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UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has ruled out any Swiss-style alignment with EU laws in order to strike a trade deal with the bloc, instead promising that the existing Brexit arrangements could “deliver enormous benefits for the country”. Talking at the CBI annual conference in Birmingham on Monday, Sunak came under pressure to address two

The UN climate summit has agreed to establish a historic fund to pay for climate-related damage in poorer countries after working beyond sunrise in Egypt on Sunday, but backed down on greater cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and an end to fossil fuel use. Almost 200 countries at the summit achieved a breakthrough for a

The outcome of key UN climate talks hung on crunch negotiations over global warming targets on Saturday, after the EU made a dramatic threat to walk away from the fraught COP27 summit earlier in the day. National negotiators said that progress was being made on the previously deadlocked issue of “loss and damage” funding by

Jeremy Hunt pushed back on Friday against criticism that his £55bn fiscal squeeze unfairly targets middle earners, as new data indicated that UK workers will endure the longest period of wage stagnation for almost two centuries. Hunt’s Autumn Statement on Thursday included £30bn of spending cuts and £25bn of tax rises in a bid to

Jeremy Hunt, chancellor, confronted the fiscal “storm” battering Britain on Thursday, announcing £55bn of tax rises and spending cuts intended to restore the country’s reputation and shore up its frail balance sheet. Two months after Kwasi Kwarteng, Hunt’s predecessor, sparked market panic with a “mini” Budget that included £45bn of unfunded tax cuts, the chancellor’s

The UK’s rate of inflation hit a fresh 41-year high in October, accelerating to 11.1 per cent on the back of rising energy and food prices. The Office for National Statistics said the rate rose from 10.1 per cent in September, putting inflation at its highest level since October 1981. Economists polled by Reuters had

The collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire has sparked a vast global investigation, with dozens of authorities circling the company as lawyers warn there could be 1mn creditors in its bankruptcy proceeding. FTX said in court filings it was in contact with US federal prosecutors, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Joe Biden criticised China’s “increasingly aggressive” actions towards Taiwan in his first in-person meeting as president with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, amid mounting tensions between the two powers. Following the meeting in Bali on Monday, the White House said Biden and Xi “spoke candidly” about a range of global issues, and that the US

Sam Bankman-Fried’s main international FTX exchange held just $900mn in easily sellable assets against $9bn of liabilities the day before it collapsed into bankruptcy, according to investment materials seen by the Financial Times. The largest portion of those liquid assets listed on a FTX international balance sheet dated Thursday was $470mn of Robinhood shares owned

FTX is investigating abnormal transactions as analysts said hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets had been withdrawn, in a fresh blow to creditors of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire following its collapse into bankruptcy. The company’s general counsel Ryne Miller said on Saturday that FTX was “investigating abnormalities with wallet movements related to consolidation of

US stocks roared ahead on Thursday in their strongest day in more than two and a half years, with investors emboldened by inflation data that showed decelerating increases in consumer prices and set the stage for a slower pace of interest rate rises by the Federal Reserve. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index gained 5.5

Binance will abandon its deal to rescue Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency exchange, citing concerns about its business practices and investigations by US financial regulators. The move comes a day after Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto trading venues, tentatively agreed to buy FTX after it suffered a liquidity crunch. “As a result of corporate

The economy and inflation are among top issues in the midterm elections, and voters are expected to favour Republicans to improve the economy, according to recent polling data. And while those subjects are top of mind for many voters, issues such as abortion rights and threats to democracy are also driving Americans to the polls.

Jeremy Hunt is planning a stealth raid on inheritance tax in the Autumn Statement as part of the chancellor’s attempt to raise about £54bn through tax rises and spending cuts to fill a hole in the UK public finances. Government officials said Hunt was drawing up plans to extend a freeze in the inheritance tax

The US is working on a plan to harness cash from the world’s largest companies to help developing countries cut their use of fossil fuels, an idea it aims to unveil at the UN climate summit this week. US president Joe Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry is trying to marshal support from other governments, companies

US oil producers have raked in more than $200bn in profits since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as they cash in on a period of geopolitical turmoil that has shaken up the global energy market and sent prices soaring. Aggregate net income for publicly listed oil and gas companies operating in the US came to $200.24bn

Elon Musk has begun to slash Twitter’s 7,500-strong workforce as the social media platform’s new billionaire owner warned of a “massive drop in revenue” following his contentious $44bn buyout of the group. As Musk embarks on the cost-cutting cull, he claimed on Friday that Twitter “has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist

The Bank of England has signalled that borrowing costs will not rise as much as markets expect in the future, even as it imposed the biggest rate rise for three decades to combat soaring inflation. The BoE’s 0.75 percentage point increase to 3 per cent took interest rates to their highest point since 2008. But

Jay Powell warned US interest rates would peak at a higher level than expected even as he held out the possibility of the Federal Reserve slowing the pace of its campaign to tighten monetary policy. Speaking after the central bank increased its main interest rate by 0.75 percentage points for the fourth time in a

Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in pole position to emerge victorious from Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, according to exit polls that put his rightwing bloc on course for a razor-thin majority. Polls by Israel’s three main television channels, released after voting closed, forecast that a bloc combining Netanyahu’s Likud party, the extreme-right Religious Zionism