Aurelia Butler

“We must hold ourselves accountable more broadly as we become a better and bigger bank,” said Mohammed bin Hadi Al Husseini, the United Arab Emirates’ minister of state for finance, who heads the joint Development Committee this year.Al Husseini issued a chair’s statement, rather than a communique, amid disagreements over wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, but referenced economic risks posed by the conflicts. The statement came as this week’s meetings of the IMF and World Bank drew to a close.Governors of the institutions urged the World Bank to continue to bolster global and regional partnerships, and asked its management to push ahead with country engagement reforms and enhanced country diagnostics.They also encouraged further collaboration between the World Bank and IMF to help countries mobilize more revenues at home, and on issues such as climate change and pandemic preparedness, as well as debt sustainability. More

Emirates cancelled nearly 400 flights and delayed many more as a result of a record storm that hit the desert city of Dubai on Tuesday, said a statement released by the airline’s president, Tim Clark.Due to the impact of the storm, the airline suspended check-in for passengers departing from Dubai and halted its transit operations through Dubai International Airport, a major global travel hub, leaving thousands of travellers stranded. The airport has struggled to return to normal operations after the storm flooded taxiways, forcing flight diversions, delays and cancellations. Flydubai also returned to its full flight schedule from the airport’s Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 on Saturday following the weather-related disruption, a spokesperson for the airline said. Clark said Emirates had provided 12,000 hotel rooms and 250,000 meal vouchers to customers who were affected. He added it would take days to clear the backlog of rebooked passengers.The UAE has suffered the impact of the flooding for days, with roads between the city and Abu Dhabi still partially under water as of Saturday. In Abu Dhabi, some supermarkets and restaurants faced product shortages, unable to receive deliveries from Dubai.Researchers have linked extreme weather events such as Tuesday’s storm to climate change and anticipate that global warming will lead to higher temperatures, increased humidity and a greater risk of flooding in parts of the Gulf region.A lack of drainage infrastructure to cope with heavy rains in countries such as the UAE can put them at particular risk of flooding. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday is set to vote on, and expected to pass, a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from party hardliners.More than two months have passed since the Democratic-majority Senate passed a similar measure and U.S. leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell have been urging embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.Johnson this week chose to ignore ouster threats by hardline members of his fractious 218-213 majority and push forward the measure that includes some $60.84 billion for Ukraine as it struggles to fight off a two-year Russian invasion.The unusual four-bill package also includes funds for Israel, security assistance for Taiwan and allies in the Indo-Pacific and a measure that includes sanctions, a threat to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine.”The world is watching what the Congress does,” the White House said in a statement on Friday. “Passing this legislation would send a powerful message about the strength of American leadership at a pivotal moment. The Administration urges both chambers of the Congress to quickly send this supplemental funding package to the President’s desk.”A bipartisan 316-94 House majority on Friday voted to advance the bill to a vote, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told senators to be ready to work over the weekend if it passes the House as expected.”It’s not the perfect legislation, it’s not the legislation that we would write if Republicans were in charge of both the House, the Senate, and the White House,” Johnson told reporters on Friday. “This is the best possible product that we can get under these circumstances to take care of these really important obligations.”Some hardline Republicans have voiced strong opposition to further Ukraine aid, with some arguing the U.S. can ill afford it given its rising $34 trillion national debt. They have repeatedly raised the threat of ousting Johnson, who became speaker in October after his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted by party hardliners.Representative Bob Good, chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Friday that the bills represent a “slide down into the abyss of greater fiscal crisis and America-last policies that reflect Biden and Schumer and (House Democratic leader Hakeem) Jeffries, and don’t reflect the American people.”But Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who carries huge influence in the party, on April 12 voiced support for Johnson and in a Thursday social media post said Ukraine’s survival is important for the U.S. The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific. More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Traders have upped their bets that the euro could fall back down to parity with the dollar as stubbornly high inflation and resilient growth in the US raise expectations that the Federal Reserve will only begin cutting interest rates months after the European Central Bank.Investors have been buying options that will pay out if the common currency falls to $1 or below. Based on the price of these options, strategists at Bank of America say markets are now pricing in a more than 10 per cent chance of such a scenario within the next six months. At the beginning of January the market saw almost no chance of this happening.The euro has already slipped 3.5 per cent against the greenback since the start of January. Parity would require a further drop of almost 6.5 per cent.“It now seems like markets have thrown in the towel on substantial rate cuts in the US, whereas traders are pretty certain the ECB will start easing in June,” said Francesco Pesole, a currency strategist at ING. The cost of betting on further weakness in the euro in the options market has “increased quite dramatically of late”, he added.Signs of stubborn inflation and resilient growth in the US have led traders to slash their bets on how fast borrowing costs will fall in the world’s largest economy. Traders are now pricing in less than two quarter-point interest rate cuts this year from the Fed, compared with expectations of more than six at the end of last year. In contrast, in the eurozone the annual pace of inflation dropped to 2.4 per cent in March, close to the ECB’s 2 per cent target, while growth also remains comparatively sluggish. The IMF said on Tuesday that the US economy was on track to grow 2.7 per cent in 2024 — more than triple the pace of the eurozone.Fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East, and the potential knock-on effect of higher oil prices, have also triggered warnings about a hit to the common currency, with Europe dependent on energy imports.The euro last dropped to parity with the dollar in 2022, the first time in two decades, amid the energy price shock triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and during a huge bull run on the dollar. “The US economy is still not landing [weakening] and the risk of higher oil prices has increased. This has dramatically increased the risk for an even weaker euro-dollar, even parity,” said Athanasios Vamvakidis, global head of G10 foreign exchange strategy at Bank of America. ECB President Christine Lagarde told CNBC on Tuesday that the central bank would monitor oil prices “very closely”, but noted that the market reaction following Iran’s air strikes on Israel last weekend had so far been “relatively moderate”. Signs of escalation in the Middle East could also push the greenback higher as investors typically gravitate towards the perceived safety of the dollar in times of stress.Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan have warned that the ECB might have to move more gradually once it starts lowering borrowing costs as interest rate differentials could cause excessive weakness in the common currency and risk a fresh spike in inflation by pushing up the price of imported products.But Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank, said the ECB might not oppose a gradual weakening of the euro as it begins to focus “more on growth risks than inflation risk”.A softer exchange rate could help exports, said Foley, and the boost to growth would be particularly welcome for countries in the region, such as France and Italy, that are struggling with rising government deficits. More

