China cracks down on ride-hailing app Didi days after New York IPO

China’s cyber security regulator has ordered that Didi be taken off domestic app stores just days after the ride-hailing giant raised $4.4bn in the biggest Chinese listing in the US since Alibaba in 2014.

The Cyberspace Administration of China said on Sunday evening that Didi’s app had “problems of seriously violating laws on collecting and using personal information”.

The decision came two days after the CAC announced a cyber security review into the tech company, sending its shares down 5.3 per cent on Friday to $15.52. Shares in the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday at $14.

Didi has more than 377m users and 13m drivers annually active in China. The company holds a vast trove of data, from the addresses that users frequent, to their phone contacts and audio recordings of car rides, which it started taking after passenger murders in 2018.

Five more stories in the news

US stocks close at new records after jobs data US stocks closed at new all-time highs on Friday after jobs data for June came in better than expected, signalling that the world’s largest economy was emerging from the pandemic at a robust pace. The advance marked the seventh straight trading day the S&P 500 had closed at a record, the longest such streak since 1997. The index closed up 1.7 per cent for the week, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added just under 2 per cent.

Opec talks end in deadlock Opec and its allies failed to reach an agreement on raising oil production on Friday as talks hit a deadlock for a second day. The Opec+ group said it would reconvene by videoconference on Monday at 3pm Vienna time, with the meeting likely to be closely watched given rising concerns about inflation across markets. Brent, the international benchmark oil price, surged above $76 a barrel, a three-year high.

Morrisons primed for bidding war The UK’s fourth largest grocer is preparing for a bidding war after accepting a £9.5bn offer from SoftBank-backed Fortress and its partners over the weekend. The bid came two weeks after Morrisons said it had rejected an unsolicited approach from US private equity group Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.

Euro 2020 England secured their place in the semi-final of the Euro football tournament for the first time since 1996 with an emphatic 4-0 victory against Ukraine. They will play Denmark, who beat Czech Republic 2-1 in their semi-final, at Wembley on Wednesday. In the other semi-final on Tuesday, also at Wembley, Italy play Spain. Follow our tournament coverage here.

Kim Jong Un’s weight loss befuddles North Korea watchers After Kim Jong Un appeared on state television looking noticeably thinner it triggered a frenzy of speculation about the 37-year-old dictator’s health among North Korea watchers from Seoul to Washington. No one knew whether Kim’s slimmed-down appearance indicated a healthy or ominous change, said one expert.

Coronavirus digest

• People will no longer be forced to wear facial coverings from July 19 as England ends its third Covid-19 lockdown, a member of Boris Johnson’s government has said.

• Thousands of protesters across Brazil demonstrated against President Jair Bolsonaro this weekend as pressure mounted on the populist leader over allegations of potential corruption in the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines.

• Scientists have warned that July 4 celebrations across the US risked accelerating the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19, particularly in parts of the country where vaccination rates have lagged.

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The day ahead

US public holiday Financial markets will be closed in the US for a public holiday to mark the adoption by 13 colonies of the Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776.

Jassy takes over at Amazon Andy Jassy becomes chief executive of Amazon today, 27 years after Jeff Bezos founded the company. The 53-year-old will receive a stock package worth more than $200m to mark the transition of power.

IMF, WTO and World Bank heads discuss Covid-19 IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva, WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and World Bank president David Malpass discuss their plans and targets for permanently overcoming the coronavirus crisis at a virtual event hosted by the Paris Peace Forum and The One Campaign, an anti-poverty campaigning group.

Data Economic information provider IHS Markit releases purchasing managers’ data from the services industry across Asia, including China, Japan and India.

Keep up with the important business, economic and political stories in the coming days with the FT’s new look Week Ahead. Click to subscribe here. And don’t miss our FT News Briefing audio show — a short daily rundown of the top global stories.

What else we’re reading

FT Film: How the 20-year war changed Afghanistan An Afghan photojournalist, former politician, young musician, Nato interpreter, female film-maker, and a student whose mother was assassinated, reveal the impact of war . . . as US troops pull out and the Taliban gains ground.

Graduate jobs after the pandemic The lockdown cohort has suffered knocks to its training, networks and confidence as they enter the workforce for the first time. How are companies responding? Management Editor Andrew Hill and columnist Emma Jacobs find out. The FT recently surveyed new graduates on their experiences of entering the labour market. “We need to destroy substandard universities, and for young people to wise up and start work earlier,” wrote one respondent.

Can you change yourself? I’ve written whole columns about the flatulence people emit on the subject of authenticity, writes FT columnist-turned-teacher Lucy Kellaway, on her transformational experience. “I changed career because I was not only fed up with my job but fed up with myself,” she writes. “For the first time in my life, my work has given me a complete break from myself.”

Britain’s private schools lose their grip on Oxbridge A decade ago, parents who handed over tens of thousands of pounds a year to the likes of Eton or St Paul’s could assume their kids had a chance of attending Oxford or Cambridge. But anger about inequality, state sector applications and international students have prompted the universities to rethink.

‘Home in the World’ by Amartya Sen — citizen of everywhere The economist and human rights campaigner spoke with the FT’s Edward Luce about his new book, his early life and his long battle for a fairer world. At 87, Sen’s mind remains as sharp as when he won the Nobel memorial prize in economics in 1998. But his body is painfully frail.

Food & Drink

The quest to meet China’s most influential female chef Shandong is the historical home of Confucius. It is also the epicentre of Shandong or Lu cuisine — one of China’s so-called “four great cuisines”. Wang Xinglan, now in her seventies, is officially recognised as the custodian of “Confucius Mansion Cuisine”, a culinary tradition named after the father of the Chinese patriarchy. Fuchsia Dunlop travelled to Shandong to meet her.