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Prices for second-hand supertankers have risen above the price of newly built vessels, a reversal driven by surging shipping costs. Middle East states are moving to secure their own tanker fleets, allowing state oil companies to reduce their reliance on third-party shipping firms and take direct control of how their oil is moved to market.

Yonhap News Agency reports that a country's financial chief and its central banker met, in a story labeled under banking news. The agenda, location and outcomes of the meeting were not disclosed in the available reporting. Discussions between finance ministers and central bank governors typically cover monetary policy, financial stability, inflation and exchange rate matters, but no specifics were provided here.

A Dutch central banker has called on the government to show fiscal restraint, warning against loosening public spending. The appeal adds to a broader debate in Europe over budget discipline, as governments weigh costly spending priorities against concerns about inflation, debt levels and the independence of monetary policy.

London's investment bankers and lawyers have earned more than £1bn in fees from a surge in takeover deals, according to the Guardian. The windfall reflects a busy period for mergers and acquisitions activity in the UK capital, with advisers on both sides of deals collecting substantial payments as companies pursue acquisitions.

In January 1966 a US Air Force B-52 bomber collided mid-air with a KC-135 tanker during refuelling over Spain, scattering its payload of hydrogen bombs near Palomares. Three bombs fell on land and one was lost at sea, taking roughly 80 days to locate and recover from the Mediterranean. The story is being recirculated as one of the most dramatic nuclear-weapons accidents of the Cold War.