FirstFT: US presses Iran to stop selling drones to Russia

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We start today with a scoop on US efforts at de-escalating a long-simmering nuclear crisis with Iran.

The White House has pushed Tehran to stop selling armed drones to Russia as part of discussions on a broader “unwritten understanding”, with the Biden administration raising the issue during indirect talks in Qatar and Oman this year, according to people briefed on the matter.

The discussions have been taking place alongside negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal that led to the Islamic regime transferring four Iranian-US citizens from prison to house arrest last week, the people said.

According to an Iranian official and another person briefed on the talks, the US wants Iran to stop supplying drones to Russia, which Moscow is using in the war in Ukraine, as well as spare parts for the unmanned aircraft.

The official added that Tehran — which officially denies its drones are being used in Ukraine — had repeatedly asked Moscow to stop deploying them in the conflict, but Washington wanted “more concrete steps”. Here’s the full story.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• UK economy: Consumer price data is expected to show a sharp slowdown in inflation, with lenders set to cut mortgage rates further. The Office for National Statistics also publishes the house price index.

• EU economy: The bloc reports preliminary gross domestic product figures for the second quarter.

• Results: China’s tech giants JD.com and Tencent report second-quarter earnings. Admiral Group, Aviva, Avnet, Balfour Beatty, Cisco, Essentra, Target and Synopsys also report.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: Private equity group TPG Capital has approached EY about buying a stake in its consulting arm, outlining a debt-and-equity deal to separate it from the audit business in a letter sent to the Big Four firm’s global and US bosses. Here’s what we know about the proposal which would herald a second attempt at breaking up EY.

2. Greensill Capital charged an “unreasonable and excessive” fee for arranging financing for NHS building projects and deliberately avoided disclosing this fact, according to the collapsed company’s main insurer, Bond & Credit. The Australian insurance agency owned by Japan’s Tokio Marine had arranged $10bn of coverage for Greensill. Read the full story.

3. Exclusive: The chief of Norway’s $1.4tn oil fund has attacked the growing backlash against green measures in the UK and expressed concern about political resistance to climate policies after a Conservative by-election win in a London suburb was widely taken as proof of unhappiness with Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s car emissions scheme. Read the full Financial Times interview with Nicolai Tangen.

4. Exclusive: Three more women have made allegations against Daniel Korski of inappropriate touching and sexual misconduct. The former Downing Street adviser withdrew as one of three candidates seeking the Tory nomination for London mayor in June after TV producer Daisy Goodwin accused him of having touched her breast in a meeting 10 years ago. Here’s more on the new allegations.

5. Small cryptocurrency exchanges have been the main winners from Binance’s decline in the five months since US regulators charged it with violating federal laws. Companies based in the Seychelles deemed to be of higher risk to customers have increased their market share while “top-tier” exchanges have suffered the opposite. Here’s why.

Deep dive

About 3bn cups of coffee are drunk around the world every day — a number expected to double by 2050 if current trends continue. But warming temperatures mean up to half of current coffee farmland could soon be unusable, with fluctuating harvests and unpredictable incomes forcing farmers to leave the industry. Can the world produce enough beans to meet growing demand? Find out more in this FT visual story.

We’re also reading . . . 

Chart of the day

UK wages recently grew at their highest annual rate since comparable records began in 2001, according to official figures released yesterday. The record pace is likely to reinforce the Bank of England’s concerns over the pressures fuelling inflation and expectations of further interest rate rises this year.

Take a break from the news

HTSI’s creative director Rasha Kahil visits family in Lebanon, finding peace in a beachside guesthouse started by her mother a decade ago in the once-sleepy town of Batroun, along the country’s northern coast.

Additional contributions by Benjamin Wilhelm and Gordon Smith