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On today's podcast:

(1) Leading Chinese oil companies with interests in Venezuela have asked Beijing for guidance on how to protect their investments as Washington cranks up pressure on the Latin American country to increase its economic ties with the US.

(2) British support for the US operation to seize a Russian-flagged oil tanker demonstrated the importance of the transatlantic security partnership, UK Defence Secretary John Healey said, even as tensions rise over President Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland.

(3) The US President has demanded a $500 billion increase in annual US defence spending - to build what Trump called the 'Dream Military'.In what appears to be a contradictory string of announcements, Donald Trump also threatened to exclude some of the companies most likely to benefit from the increase.

(4) US officials are rushing to come up with options for business deals and other ways to step up links to Greenland, taken by surprise by President Donald Trump’s renewed demand to take over the island, people familiar with the matter said.

(5) For the first time since Euronext NV’s own initial public offering more than a decade ago, companies raised less than $1 billion through IPOs across its exchanges in 2025, bearing the brunt of the continent’s capital markets stagnation.

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