Events: A four-day session of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific begins in Bangkok to discuss accelerating climate action for sustainable development. One way to reduce food waste is by converting edible scraps into apparel: “Transforming Waste to Wonder: Exploration of Food-Inspired Fashion” is the title of a seminar at
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Suella Braverman, home secretary, will on Monday reiterate the UK government’s commitment to bring down net migration as inflows are expected to hit a record high this year. Braverman will say in her keynote speech at the National Conservatism conference in London on Monday that she campaigned for Brexit because she wanted Britain to control
Hello and welcome to the working week. There is a symmetry to the next seven days. We begin with the reaction to Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections and end next Sunday with another national vote in neighbouring Greece. In both cases, the ruling party has been on the ropes because of the government’s response to
Sir Keir Starmer has scaled back a 2020 pledge to extend voting rights to all EU nationals, instead restricting the policy to long-term residents, according to Labour party officials. During his leadership campaign three years ago the Labour leader promised to give all EU citizens with “settled status” in the UK a vote in general
The sale of the UK water industry in 1989 is the most controversial of all Margaret Thatcher’s privatisations. Critics argue that it has been little more than a rip off: the privatised companies have failed to eliminate leaks, been permitted to dump vast quantities of untreated sewage into our waterways and used clever financial engineering
Howard Marks, the co-founder of $172bn investment group Oaktree Capital Management, has warned that the boom in private credit will soon be tested as higher interest rates and slower economic growth heap pressure on corporate America. The 77-year-old billionaire told the Financial Times that big asset managers had competed aggressively to lend to the largest
Technology-focused hedge fund Tiger Global is exploring options to cash in a piece of its more than $40bn portfolio of privately held companies, according to people familiar with the matter. The New York-based investment group is working with an adviser to tap the so-called secondary market to help return money to some of its investors,
Voters are heading to the polls in Turkey’s most consequential election in two decades as longtime leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seeks to fend off a united opposition led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Polls opened at 8am Ankara time on Sunday in presidential and parliamentary elections that offer two widely divergent paths for Turkey. Erdoğan, who first
The G7 and EU will ban Russian gas imports on routes where Moscow has cut supplies, according to officials involved in the negotiations, the first time pipeline gas trade has been blocked by western powers since the invasion of Ukraine. The decision, which is to be finalised by G7 leaders at a summit in Hiroshima
More than decade after bailouts and austerity measures pulled Greece from the brink of bankruptcy and a eurozone exit, the country has rebounded and is on the cusp of regaining its investment-grade rating. S&P recently changed its outlook for the country from stable to positive. A full upgrade would put Greece at triple B minus,
This week I went to Germany where I discovered they have a word for being excessively fond of abbreviations. The word is abkürzungsfimmel and it makes sense in a language with words of such dire length that they look as if they’ve been typed on a keyboard with no space bar. But the mania for
Shipping groups are increasingly seeking break clauses in contracts with Chinese businesses that would make it easier for them to walk away from deals if western governments impose sanctions on Beijing. Senior lawyers at four maritime law firms, who declined to be named, told the Financial Times that vessel owners were regularly asking for bespoke
While human portfolio managers fret over economic uncertainty and the health of the US banking system, some algorithmically driven hedge funds have been buying stocks at one of the fastest rates in a decade, according to bank trading desks. Quant funds have been piling into US stock markets in response to falling volatility, helping to
During Google’s big I/O showcase event for developers — a protracted, glistening flex of the company’s new AI muscles — one of the keynote speakers dwelt on the risks posed by “bad actors”. The phrase, in the context of an otherwise self-consciously optimistic event, came with a balance of real and abstract threat. There was
The shape of a possible US debt ceiling agreement between the White House and Republicans in Congress is emerging as they intensify talks in a bid to avoid an unprecedented national default. People familiar with the matter said that the issues on the table in the talks had narrowed, as senior Biden administration officials and
The national security adviser to South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa said it was in his country’s “own interest” to investigate a US accusation that arms were covertly transported to Russia from a Cape Town naval base, as Pretoria tried to calm a diplomatic storm. In an attempt to emphasise South Africa’s neutrality in the conflict
After stomaching some of the steepest price rises in decades on everyday goods from bread to toilet roll, shoppers are beginning to balk. Sales volumes at several of the world’s largest suppliers of consumer packaged goods have proved unexpectedly resilient, helping them to offset a historic upswing in commodity prices and shore up profitability. Recently
When Recep Tayyip Erdoğan first led his Justice and Development party (AKP) to victory, he used a campaign of fear and hope: promising an economic renaissance and to save Turkey from rival politicians bringing “poverty, famine and hunger”. Two decades later, the president, who has towered over his nation like no other leader since the republic’s
Is Britain on the verge of anarchy? The police certainly seem to think so. On the day of the coronation, they arrested three volunteers who were carrying rape alarms to protect women, not to scare horses — and six anti-monarchists who had already been in touch with the authorities about their plans. Holding up a
Two-thirds of the £12bn eventual rise in UK mortgage costs from higher interest rates has yet to be passed on to borrowers, leaving them facing painful refinancing over the coming months, a think-tank has warned. The Bank of England this week lifted its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5
He is the son of public-sector professionals. He worked in finance before running the country. He was born around the turn of the 1980s. (A cohort of men to be honoured for their fine minds and astonishing looks, I think.) He turned against his political patron en route to the top. He “presents” as metropolitan