BAE Systems reported its best year for new orders in 2022 as Britain’s biggest defence contractor benefited from a surge in business from long-term programmes and forecast more to come as the war in Ukraine drags on. The FTSE 100 group, which builds everything from Eurofighter Typhoon jets to nuclear submarines and combat vehicles, said
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The EU and its allies are investigating a surge in exports to economies in Russia’s vicinity as they seek to prevent companies from evading western sanctions imposed on Moscow. David O’Sullivan, the EU’s newly appointed sanctions envoy, told the Financial Times that big increases in trade with countries in Russia’s neighbourhood raised questions as to
Shares in defence companies have surged in recent months, eclipsing gains for wider stock markets, as investors bet on the promises of increased military spending by western governments to help Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. An MSCI global benchmark for the sector is up almost 30 per cent in dollar terms since the start of
At about 1am on February 24 last year, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, received a troubling phone call. After spending months building up a more than 100,000-strong invasion force on the border with Ukraine, Vladimir Putin had given the go-ahead to invade. The decision caught Lavrov completely by surprise. Just days earlier, the Russian president
What is worse than house prices crashing 20 per cent? How about them not crashing 20 per cent? With higher borrowing costs and inflation — and decades of tighter mortgage lending — the UK property market faces the prospect not of falling, but of freezing stiff. And that might be the “worst of all worlds”,
Some of you may be aware that this week marks the beginning of Lent, the festival that many Christians celebrate — or suffer through — in the run-up to Easter. It commemorates the 40 days and nights Jesus spent fasting and being tempted by the devil in the desert. Having been brought up by a
A sanctions-hit Russian warlord who has been accused of human rights abuses around the world was able to pass UK anti-money laundering checks by submitting a utility bill in the name of his 81-year-old mother. Leaked emails seen by the Financial Times show that London-based law firm Discreet Law in 2021 requested identification documents from
The UK’s crisis-hit public services will not recover before the next election and may require significant injections of cash to prevent further decline, according to a sobering annual review by the Institute for Government, a non-partisan think-tank. After almost 13 years of austerity and grave damage to the public sector’s capacity as a result of
An off-duty police officer was shot in Northern Ireland on Wednesday night in what the region’s politicians condemned as a “shameful” attack committed by “terrorists”. “One man, a serving police officer, has been taken to hospital for treatment after being injured in a shooting incident at a sports complex just before 8pm this evening,” the
An off-duty police officer was shot in Northern Ireland on Wednesday night in what politicians condemned as a “shameful” attack committed by “terrorists” and a chilling reminder of the region’s past violence. The attack took place as London and Brussels seek to clinch a deal on Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland that some activists
A new independent football regulator will have powers to vet owners, scrutinise club finances and block English teams from joining breakaway competitions, under plans to be unveiled on Thursday by the UK government. The body, which will be enshrined in law, will aim to put financial sustainability at the centre of men’s football by forcing
Rishi Sunak was accused by the Labour party of being at the mercy of “malcontent” Tory MPs on Wednesday, as the prime minister’s efforts to land a Brexit deal on Northern Ireland hit further problems. Sunak had hoped to present a deal to reform Northern Ireland’s trading rules by now, but his allies admit he
The vast majority of Federal Reserve officials supported slowing the pace of US interest rate rises to 0.25 percentage points last month, according to an account of their most recent meeting that showed the central bank is still determined to bring inflation back to target. Heading into the meeting, some investors were concerned the minutes
Unison, the largest UK public sector union, on Wednesday announced further strike action by ambulance workers and other NHS staff after being cut out of pay talks between ministers and the Royal College of Nursing. The RCN, which had been planning to escalate industrial action next week with a 48 hour walk out, put strike
The World Bank is under mounting pressure. International threats to poverty — from global warming, the spread of disease and war — have become increasingly apparent over recent years. Meanwhile, global debt has surged, geopolitical rifts are denting co-operation, and estimates suggest $125tn of climate investment is needed by 2050 to meet net zero targets.
Vladimir Putin and Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, vowed to strengthen ties between their two countries despite “pressure from the international community” ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wang’s visit to Moscow, the first by a senior Chinese official since Putin ordered the invasion last year, highlights the deepening relationship between
Philip Morris International has admitted it would “rather keep” its business in Russia than sell on stringent Kremlin terms, highlighting the challenges for companies trying to leave the country without taking a huge financial hit. Chief executive Jacek Olczak told the Financial Times the tobacco group, which sells Marlboro cigarettes outside the US, had been
If you seek proof of the malaise in British public life, the saga of a Conservative donor who helped facilitate a personal loan for the prime minister being appointed BBC chair, will do nicely. This is the kind of thing the UK rails against when it happens abroad. Yet while Richard Sharp’s middleman role, details
Citigroup has forecast that UK inflation will plunge from the current double-digit rates to close to 2 per cent by the end of this year as rapid falls in gas prices give Rishi Sunak’s government hope of solving some of its biggest economic challenges. Citi said on Wednesday that consumer price inflation was likely to
The writer is an FT contributing editor, the chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and fellow at IWM Vienna In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, American pundits would plaintively ask: “Why do they hate us?” A year into Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, a variation on that question has
European and Asian stocks were hit with further declines on Wednesday after Wall Street suffered its worst day since December. The declines have been driven by stronger than expected economic data in the US and Europe, which has raised the prospect of central banks persisting with higher interest rates. Investors on Wednesday will look towards