Good morning from the Financial Times.

Today is Thursday, March 19th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

Venezuelan oil now has an easier path to the global market, and the Fed is staying the course.

Plus, the fallout between Pakistan and the Taliban is having deadly consequences.

We saw a particularly deadly episode in Monday that showing that civilians are not being spared from this kind of violence.

I'm Sonia Hudson, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Thank you. to start your day. The U.S. relaxed sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil group yesterday.

Pada Vesa will now be allowed to sell oil directly to U.S. companies and on the global market. But payments must be sent to

U.S. controlled accounts. The move comes as the Trump administration wants to open up Venezuela's oil

sector, the U.S. abducted and arrested socialist leader Nicholas Maduro back in January.

The administration is also looking to alleviate some of the

crunch on the global oil market that was caused by the Iran war. But experts have warned it could

take years to revitalize Venezuela's oil sector. And big international energy companies seem

skeptical about investing in the country.

The Federal Reserve is sticking to its plan, despite a huge surge in energy prices from the war in Iran.

It held rates steady at its meeting yesterday and signaled that it expected to make a quarter point cut by the end of the year. Here's Chair J. Powell explaining why.

This normalization of our policy stance should continue to help stabilize the labor market

while allowing inflation to resume its downward trend toward 2%. But the implications of

events in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain. Here to decode the Fed speak is the FTs

U.S. U.S. economics editor, Claire Jones. Hi, Claire. Hi, Sonia. So tell us more about what Powell

was saying in that clip that we just heard. Why did the Federal

Reserve hold rates and signal that they're going to cut later this year?

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