The earth is already past safe limits for humans as temperature rise, water system disruption and destruction of natural habitats have reached boundaries, a study by a group of the world’s foremost scientists has found. The research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, identified eight earth system boundaries that included climate, biodiversity, water, natural
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Lansdowne Partners has agreed to buy UK investment boutique Crux Asset Management, a move that cements its evolution in recent years from one of Europe’s top hedge funds into a mainstream asset manager. The deal for Crux, which runs $1.1bn largely for UK wealth management clients, illustrates how rising costs and shrinking margins are forcing
To borrow Oscar Wilde’s quip about the death of Little Nell, it would take a heart of stone not to hear the wails of free-market Brexiters without laughing. Recent weeks have seen a flurry of laments, fury and blame-shifting by leading Leavers, from Nigel Farage to Lord Frost. But perhaps the most striking was an
Global stocks and US futures slipped on Wednesday, as poor economic data from China damped traders’ hopes for a swift post-pandemic recovery in the world’s second-largest economy. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 was down 0.2 per cent, Germany’s Dax lost 0.3 per cent, France’s Cac 40 fell 0.5 per cent and London’s FTSE 100 was flat.
Shakespeare foretold the tale of America’s latest debt-ceiling crisis — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The final deal, which will probably be passed this weekend, could also have been scripted by Joe Biden. Rarely in the history of fiscal brinkmanship has so much noise been made by so many Republicans with so little
The world’s largest natural soda ash producer plans to float in London, a boost to a stock market that has struggled to attract new listings and prevent companies from leaving. WE Soda, the UK-based group that produces the glassmaking ingredient and is controlled by Turkish media mogul Turgay Ciner, is targeting a $7.5bn valuation, enough
A group of 255 of the UK’s top private equity dealmakers earned £2.7bn in carried interest in a single year, the kind of gain that has drawn scrutiny from politicians threatening to increase taxes on the industry. The haul accounted for about 80 per cent of all carried interest — the slice of profits private
As the vote results came in, HSBC chair Mark Tucker could finally declare victory at the end of a fractious annual general meeting in Birmingham this month. Tucker had spent a torrid year locked in a war of words with HSBC’s largest shareholder, Chinese insurer Ping An, who had turned activist at the bank’s previous
Former ministers will be banned from lobbying the UK government for at least five years after leaving office and transgressors fined under a Labour government, according to plans to be put before the party’s policymaking body this summer. Senior officials said the move, which comes as the party finalises its general election manifesto, was part
South Korea erroneously sent a warning to residents of Seoul to take shelter after North Korea fired a projectile Wednesday morning, just days after signalling its intention to launch its first military reconnaissance satellite. Japan also issued a missile alert for the southern island of Okinawa, but it was quickly lifted after the projectile, which
Western countries are increasing pressure on Turkey to admit Sweden to Nato, as Stockholm makes a final push to overcome Ankara’s opposition to its membership. Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s prime minister, writes in the Financial Times that a new anti-terror law entering force on Thursday delivers “on the last part” of an agreement to secure Ankara’s
The writer is prime minister of Sweden With just over five weeks to go until the Nato summit in Vilnius, it is time to seriously consider Sweden’s application for Nato membership. Since the organisation’s meeting last year, 29 allies have approved Sweden’s application. Turkey and Hungary remain. Sweden has entered into an agreement with Turkey
The Conservative party’s high-profile mayor, Ben Houchen, has again been accused of secrecy after plans for a third transfer of public assets in his north-east England region were leaked to the Financial Times. Houchen, mayor of the Tees Valley, privately struck a deal with Hartlepool council to take control of the community’s key civic buildings
Statisticians are questioning the accuracy of the official data that underpins UK government policymaking after the latest migration figures were significantly out of line with analysts’ expectations. Last week, experts were left puzzled when the Office for National Statistics reported that net migration reached 606,000 in 2022. Though that figure marked a record for the
Now that there aren’t any banks immediately and obviously on the brink of collapse any more, attention is shifting to commercial real estate, the doomed asset class du jour. The current outpouring of angst has felt a little overdone, and belated (swaths of CRE has been cruising for a bruising since the pandemic). And as
The UK’s security priority must remain Europe and the Atlantic, as Russia is the main threat to Britain until the end of the decade, the head of the country’s defence intelligence organisation has warned. In rare public remarks, Adrian Bird, chief of Defence Intelligence, stressed that the UK’s own backyard should be its primary concern.
UK businesses are in the middle of a slow-motion car crash. New, expensive energy supply contracts are kicking in, just when government support has been scaled back. This makes energy unaffordable for some smaller companies and is likely to hit the troubled retail and hospitality sectors the hardest. Of course, this was all terribly predictable.
Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma can be shielded from lawsuits linked to the US opioid crisis in exchange for payments worth up to $6bn, appellate judges have ruled in a reversal of a lower court’s decision. The judgment addresses a controversial provision of US law that released Sackler family owners of
An Englishman’s home is his castle, they say. But too few Britons can afford a dwelling that would even rank as a sentry box. The opposition Labour party, which leads in opinion polls, therefore wants to cut the prices at which landowners are forced to sell sites to local authorities. It should think again. Councils
Britain’s housing market is broken. England has among the lowest numbers of homes per 1,000 people in western Europe, and dwellings are among the smallest and most expensive. UK house prices are about nine times average earnings; they were last at such heights in Queen Victoria’s reign. With home ownership falling, the Labour party is
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak will fly to Washington next week for a meeting with US president Joe Biden — but there will be no attempt to forge a bilateral trade deal. Downing Street on Tuesday announced the visit, saying it would be a chance for the two countries to enhance their “co-operation and co-ordination”