Wednesday newspaper round-up: Farmers, Volklec, BP, Apple
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Wednesday 26 Feb 2025
(Sharecast News) - Farmers are warning of a "cashflow crisis" that has left many in the agricultural sector wondering how they will make it to the end of the year. At the annual meeting of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) of England and Wales, its president told members that "bad policy, geopolitics and unprecedented weather" had left some sectors of UK farming "in the worst cashflow crisis ever". - Guardian
A startup has said it has learned from Britain's faltering attempts to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, as it signed a deal to license technology from an established Chinese firm. Coventry-based Volklec plans to manufacture batteries for cars, boats, construction vehicles and aircraft using technology from China's Far East Battery (FEB), a maker of batteries mainly for electric bikes. - Guardian
Sir Keir Starmer's claim that he will spend an extra £13.4bn a year defending Britain is "misleading", economists have warned. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said raising the defence budget from 2.3pc to 2.5pc of GDP involved a comparable increase of less than half this amount. The Prime Minister announced on Tuesday that he would meet a commitment to spend 2.5pc on defence by 2027, maintaining this level for the rest of the parliament. - Telegraph
BP and the government of Iraq have reached an agreement for the energy group to work on the redevelopment of four large oil and gasfields in Kirkuk in the north of the country. The deal, which could result in BP spending $25 billion over the lifetime of the project, comes as the FTSE 100 group is expected to unwind 2030 targets to cut oil and gas production and drop its low-carbon deployment goal at its capital strategy on Wednesday. - The Times
Apple shareholders have voted to keep the iPhone maker's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, despite pressure to drop them from President Trump and conservative activists. At Apple's annual meeting on Tuesday, shareholders rejected a proposal by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, that called on Apple to "cease DEI efforts". - The Times
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