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On June 24, eight Chinese fighters flew across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan’s air force scrambled their jets in response, as they do almost every day. But this time, the People’s Liberation Army aircraft flew closer than they have before: right up to what is known as Taiwan’s contiguous zone, a buffer area just 12 nautical

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s warnings that conservatives and hard-right nationalists would drag Spain backwards were far from original in the lexicon of political campaigns. But in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s vote, the conservative opposition People’s party and the radicals of Vox provided real-life examples in local government of how they would handle coalitions.

A flow of key data over the past 10 days suggests the UK economy is less of an outlier among its peer countries than previously thought, as figures showed unexpected economic resilience and a sharp decline in inflation. A few weeks ago, Britain was the only large advanced economy not showing a steady downward trend

The US criticised elections in Cambodia on Sunday as “neither free nor fair” after strongman Hun Sen claimed a landslide victory, setting the stage to transfer power to his son. Hun Sen said his Cambodian People’s party won 120 of 125 National Assembly seats, according to unofficial results, with five for the royalist Funcinpec party.

Barbie and Oppenheimer delivered the strongest opening weekend at the box office this year as fans rushed to experience the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, boosting cinemas after what has been a lacklustre summer season. Barbie’s estimated $155mn opening in North America was the highest of the year, following a marketing blitz from toymaker Mattel and Warner Bros.

Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez was trailing his conservative rival Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the country’s general election on Sunday night, but the race was unexpectedly close with more than 90 per cent of the vote counted. The preliminary results defied the predictions of most pollsters that Feijóo’s People’s party would comfortably oust the incumbent Socialist

The government will on Monday announce plans to focus on building homes in city centres and liberalising planning restrictions, as it seeks to meet its manifesto promise to build 1mn new homes in England by the end of the current parliament. Prime minister Rishi Sunak will outline his strategy to boost the country’s supply of

Powerful Republican donors and billionaires Ken Griffin and Nelson Peltz are rethinking plans to support the US presidential bid of Ron DeSantis over concerns that the Florida governor has veered too far to the right. They have been discouraged by DeSantis’s interventionist policies, people familiar with their thinking told the Financial Times. Griffin objects to

The Treasury will this week summon the heads of Britain’s biggest banks to explain how they intend to ensure that customers are not “de-banked” for their political views after Coutts closed the account of former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage. NatWest, Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays are among 19 banks and fintechs that will be

The writer is a historian, philosopher and author To understand events in Israel, there is just one question to ask: what limits the power of the government? Robust democracies rely on a whole system of checks and balances. But Israel lacks a constitution, an upper house in the parliament, a federal structure or any other

In his Mansion House speech early this month, Jeremy Hunt, chancellor of the exchequer, recognised some of the defects of the UK’s pensions mess. He acknowledged, for example, the low prospective returns on pension assets and the failure of institutional investors to back high-growth home companies. But he failed to deliver hope for radical reforms.

Italy will try to maintain its influence on European Central Bank affairs by proposing Piero Cipollone, a senior Bank of Italy official, as its candidate to join the eurozone’s top monetary decision-making body. Three sources close to the decision said Cipollone was the Italian government’s favoured candidate to replace Fabio Panetta, the ECB executive board

European central banks could accelerate the process of shrinking their vast bond portfolios, according to officials and economists, who say this would reinforce their fight against inflation and make room to buy assets again in the next crisis. Rate rises have been the main tool for central banks to tackle the recent surge in inflation

Elon Musk has said he plans to revamp Twitter’s branding and ditch its iconic bird logo, posting on the social media platform that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”. Musk has already made significant changes to Twitter since he bought the company last year, changing its name

“We don’t want Disneyland to train our military.” Those were US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s words last week at a press conference in which he and other Republicans defended inserting “anti-woke” provisions in a military spending bill that were designed to curb abortion rights, diversity training and transgender healthcare. The fact that he

UK banks have handed more of the benefits of interest rate rises to savers than their counterparts in Europe or the US, as politicians, regulators and clients push for a greater share of the haul. Global banks are coming under pressure to pass on the benefits of higher interest rates to their customers — but