When the Chinese Communist party leadership gathered in Beijing for its quinquennial congress last October, the media spotlight was firmly on President Xi Jinping securing a precedent-shattering third term as China’s unchallenged leader. Overlooked by many at the time was the rise of a new group of political leaders in the top echelons of power
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There is an irony in JPMorgan Chase having proved the last straw for Odey Asset Management. Last Monday, the US banking giant agreed to pay up to $290mn to the sex crime survivors of the late Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire who JPM kept on as a lucrative client despite multiple internal warnings about his behaviour.
The UK is in the grips of a duty epidemic. The latest victim (willing, it must be said) is energy regulator Ofgem, which will be legally required to focus on reaching net zero emissions as it oversees the UK energy market. And who could object? Decarbonising the economy requires every bit of government, every arms-length
Crypto.com, the exchange endorsed by Hollywood actor Matt Damon, deploys internal teams to trade tokens for profit, the latest sign of potential conflicts of interest in the digital assets industry. The Singapore-based group, one of the top-10 crypto marketplaces in the world, operates proprietary trading and market making teams, according to five people with direct
Asking prices for UK homes flatlined in the past month as a “disorderly” mortgage market and rising borrowing costs dented confidence in the property sales. New sellers listed their homes for £372,812 on average in the four weeks to June 10, £82 less than in the previous month, representing a marginal fallback after five months
The UK’s first deep geothermal energy project in nearly four decades will start operating on Monday, a scheme that proponents hope will bolster the case for geothermal energy despite its high costs. Reaching almost 5km below the earth’s surface, the geothermal well at the Eden Project in Cornwall will tap into water of temperatures up
Italy has stripped China’s Sinochem of its influence as the largest shareholder in Pirelli, removing its right to appoint the chief executive or set the tyremaker’s strategy in response to worries about interference by the Chinese state. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has invoked national security concerns about the potential for misuse of Pirelli’s
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has restricted the movement of cash and assets from Odey Asset Management in a bid to restore order at the hedge fund after its founder Crispin Odey was ousted over allegations of sexual impropriety. The FCA will publish details on Monday of voluntary restrictions agreed with Odey Asset Management, two
AstraZeneca has drawn up plans to break out its China business and list it separately in Hong Kong as a way to shelter the company against mounting geopolitical tensions. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker began discussing the idea with bankers several months ago and is among a growing number of multinational companies now considering that option, according
A phrase you hear used with a lot more friction than before, remarks a senior Hong Kong investment banker on the theme of geopolitics, is “worst-case scenario”. Its enhanced deployment, he adds, is revealing. However remote the worst-case scenario may be, a diminishing number of companies and investors feel they have any permission to ignore
US and European efforts to subsidise domestic renewable energy industries are tantamount to western “protectionism” and will hold back developing countries’ climate ambitions, India’s power minister has warned. Raj Kumar Singh, India’s minister for power and renewable energy, said measures such as the US Inflation Reduction Act and Europe’s green hydrogen auctions, which both offer
The UK Labour party has pledged to spend £28bn a year on green investments within its first term in power; the Conservatives have attacked the plan as fiscally reckless. The debate will no doubt feature prominently in the next general election campaign. But this is no parochial fight. It is an early instance of a
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has told ministers to step up work on seizing the opportunities of artificial intelligence in order to save money, boost Britain’s sluggish growth rate and reboot failing public services. John Glen, Hunt’s deputy at the Treasury, has been charged by the chancellor with drawing up a report ahead of the Autumn
Italy has stripped China’s Sinochem of its influence as the largest shareholder in Pirelli, removing its right to appoint the CEO or set the tyremaker’s strategy in response to worries about interference by the Chinese state. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has invoked national security concerns about the potential for misuse of Pirelli’s chip
The writer is chair of Rockefeller International In 2010, amid the global boom in billionaire fortunes, I began combing the annual Forbes list for clues to which countries were most vulnerable to anti-rich populist revolts. When I last published the results in 2021, warnings were flashing red for France, where billionaire wealth was rising fast
Jeremy Hunt, UK chancellor, has ruled out giving any direct fiscal support to households struggling with soaring mortgage costs, even though the issue could hit Conservative prospects in the run-up to the next general election. Hunt has concluded that such an intervention would drive up government borrowing and fuel inflationary pressure, causing the Bank of
Ukraine has stepped up attacks this weekend on Russian arms depots and other targets deep in occupied territory, supporting a counteroffensive that has made modest gains against heavily fortified Russian frontline positions. A series of big explosions rocked a village overnight in Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, which local officials said
The writer, a barrister and former Conservative MP, was attorney-general 2010-14 The political challenges the government faces from the arrival of asylum seekers in the UK require some sympathy. Sections of the public are anxious about the numbers and about the difficulties in removing to their home countries those who do not qualify for refugee
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has arrived in Beijing on a highly anticipated mission to reboot US-China relations, which have cratered this year after an alleged Chinese spy balloon flew over North America. Blinken will be the first secretary of state to visit China since 2018, a reflection of Beijing’s strict coronavirus pandemic lockdowns,
Rishi Sunak is facing a fourth and highly problematic by-election after another Conservative MP quit, this time over allegations of personal misconduct. David Warburton, MP for Somerton and Frome, announced he was resigning in the face of allegations of harassment and drug use. To compound the prime minister’s problems, a video has emerged of Tory
For Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, the evening of November 29 was no different to any other. She got back home from the start-up’s San Francisco offices that evening, after her team wrapped up the release of an experimental product: ChatGPT. ChatGPT was lined up as a research demonstration. That plan changed dramatically when