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The Kakhovka dam spanning the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine was blown up on Tuesday, flooding swaths of territory ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive and threatening crucial water supplies to a nuclear plant. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the attack, which Kyiv warned would have “catastrophic consequences” and affect dozens of settlements,

Some US banks are preparing to sell off property loans at a discount even when borrowers are up to date on repayments, a sign of their determination to reduce exposure to the teetering commercial real estate market. The willingness of some lenders to take losses on so-called performing real estate loans follows multiple warnings that

China has warned western militaries to stay out of waters and airspace near its borders if they want to avoid dangerous run-ins with the People’s Liberation Army, putting on display the growing risks of unintended conflict as geopolitical competition grows. The blunt message from General Li Shangfu, China’s new defence minister, followed a near collision

CIA director Bill Burns travelled to China last month, a clandestine visit by one of President Joe Biden’s most trusted officials that signals how concerned the White House had become about deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington. Five people familiar with the situation said Burns, a former top diplomat who is frequently entrusted with delicate

Rishi Sunak’s government on Thursday refused to hand over Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages to the official Covid public inquiry, instead launching a legal challenge to try to keep them secret. The move puts Sunak at loggerheads with the inquiry, headed by former judge Baroness Heather Hallett, and fuelled claims by opposition parties that he

A bill to raise the debt ceiling cleared a significant hurdle on Wednesday afternoon, after Democratic lawmakers supported Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and allowed the bipartisan deal to advance to a full vote. In order to see off a rebellion from members from his own party, McCarthy was forced to rely on

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

Labour is drawing up plans that would force landowners to sell plots for a fraction of their potential market price in an effort to cut home-building costs in England, according to party officials. Lisa Nandy, shadow levelling-up secretary, intends to reform how land is valued when acquired by councils through “compulsory purchase orders” (CPOs), if

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was leading rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in Sunday’s pivotal run-off election, according to early returns published by state media, placing him on course to extend his rule into a third decade. Erdoğan had secured about 53 per cent of the vote, compared with 48 per cent for Kılıçdaroğlu, according to calculations

US president Joe Biden has struck a deal with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, that would avert a debt default looming in early June and bring relief to the global economy and financial markets. Biden and McCarthy reached the in-principle agreement on Saturday following days of tense, round-the-clock negotiations between the White House and

Jeremy Hunt has backed further interest rate rises to bring prices under control as figures showed only Argentina and South Sudan experienced bigger increases in underlying inflation last month. The UK chancellor signalled his support for Bank of England rate increases after a week when core inflation, which excludes energy and food, hit its highest

President Joe Biden and Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy have moved closer to a two-year deal to limit government spending and avert a US debt default, raising hopes of an end to the fiscal stand-off in the world’s largest economy. People familiar with the potential agreement said that negotiators were looking to finalise the agreement

UK inflation dropped to 8.7 per cent in April, a smaller fall than the Bank of England expected, raising pressure on the central bank to keep increasing interest rates.  The figure will come as a blow to ministers and the central bank because the fall in consumer price inflation from 10.1 per cent in March

The governor of the Bank of England has conceded there are “very big lessons to learn” in setting monetary policy after the central bank failed to forecast the recent rise and persistence of inflation. Along with other members of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, Andrew Bailey told the House of Commons Treasury select committee on

Labour is ready to force pension funds to invest in a proposed £50bn “future growth fund”, as the party aims to boost the amount of capital available for fast-growing UK companies. Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, said she did not believe Labour would need to mandate retirement schemes to invest in the new fund because of

Profits at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a clutch of other western banks in China fell sharply last year, as Covid-19 lockdowns and geopolitical tensions thwarted hopes that their operations in the country might finally start to be lucrative. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and HSBC reported losses in their China-based units in 2022

The G7 has issued its strongest condemnation of China, as the world’s most advanced economies step up their response to what they say are rising military and economic security threats posed by Beijing. In broad criticism of China over everything from its militarisation of the South China Sea to its use of “economic coercion”, the

Bank bosses in the UK have warned that growing numbers of consumers are relying on “shadow credit” during the cost of living crisis by taking out risky loans from the murkier corners of the financial system. “I do think there’s a worry out there that people are moving more and more into unregulated credit,” David

Carl Icahn has admitted he was wrong to make a huge bet that the market would crash after the ill-fated trade cost his firm nearly $9bn over roughly six years. According to a Financial Times analysis, the prominent activist investor lost about $1.8bn in 2017 on hedging positions that would have paid out if asset

Andrew Bailey has acknowledged for the first time the Bank of England is dealing with a UK wage price spiral as he pledged to raise interest rates as far “as necessary” to get inflation back to the bank’s 2 per cent target. Speaking to the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference in London, the BoE