The US has held secret talks with Iran this year in a bid to convince Tehran to use its influence over Yemen’s Houthi movement to end attacks on ships in the Red Sea, according to US and Iranian officials. The indirect negotiations, during which Washington also raised concerns about Iran’s expanding nuclear programme, took place
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Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK tax myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said it could take “many parliaments” to realise his ambition to get rid of national insurance contributions, as the government fends off accusations from Labour that the project amounts to an
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Rishi Sunak will attempt to block the takeover of the Telegraph by Abu Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI by changing the law to stop a foreign state buying a British news organisation. The UK prime minister will
Joe Biden plans to express serious concern over Nippon Steel’s proposed purchase of US Steel, a move that could threaten the deal’s progress and anger Japan, one of Washington’s closest allies. Biden will issue a statement about the Japanese group’s proposed $14.9bn acquisition of the Pennsylvania-headquartered steelmaker before Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives for a
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US politics & policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that would ban app stores from distributing TikTok if its Chinese owner does not divest ownership of the video-sharing platform. Republicans
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Ukraine has stepped up drone strikes on oil refineries deep inside Russia, in what officials depict as an intensifying effort to hit the country’s economy. In the second consecutive day of assaults on Russian
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Stripe is in “no rush” to go public after the $65bn payments company returned to positive cash flow and raised its private market valuation. The company, a Silicon Valley bellwether, told its investors on Wednesday
With Keir Starmer’s Labour, political definition comes in a series of negatives. The greatest clarity is found in the things he has ruled out. And there are few issues where he has been more emphatic than what he does not intend to do about Brexit. The man who secured the Labour leadership with his stand
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US politics & policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Call it the banality of chaos. Here is a checklist of Donald Trump’s recent activity. He promised on day one of his presidency to let January 6 convicts out of jail, close the
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Russian politics myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Vladimir Putin has said Russia is prepared for a nuclear war, delivering a crude warning to the west as his army advances on the Ukrainian battlefield more than two years into its full-scale invasion. The
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The chief executive of MBDA, Europe’s largest missile maker, has urged EU policymakers to ensure that the UK plays a role in the bloc’s new strategy to build up its defence industry as the region
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Democrats are aiming to seize on Republican “financial disarray and leadership chaos” caused by Donald Trump’s takeover of the party’s apparatus, claiming it will give them an advantage in this year’s election. In a memo
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The UK economy returned to growth in January helped by the expansion of the services sector, following a technical recession in the second half of 2023. Gross domestic product rose 0.2 per cent between December
In the two years he’s served on Ukraine’s battlefield, Ilya has had just 25 days of leave. “Two years without a break, without rotation — of course, morale is low and it’s killing motivation,” said Ilya, who serves in an assault brigade. “We need either rotation or normal vacations to rest properly.” The soldier said
On the 14th floor of Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, high up in the defence minister’s office, a large pyramid adorns the wall made up of images of Hamas’s top ranks. The title: “Status of leadership assassinations.” After five months of ferocious conflict in Gaza, those still alive greatly outnumber the mostly mid-ranking commanders
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The EU is readying a €7.4bn aid package for Egypt aimed at shoring up its economy, amid fears that the conflicts in Gaza and Sudan risk exacerbating financial troubles in the north African nation and
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK tax myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. A top London private equity lawyer has warned that Labour’s plan to raise the tax rate on buyout executives could be more damaging for the UK capital’s status as a dealmaking centre than Brexit. The
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Japanese companies including Honda, Nippon Steel and ANA Holdings have granted workers their biggest pay rise in more than three decades, underlining the inflationary trend and bolstering the case for the Bank of Japan to
At first, it was Lazard and Rothschild that Roger Altman’s boutique New York investment bank Evercore had in its sights. Almost three decades after its founding, the firm is instead closing the gap with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley on its core business of deal advice. Last year, the firm’s advisory fees put it
China is scrapping a string of infrastructure projects in indebted regions as it struggles to reconcile a need to save money with this year’s target for economic growth. Beijing has ordered a dozen highly indebted areas, many of them less-developed and far from the coast, to curb infrastructure spending as it tries to unwind a
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The government will introduce unprecedented legislation on Wednesday to quash all convictions in England and Wales relating to the Post Office scandal, one of the UK’s biggest miscarriages of justice. The bill, which the government