Our subject, a 45-year-old French male, called Nato “brain-dead”. He supports industrial protection at both the national and EU levels of government. When I arrived in Washington in 2018, he was viewed locally as having made more effort to cultivate Donald Trump than any other major western leader. Two years later, during the George Floyd
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Travellers determined to take to the skies despite soaring ticket prices have pushed airline profits to fresh heights, as resilient consumer spending buoys the global economy. As they reported record profits on Friday, British Airways-owner IAG said trips across the Atlantic and to leisure destinations had been particularly popular “as customers prioritise holidays”, while Air
Ukrainian artillery crews have been firing rockets made in North Korea against Russian positions, turning Pyongyang’s munitions against the invasion forces of its ally President Vladimir Putin. The North Korean arms, whose use by Ukraine has not been previously reported, were shown to the Financial Times by troops operating Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS)
The golden age of doing nothing has arrived for investors, just in time for summer. Fund managers often find that the August escape to the beach (in the northern hemisphere at least) is tinged with a little separation anxiety, distanced from data terminals, emails and spreadsheets. This has always been misplaced, in my view. Maybe
Warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner militia sent shockwaves across the globe when they attempted the first coup in Russia for three decades. After accusing his country’s military leadership of “murdering tens of thousands of Russian soldiers” as a result of the disastrous invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin launched an audacious march on Moscow to “punish”
Fans of full-bodied red wines and boutique gins will have to shell out more from next week as post-Brexit alcohol duty rules come into force in the UK, while those who prefer beer risk ending up paying the same for a weaker lager in a sign of “drinkflation”. First set out by Rishi Sunak in
Only three of Europe’s 70 biggest banks would be forced to raise capital in a doomsday scenario, the EU’s top banking regulator said on Friday, as it praised the “robust” nature of the bloc’s banking sector more than a decade after the financial crisis. The latest iteration of the European Banking Authority’s stress tests —
The Bank of England has asked former US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke to review its economic forecasting after it came under heavy criticism for underestimating inflation. The BoE’s governing body, the court of directors, announced Bernanke’s appointment on Friday, adding that the review would seek to strengthen support for the Monetary Policy Committee’s approach
Mortgage rate cuts by UK banks and building societies have prompted borrowers to reconsider their home loan options, as they look to avoid locking into costly long-term deals in a shifting market. In a sign of changing conditions in the mortgage sector, HSBC, Barclays, TSB and Nationwide — all top 10 UK lenders by size
Buck up, Britain! Enough of the wailing over high inflation and whining about soggy growth. Repeat after me: I am not an emerging market. I am not a developing country. I am not led by a lettuce. Or just listen to chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who recently rejected the “declinist narrative” going around. Careful, he says,
University towns in Britain are grappling with a shortage of accommodation as the supply of housing stock fails to keep pace with rising demand from domestic and international enrolments, according to new data. More than 350,000 purpose-built student beds across the UK’s 30 largest university towns and cities are needed to meet the expected demand
French luxury group Hermès has defied an industry-wide slowdown in the US, posting 22 per cent growth in sales across all markets in the first half of the year. Overall revenues soared to €6.7bn for the first half, from €5.5bn in the same period last year, the Paris-based company said on Friday. Operating profit surged
Goldman Sachs executive Julian Salisbury is leaving the bank to join Sixth Street Partners, a blow to chief executive David Solomon’s efforts to build up its asset and wealth management division. Salisbury’s departure is the latest from Goldman’s asset management business, where he was chief investment officer, with other senior executives including Katie Koch and
Taylor Swift, my favourite stadium-filling musician, once reflected in her song “The Man” that she would be given more respect for her artistic achievements were she of the opposite sex. “They’d say I hustled, put in the work/They wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve.” That said, or sung, she
Porzellan is crowded with a busy lunchtime crush of convivial Viennese spilling out of the bright, high-ceilinged room on to tables outside, all chiffon summer dresses and open linen shirts. Inside, amid the hum, I spot Tim Snyder looking into the middle distance, like the only motionless object in a long-exposure photograph. He smiles thinly
A group of companies including the UK coach and train service company Mobico has held detailed talks over launching a cross-Channel train service to rival Eurostar. Other parties involved in the discussions include the Spanish Cosmen industrialist family, which is an investor in Mobico, formerly known as National Express, according to two people with knowledge
We apologise to readers but this column has been delayed by rain. We are hoping to get to its contents before we run out of space but we have to be honest with you, the forecast does not look promising. No one is more disappointed than the author, who has thought long and hard about
The Bank of Japan has eased controls on its government bond market, altering a cornerstone of its ultra-loose monetary policy and prompting a surge in the country’s benchmark bond yields to the highest level in nine years. In an unexpected move, the BoJ said it would offer to buy 10-year Japanese government bonds at 1
European stocks and bonds fell on Friday, as the Bank of Japan’s decision to relax its grip on the government bond market rippled through global assets. The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 lost 0.3 per cent, having hit its highest level in more than a year in the previous session, while France’s Cac 40 fell 0.4
French inflation slowed to its lowest annual rate for 16 months, as falling energy costs reduced consumer price growth in the eurozone’s second-largest economy to 5 per cent in June from 5.3 per cent the previous month. The figure released by the French national statistics institute was in line with economists’ forecasts in a Reuters
IAG, the owner of British Airways, and Air France-KLM are the latest airline groups to report record profits as resilient demand for travel and high ticket prices have powered the industry’s recovery from the pandemic. IAG on Friday reported record operating profit before exceptional items of €1.25bn for the second quarter, the start of the