News

The UK government distanced itself from the CBI on Wednesday as Britain’s leading business lobby group investigates allegations of sexual misconduct at the organisation. The Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade have suspended engagements by ministers and senior officials with the CBI pending the outcome of a probe into claims of rape, sexual

Chamath Palihapitiya has told investors in his company Social Capital that a collapse in share prices put pressure on a stock-backed line of credit that made him question “the purpose of leverage” altogether. “What initially seemed like access to free money became a liability that we managed carefully so we could continue to do business

Rising geopolitical tensions have triggered a reshaping of global investment that threatens to depress growth and raise the risk of financial instability, the IMF has warned. In reports published on Wednesday, the fund noted that foreign direct investment was increasingly flowing between countries that were geopolitical allies rather than those that were geographically close. There

In the west, the job of government is to prop up wobbly banks. In China, the role of government is seemingly to destabilise lenders. US and European bank bosses, at worst, face losing their jobs. In China, they may lose their liberty too. The Chinese authorities escalated their attack on Wednesday with a probe into

Police have arrested the husband of former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon as a suspect in an investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National party. Peter Murrell resigned as chief executive of the SNP last month after the party was forced to admit it had 30,000 fewer members than it had claimed.

Sir Keir Starmer was never supposed to win the next election. The Labour leader himself may have thought differently — you do not get to the top of politics without an immense sense of destiny — but even close allies doubted it was possible. However low one’s opinion of Boris Johnson, few predicted how rapidly

The writer is director of research and advisory at Asia House think-tank Global youth unemployment is soaring. China’s rate is at a record high. Even more problematic is the lesser-known Neet rate, measuring the share of youngsters not in employment, education or training. A rising Neet rate should be ringing alarm bells everywhere. It has

French president Emmanuel Macron has landed in Beijing in the latest bid by a European leader to urge China’s Xi Jinping to wield his influence with Vladimir Putin to push for a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. On the eve of his three-day visit to China, the French president spoke with his US counterpart Joe

It was a familiar scene of American white-collar justice: a stern-faced defendant seated between high-priced lawyers in a Manhattan courtroom. But in this case, it was extraordinary. The defendant was Donald Trump. When he pleaded not guilty just before 3pm in New York on Tuesday, the 45th US president became the first holder of that

Defined benefit pension assets are invested for one reason and one reason only: to solve a problem. This problem is how to meet (mostly historical) income-in-retirement promises made by employers to their staff. Pensions represent a greater portion of British household wealth than housing, and the UK is unusual in having so much of its

For more than a year, a criminal inquiry into whether Donald Trump masterminded a “hush money” scheme to keep porn actress Stormy Daniels silent was thought to be dead and buried. Federal prosecutors in New York had looked at the case and declined to pursue it. When Alvin Bragg became Manhattan district attorney in 2022,

Donald Trump has launched a blistering attack on “election interference at a scale never seen before” in the US, casting himself as a victim of political persecution after he became the first former president to face criminal charges. In a grievance-filled speech on Tuesday night from the ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump

Most of the world’s electric car batteries are now made in China. Accounting for more than 70 per cent of market share by shipments, that concentration also puts global automakers at risk of supply chain disruptions amid escalating geopolitical tensions between the US and China. But Tesla’s new batteries are set to upend the hierarchy

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney bringing the case against Donald Trump, accused the former president of masterminding an expansive scheme to suppress damaging stories that could have threatened his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election campaign. This included arranging a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, made 12 days before Trump took

The arraignment of former president Donald Trump, in the presence of a secret service detail and with the world’s media camped outside, will be unlike any other in the Manhattan criminal courthouse’s colourful 82-year history. Once the TV crews have left, however, the case known as People vs Trump will proceed in a more pedestrian

Donald Trump has arrived at a Manhattan courthouse to be formally charged in connection with payments made to buy the silence of a porn actress ahead of his 2016 campaign for the White House. The arraignment of Trump marks the first criminal case against a former or sitting US president and will fire the starting

We are living in a dividing world. These divisions have many ramifications. But not the least important of these are for global commerce. The slowdown in world trade, the shift towards economic nationalism and the growing demands in the west, and especially in the US, for decoupling from China are reshaping the global economy. It

The Bank of England’s chief economist hinted at a further interest rate rise in May when he said the central bank needed to “see the job through” in its battle to eradicate high inflation. Huw Pill, however, stressed that the Monetary Policy Committee faced a tight decision on whether to raise interest rates again from

US Treasuries rallied and the dollar weakened on Tuesday after demand for workers in the world’s biggest economy fell more than expected. The yield on two-year US Treasuries dipped 0.12 percentage points to 3.85 per cent as prices rose, while the yield on benchmark 10-year Treasuries fell 0.07 percentage points to 3.36 per cent. The

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has disclosed investments in dozens of private equity and venture capital firms via its Sanabil Investments arm, including Blackstone and General Atlantic. The firms were listed on Sanabil’s website, which said it invests about $2bn in capital a year in “venture, growth capital and small buyouts.” Others include KKR, Hellman