For Anna Li, this year has been the worst she can remember for finding a job in China — harder even than during the pandemic. “I’ve been applying for jobs for half a year. I’m really exhausted but I’ve not received an offer yet,” the 25-year-old graduate in the country’s wealthy eastern Shandong province said,
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Japan, declares tourist after tourist, investor after investor, is red hot. The yen is tumbling, the shopping is amazing, the stock market is flying, the sushi is cheap. It is also, perhaps, the only place in the world right now where you can buy a globally successful $20bn company for free. And glorious though that
Tens of thousands of public and private sector pension plans would be pooled into “GB superfunds” with assets of up to £500bn each under “extremely radical” proposals to unleash tens of billions for UK business growth. The measures set out in a report from the Tony Blair Institute are aimed at reversing years of capital
Spain’s conservative People’s party inflicted a resounding defeat on the ruling Socialist party in local and regional elections on Sunday, but despite its big gains the PP will need the support of the hard-right Vox party to govern in many areas. The vote in 12 regions and more than 8,000 municipalities was a crucial test
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was leading rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in Sunday’s pivotal run-off election, according to early returns published by state media, placing him on course to extend his rule into a third decade. Erdoğan had secured about 53 per cent of the vote, compared with 48 per cent for Kılıçdaroğlu, according to calculations
The writer oversees the Human Rights Foundation’s combating kleptocracy programme A year ago, with a new administration rising in Washington, it was clear that the US had taken the lead in the transatlantic fight against kleptocracy. But over the past few months, London has begun laying a blueprint to regain that pole position, and started
Mike Lynch, the billionaire founder of UK software group Autonomy, has used around $50mn worth of shares in British cyber security group Darktrace to pay for his bail as he awaits trial for fraud in the US. The British entrepreneur, who was extradited to the US earlier this month, has posted around 14.6mn shares in
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday was trying to contain a revolt from rightwing lawmakers opposed to his debt agreement with President Joe Biden, as both sides moved to sell their parties on a deal to prevent a looming US default. McCarthy defended the pact ahead of a high-stakes vote expected on Wednesday in
The UK government is drawing up plans for supermarkets to voluntarily cap the price of staples, in an effort to ease the burden of rocketing food costs on consumers. Steve Barclay, health secretary, confirmed on Sunday that ministers were in talks with retailers about how to “address the very real concerns” many households harbour about
“Brexit has failed.” This is now the view of Nigel Farage, the man who arguably bears more responsibility for the UK’s decision to leave the EU than anybody else. He is right, not because the Tories messed it up, as he thinks, but because it was bound to go wrong. The question is why the
Russian forces pounded Ukraine’s capital Kyiv overnight in what local officials described as the largest kamikaze drone attack since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of the country 15 months ago. Officials said Ukraine’s air defence systems had downed 52 of the 54 incoming drones launched against Ukrainian targets in the early hours of Sunday, with
The author is a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States Basic moral values and historical precedent demand that the defeated aggressor should pay for the war in Ukraine. Some advocates argue that reparations should start immediately by seizing an alleged $300bn of Russian government assets frozen in western financial institutions.
Joe Biden tried to make the best of the fiscal truce he negotiated with Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy late on Saturday, designed to prevent a potentially devastating default on US debt in little more than a week. “The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want,” the US president said.
Green hydrogen has a seductive appeal. Done right, this zero-emissions energy source has the potential to penetrate many corners of our economies and be instrumental in the fight against climate change. It can be transported over long distances, stored for lengthy periods and some existing fossil fuel infrastructure such as gas pipelines can be adapted
As Saudi Arabia enjoyed an unprecedented oil boom in the 1970s, the monarchy turned to a handful of merchant family companies — mostly from its commercial capital Jeddah — to build the nation’s infrastructure. But almost 50 years and another oil windfall later, many have been sidelined by another cadre of businesses that have one
The troubles of the UK casual-dining sector are writ small in the English market town of Maidstone. Just a few streets apart, an outlet of Italian-American themed diner Frankie & Benny’s and a branch of Italian restaurant Prezzo have shut in the past six months alone. As consumers cut spending in response to the cost
Lazard’s appointment of Peter Orszag as chief executive begins a grand experiment for one of the world’s most venerable financial institutions, which is betting a former academic and Washington insider can revive its fortunes. Orszag made his name as a wunderkind economist with degrees from Princeton and the London School of Economics before serving in
Canada’s big five banks this week collectively set aside the most money for loan losses since 2020, as concerns about an economic slowdown and higher defaults in commercial real estate mount. The country’s top five lenders, which all reported earnings this week, logged a combined C$3.37bn (US$2.48bn) in credit loss provisions in the first three
US president Joe Biden has struck a deal with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, that would avert a debt default looming in early June and bring relief to the global economy and financial markets. Biden and McCarthy reached the in-principle agreement on Saturday following days of tense, round-the-clock negotiations between the White House and
The New Development Bank, the Shanghai-based lender better known as the “Brics bank”, is in talks with Saudi Arabia on admitting the country as its ninth member, a move that would strengthen its funding options as founding shareholder Russia struggles under the impact of sanctions. The addition of the kingdom would reinforce ties between the
The White House and congressional Republicans were racing to seal a deal to avert a US debt default on Saturday as the high-stakes negotiations on a bipartisan fiscal pact dragged on into the weekend. After a late-night round of discussions ended without an agreement on Friday, negotiators for US president Joe Biden and Republican House