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The memorandum was signed by the governors of the banks in Washington on Friday, the Turkish central bank said in a statement.Turkish and Brazilian central banks aspire to foster cooperation and carry out corporate technical activities in the field of central banking, it said.The Turkish central bank said it also signed a memorandum of understanding with its counterpart in Kazakhstan to boost cooperation. More

Police charged a boy, 16, with a terrorism offence on Thursday for the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at a church in the New South Wales capital on Monday. Footage from the scene showed the boy restrained by the congregation and shouting accusations that Emmanuel had insulted Islam.X’s Global Government Affairs posted on Saturday that the Australian eSafety Commissioner had ordered it “to remove certain posts in Australia that publicly commented on the recent attack against a Christian Bishop”.The regulator demanded that X “withhold” the posts or face a daily fine of A$785,000 ($500,000), the company said, without giving details of the posts at issue.It said, “X believes that eSafety’s order was not within the scope of Australian law and we complied with the directive pending a legal challenge.”The eSafety Commissioner does not have the authority to dictate what content X’s users can see globally,” X said. “We will robustly challenge this unlawful and dangerous approach in court.” Asked about X’s comments, an agency spokesperson cited an eSafety Commissioner statement that it was working to ensure X’s compliance with Australian law. “We are considering whether further regulatory action is warranted,” the regulator said.The regulator, a government body that works to remove harmful online content, sent legal letters in March to social media platforms including X, demanding information about their efforts to stamp out terrorism content.The bearded Emmanuel, bishop at the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church, is a social media star with followers around the world but also a divisive preacher. He has made fiery criticisms of homosexuality, COVID vaccinations, Islam and U.S. President Joe Biden’s election. ($1 = 1.5584 Australian dollars) More