Friday newspaper round-up: Hollande/Putin, Portugal, Unilever, RBS

François Hollande and Vladimir Putin pledged on Thursday to better co-ordinate operations against terrorist groups in Syria but failed to eradicate differences over which groups to target and over the future of Bashar al-Assad. The leaders of France and Russia held more than three hours of talks at the Kremlin focusing on the fate of the Syrian president and on which parts of the armed opposition should be protected from air strikes. The summit was part of Mr Hollande’s push for a broader coalition against Islamist radicals Isis after the attacks in Paris a week ago. – Financial Times

Portugal’s anti-austerity Left has taken power with the support of Communists and radical forces after eight weeks of bitter wrangling, breaking Germany’s grip on economic policy and setting the scene for a bruising fight with Brussels on budget plans. The triumph of the triple-Left alliance under Socialist leadership is a historic moment for the country and implies a sweeping reversal of austerity cuts imposed by the now-departed EU-IMF Troika. – Telegraph

A wave of company failures is “inevitable” in Britain’s oil and gas industry, with businesses supporting the wider energy sector the first to fail, according to advisory firm FRP. The prediction comes in the wake of the Autumn Statement, which set out a bleak prediction for future of the North Sea industry with an expected collapse in tax receipts, but offered no relief for the sector. – Telegraph

The government has been forced to deny claims that George Osborne’s spending review is a continued assault on Britain’s poorest families, after two respected thinktanks warned future benefit cuts would leave some families more than a thousand pounds worse off. Both the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation said they believe millions of working families would be worse off by 2020 because of welfare changes than they would have been under the current system, despite Osborne having reversed his planned cuts to tax credits. – Guardian

Unilever, the consumer goods giant, has pledged to eliminate coal from its energy usage within five years, and derive all of its energy worldwide solely from renewable sources by 2030. The company will become “carbon positive” by 2030, through its own use of renewables, and by investing in generating more renewable energy than it needs, selling the surplus on the markets and making it available to local communities in areas where it operates. About 40% of the company’s energy use currently comes from green sources. – Guardian

Did you push a shopper to the floor this morning to snatch a cut-price television from their grasp? Perhaps you stayed up all night to nab an early bargain on the web? If not, then you clearly haven’t entered into the spirit of Black Friday. The biggest shopping day of the year will result, for the first time, in British consumers spending £1 bn online in 24 hours, analysts said. Hundreds of millions more is expected to be spend in stores. – The Times

Royal Bank of Scotland has been rebuked by a High Court judge for failing to produce evidence in its dispute with shareholders, forcing a delay in a trial over a rights issue. The bank is being taken to court by shareholders over alleged misleading information and omissions in the rights issue prospectus in 2008. The shareholders are claiming £4 billion in compensation from the state-backed bank. – The Times