President Barack Obama and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, backed a new drive for diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme on Tuesday. The US president told the UN that there was “the basis for a meaningful agreement”. Obama said he was directing John Kerry, US secretary of state, to “pursue this effort with the Iranian government”, together with the other leading powers that have been involved in negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme, The Financial Times reports.

The eurozone economy will not grow this year and the region remains ‘a considerable source of risk’ to the rest of the world, the OECD declared yesterday. Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, told a conference in Lisbon that growth will not return until 2014. He also warned that it will take years to tackle record high unemployment across the region, The Daily Mail explains.

A string of borrowers including the Government are aggressively tapping the newly resurgent bond market in the wake of the US Federal Reserve’s surprise wobble last week. The Debt Management Office raised £5bn in the space of 15 minutes yesterday, with investment institutions lapping up a new issue of index-linked gilts. A record 122 pension funds and insurers scrambled to put in bids of £10.8bn for the innovative 55-year issue — the longest-dated index-linked bonds or “linkers” ever offered for sale. Fourteen other borrowers, including Austria, Finland, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, lined up to take advantage of the favourable market conditions, writes The Times.

Britain’s biggest energy supplier Centrica has claimed it could not “continue to operate” if Labour’s price freeze were implemented while costs are rising. Ed Miliband’s policy pledge will also deter investment needed to keep the lights on, increasing the risk of blackouts, industry groups warned on Tuesday. Centrica, which supplies energy to 12m households, issued its stark warning in an unusually strongly-worded statement condemning Ed Miliband’s proposal, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Miller Group, Scotland’s biggest housebuilder, is weighing up a possible £400 million flotation, trade sale or demerger of the business to capitalise on the recovery in the UK housing market. The Miller family gave up majority control of the business to Blackstone, the private equity giant, in late 2011 and it is understood the company has held a “beauty parade” of possible financial advisers to consider all options. If Miller – which also has construction, commercial property and a small mining business – goes public it will join a flurry of property companies to test the stock market waters recently against a more benign sector backdrop, The Scotsman reports.

The bank that was fined a record $1.9bn after an investigation into money laundering for terrorists and Mexican drug dealers is to take on 3,000 more compliance officers. The move by HSBC would bring its total compliance staff to more than 5,000, almost 2 per cent of its global workforce, which has shrunk by over 40,000 in the past two years, The Times says.