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Senior Brussels officials are discussing the creation of an EU-wide sanctions authority, as they push for tougher and more consistent enforcement of penalties related to the war in Ukraine. Mairead McGuinness, financial services commissioner, said officials were open to introducing an EU version of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac), the powerful US Treasury

Hackers with suspected links to China’s intelligence agencies were still advertising for new recruits to work on cyber espionage, even after the FBI indicted the perpetrators in an effort to disrupt their activities. Hainan Tengyuan, a Chinese technology company, was actively recruiting English language translators in March according to job adverts seen by the Financial

Tensions are growing between Downing Street and UK regulators over Boris Johnson’s flagship post-Brexit reform of the insurance sector, which aims to unleash an “investment big bang” in British infrastructure. The prime minister has told allies he is “getting impatient” over the pace of change to the so-called Solvency II rules and with what he

The UK’s trade performance fell to its worst level since records began in the first quarter of 2022, heaping more pressure on sterling in international currency markets. Although the Office for National Statistics warned that the figures it published were “subject to higher levels of uncertainty than normal”, the new system it used to collect

The US will increase its military deployments in Europe as part of a scaling up of Nato defences, President Joe Biden said, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden said the Nato leaders summit in Madrid was “history-making” and that the additional US deployments would “send an unmistakable message that Nato is strong and

Emmanuel Macron wants to see a drive for higher oil production around the world as the French president seeks ways of bringing down the cost of energy and alleviating the pressure being felt by energy-importing economies. Macron made the proposal to fellow G7 leaders as they seek to hammer out the details of a price

Nato is to agree an overhaul of its battle plans to offer better protection to the alliance’s eastern flank, tearing up a model that could have meant relinquishing and then attempting to recapture the Baltic states in the event of a Russian invasion. Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary-general, told the Financial Times that the new military

Samantha Eberhart, a 19-year-old student at New York University, had just finished a Spanish exam on Friday morning when her smartphone relayed the news: America’s highest court had struck down a woman’s constitutionally-protected right to an abortion. “I just kind of went to the bathroom and cried,” Eberhart said. Eventually she made her way to

The battle over abortion rights in the US shifted rapidly to Congress and the midterm elections after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade and gutted the decades-old constitutional protection for women seeking to end a pregnancy. As conservative states began to implement new abortion restrictions across the country in the wake of Friday’s ruling,

Boris Johnson on Friday suffered a double blow as the Conservatives lost two parliamentary by-elections just weeks after the prime minister survived a vote of no confidence in his leadership. In Tiverton and Honiton in Devon, Liberal Democrat Richard Foord overturned a Conservative majority of 24,239 votes, winning by 6,144 votes. The seat had been

Interest payments on UK government debt hit one of the highest levels on record last month as rising inflation limited an expected fall in public sector borrowing. Interest costs rose to £7.6bn in May, well above the figure for last year and higher than a £5.1bn forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, following a

The UK’s inflation rate hit another 40-year high in May, reaching 9.1 per cent, its highest level since 1982. Fuelled by higher food prices last month, the rise was in line with economists’ expectations that suggest inflation will march higher in the coming months to reach double digits by the autumn. The Bank of England

Large parts of Britain have ground to a halt after the biggest strike to hit the country’s railways in 30 years began in the early hours of Tuesday with disruption to passengers expected to last all week. Members of the RMT union officially launched the industrial action by not turning up for night shifts that

Britain risks becoming a “rule taker” from Brussels after the government chose not to give the competition regulator powers to set codes of conduct for big internet groups such as Google and Facebook, the watchdog’s outgoing chief executive has warned. Laws to empower a technology regulator within the Competition and Markets Authority were left out

Bitcoin’s price has broken below the key threshold of $20,000 for the first time since November 2020, risking triggering a fresh wave of selling and deepening the crisis gripping the digital asset sector. The largest cryptocurrency, which acts as a benchmark for the broader crypto market, plunged to under $19,000 on Saturday morning, a fall

Investors yanked billions of dollars out of corporate bond funds over the past week as unexpectedly high inflation data prompted an aggressive interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve, intensifying fears over a global economic downturn.  For the week to June 15, $6.6bn was withdrawn from funds that buy lower-quality, US high-yield bonds, making it

Shares in Asia followed Wall Street lower after the UK and Switzerland raised interest rates, adding to concerns that tighter monetary policies from central banks could undercut a global economic recovery. Japan’s benchmark Topix index and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 both shed 2 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.7 per cent. China’s CSI 300

The Federal Reserve is set to embrace an increasingly aggressive approach to monetary policy tightening as it confronts the highest inflation in four decades. During its two-day policy meeting, officials on the Federal Open Market Committee have been actively debating the merits of implementing the first 0.75 percentage point increase since 1994. An adjustment of

UK government plans to go ahead with its first flight deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday night were grounded by a series of last-minute interventions by the European Court of Human Rights and court of appeal in London. Government sources confirmed on Tuesday evening that there would now be no one on the flight,

Asia-Pacific equities slid in the wake of a sell-off that plunged stocks on Wall Street into a bear market, as the prospect of aggressive tightening by central banks rattled global investors. Japan’s Nikkei 225 and China’s CSI 300 index each dropped 2 per cent on Tuesday while Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index shed 4.6 per