"The Biden administration has made clear the Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal. We continue to monitor activity and warn that any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will risk sanctions. We are committed to complying with the Congressional legislation in this regard."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took to social media to reiterate an official statement from Washington that it believes the controversial gas pipeline project across Northern Europe to be folly, that will leave its allies in the region exposed to the threat of a belligerent Russia.

The Biden administration, fresh from a bruising encounter with Moscow, has warned it is monitoring firms involved in the final months of the project with a view to punitive action.

Elsewhere, lenders to the failed finance group Greensill Capital have begun chasing claims with administrators. Japan's SoftBank looks set to be hit hardest in what could prove to have been its worst corporate bet since backing the office-sharing start-up WeWork.   

WhatsApp is taking on a top Amazon executive to head the payments business, in what is now its biggest global market, India. 

Amid claims that they often don't have time to eat or use the bathroom, young staff at Goldman Sachs warn bosses: "Cut our hours or we quit!"

And Instagram says it wants to launch a bespoke app for the under-13s. 

Our graph below shows that, despite security concerns, many younger teenagers are already making good use of leading social media platforms.  

Read on for more of the day's business news in full. 

Louise Greenwood 

Digital correspondent 

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The U.S. State Department has again repeated calls for companies involved in the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to cease activity or face sanctions. 

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the Nord Stream 2 project is "a Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe and weaken [its] energy security," adding that "multiple U.S. administrations have made [this] clear." He went on to say that U.S. officials are monitoring and assessing information about the companies involved in the final stages of its construction.

The undersea pipeline to carry natural gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine and therefore depriving it of lucrative transit revenues, is thought to be 90 percent finished and may be operational as early as June. Spearheaded by Russia's energy giant Gazprom, Nord Stream has been described by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel as a purely "economic" project, but its development has been opposed by states including  Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Nearly 20 companies, mostly insurance firms, quit the project earlier this year after Washington warned them of possible punitive fines. 

Creditors owed money following the collapse of the finance group Greensill Capital have submitted claims of $1.35 billion to the group's administrators. The statement from Grant Thornton came amid claims that Japan's SoftBank alone may be owed as much as $1.15 billion, as one of the main creditors to the collapsed supply-chain financier.

The UK government has sold some of its stake in the part-nationalized lender NatWest, reducing its holding at the bank for the first time in almost three years. In what has been described as an "important step" in returning the bank to private ownership, figures out on Friday show $1.6 billion worth of shares have been sold at Thursday's closing price of 190.50 pence. The sale cuts the state's holding in NatWest, formerly the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which had to be rescued at the height of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, to just under 60 percent. 

British Airways is considering allowing staff hybrid office and home-working options, amid rumors it may sell its huge headquarters at Heathrow. Before lockdown, 2,000 staff were employed at the West London site. BA, part of International Airlines Group (IAG), which also owns Iberia and Aer Lingus, has cut more than 10,000 jobs and is raising billions of pounds of cash from shareholders to shore up its finances through COVID-19.

The UK government borrowed $26.6 billion last month, the highest sum on record for February. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show $5.3 billion was spent on job support measures alone, with lower tax returns from VAT, business rates and fuel duty as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to bite.

Instagram says it wants to launch a photo-sharing app for children under the age of 13. In a statement, the social network said: "Kids are asking their parents if they can join apps that help them keep up with their friends." Instagram, which bars children, while targeting a younger audience, says it will take measures to prohibit predatory behaviors on any new app, stating the services for children will be parent-controlled, with safeguarding at their heart.

WhatsApp has hired a top Amazon executive to head its payments business in India, as the messenger service gears up to expand in the country's booming digital payments sector. WhatsApp has an estimated 500 million active users in India, which is now its biggest market, with analysts estimating the payments sector will be worth $135 billion by 2023. Manesh Mahatme has worked at Amazon Pay for nearly seven years.

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Facebook has unveiled a wristband that allows users to control their lights, boil kettles and manipulate virtual objects from a distance by moving their fingers. In a video demonstration, the social media giant laid out its plans to replace the computer mouse with wearable tech developed by the New-York-based brain tech firm CTRL Labs, which it bought in 2019. The wristbands, are part of the platform's tech roll-out, and can also be used to control virtual reality platforms and play videogames. 

China's social media platform Weibo has reported a 70 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits, despite a 10 percent year-on-year increase in revenue, but results are still ahead of analysts' estimates. Announcing a management shake-up Weibo, described as China's answer to Twitter, added that it expects net revenues to increase by up to a third this year, with the number of monthly active users hitting 521 million in December.

Profits at Italian luxury sports car maker Lamborghini reached a record high last year. China is expected to overtake Germany as the second-biggest overseas market for the Volkswagen-owned firm in 2021. Managers admit the figures have come as a "surprise" amid the COVID-19 lockdown, with the new sports utility vehicle (SUV) Urus accounting for 59 percent of global sales. 

U.S. delivery firm FedEx has seen its quarterly profits jump on strong demand for e-commerce deliveries over the holiday shipping season. Net income is up 153 percent from a year earlier to $939 million, while the firm's share price has doubled.

Quarterly sales at sportswear giant Nike missed estimates due to shipping issues and the effect of COVID-19. The company says revenue in the U.S. fell 11 percent because of container shortages causing congestion at ports, while shuttered main street stores also dragged on results, despite ongoing global demand for its goods.

Staff in their first year at the investment giant Goldman Sachs have warned they might quit unless action is taken to improve their working conditions. An internal survey has shown new staff averaging 95 hours of work a week at the bank and sleeping five hours a night, with many complaining of insufficient time to eat or shower. Despite bank measures to create a more liberal work environment, most also claimed personal relationships are suffering along with their physical and mental health.

WATCH: These "breathing" dummies could be saving you from the coronavirus​.

Top officials from China and the U.S. have been meeting face-to-face in Alaska for the first high-level talks since President Joe Biden took office in January. 

Ties between the world's two largest economies have been strained in recent years. CGTN Europe spoke to Duncan Wrigley, chief strategist at Everbright Sun Hung Kai, and asked if a reset may be on the way.

I think it is naive to expect a complete reset. There will certainly be a change in tone, there already has been … But the reality is the two sides are rivals in certain areas and that sense of rivalry has emerged in the U.S. over the last five, 10 years. I do think there is a possibility for some change and it probably won't happen in Alaska. There are some areas where there's likely to be very little progress, some of those very sensitive issues [like] Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and so forth. On other issues, there is much greater scope for the two countries to work together, climate change, for example. 

What does China really want to change about its diplomatic and economic relationship with the U.S.? 

I think that China would hope for the mindsets of the United States to change, to become much more of a kind of win-win situation where both countries are seeing opportunities to work together in different areas and with less emphasis on the issues where the two sides are very far apart, and there is very unlikely to be any progress. 

I think on the U.S. side, frankly speaking, domestic issues are top of the agenda, COVID-19 and the economy. Foreign affairs, including China, are some way behind in terms of urgency. And so I think the best that could be hoped for is that these key people and the senior officials on both sides get along well and start the kind of diplomatic processes, albeit boring, complicated and so forth, that could lead over time to a thawing of relations. 

And finally, Instagram says it plans a photo-sharing site targeting a younger audience. The latest data show that teenagers aged under 16 are already making frequent use of existing social media platforms, despite concern over their online safety.