks in parts of the US south and west stoke concerns that the labour market’s recovery could stall. New jobless claims came in at a seasonally adjusted 1.42m last week, compared with 1.31m a week earlier, the US Department

Jo Ronan had never done a grocery shop online before Covid-19. Now, she and her husband Mike doubt they will venture back into a supermarket until at least next year. “I haven’t been in a supermarket since March,” says Ms Ronan, a retired teacher who lives in Essex in southern England and has asthma. “I

Former Wirecard chief executive Markus Braun has been accused by Munich prosecutors of committing a multiyear fraud and arrested for a second time following the June collapse of the German payments group. The prosecutors now suspect Wirecard’s accounting fraud started as early as 2015 when Mr Braun and other suspects allegedly agreed to inflate Wirecard’s

Donald Trump said the Covid-19 pandemic in the US will “get worse before it gets better”, in a marked change of tone during his first White House coronavirus press briefing in nearly three months. “Some areas of our country are doing very well, others are doing less well,” the president told reporters on Tuesday, hours

Exceptional situations require exceptional efforts, said German chancellor Angela Merkel as she entered a fourth day of budget talks on Monday and, in the end, the EU made an exceptional effort.  After marathon and often fraught negotiations, the bloc’s leaders reached a momentous deal for a €750bn recovery fund, to help cushion the effects of