Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, May 7th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Europe's most powerful leader opposed the US decision to support waving COVID vaccine

patents, and a Western telecommunications company struggles with heavy losses in Myanmar

after the military coup. Plus, we'll talk with our markets editor, Katie Martin,

about soaring commodity prices and a possible surge in inflation down the line.

And that's when we start to see the whites of central bankers eyes.

One investor I was speaking to said it's going to be like close combat bayonet fight between

the markets and central bankers. I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday opposed the Biden administration's support

to suspend intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. The move is aimed at boosting

global vaccine production. Merkel said boosting vaccine supply wasn't an issue of patents,

but one of production capacity and quality standards. The idea to wave vaccine patents has been

pushed hard by South Africa and India at the World Health Organization, but the EU has been pushing

back. Other world leaders weighed in on the matter, and Russia's president Vladimir Putin was

all for the waivers. France's president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was open to the idea too, but

he wasn't sure it would fix the bottlenecks. This week, the Norwegian telecommunications company

Telenoir said it wrote off its entire investment in Myanmar. It's worth nearly $800 million.

Conditions in the country are deteriorating as the military dictatorship continues its brutal

crackdown on protesters and citizens. As the FT's John Reed reports, the telecoms company is a key

foreign investor in the country. The business has been suffering because of the regime's

internet shutdowns, which have closed off traffic and communications. Their staff have been

under pressure, and there's this general deep economic slump in Myanmar now. Nobody was asking

...