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Several countries, including the UK, US and Italy, have begun evacuations from Sudan, after a week of fighting between the country’s armed forces and a paramilitary group. British prime minister Rishi Sunak said “UK armed forces have completed a complex and rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families”. The White House said it had

A lobbying firm is launching a one-year business engagement operation ahead of the next general election in what is likely to be one of multiple attempts to exploit the vacuum left by the crisis at the CBI. WPI Strategy, a public affairs group behind the imminent launch of “BizUK”, insisted that it was not trying

Many of the biggest names in British business quit the CBI on Friday after a second allegation of rape threatened the survival of the employers’ organisation. Groups ranging from insurer Aviva and car manufacturers Jaguar Land Rover and BMW to payments company Mastercard and retailer John Lewis said they were cancelling their memberships after the

Black market drones have been used in military attacks for years. Drones have been heavily used in the Ukraine war too, prompting speculation that China was involved. Beijing has denied widespread reports that the country exported drones to aid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The speculation highlights China’s growing dominance in commercial drone manufacturing. The government

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House, has detailed his plans for averting a looming crisis over the US debt ceiling for the first time, with a bill that would push the risk of a default into next year but would require the rolling back of several White House policies. McCarthy and House Republicans

The future of Richard Sharp as BBC chair hung in the balance on Tuesday night after it emerged he had been shown the “grim” draft conclusions of a report into his appointment. One person briefed on the draft findings by Adam Heppinstall KC said the criticisms made it “probable but not certain” that Sharp would

Apple and Goldman Sachs are seeking to lure US depositors to a new savings account by offering to pay interest at more than 10 times the national average rate. The California tech giant and Wall Street bank on Monday launched a new savings account yielding 4.15 per cent a year, having first announced the product

China’s $1tn Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure finance programme has been hit by spiralling bad loans, with more than $78bn-worth of borrowing turning sour over the past three years. The scheme made China the world’s largest bilateral creditor, but the figures suggest it has become a financial millstone for Beijing and its biggest banks. About

Elon Musk is developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, as the billionaire seeks to join Silicon Valley’s race to build generative AI systems. The Tesla and Twitter chief is assembling a team of artificial intelligence researchers and engineers, according to people familiar with the tech entrepreneur’s plans.

The writer is executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia, and author of ‘The Billionaire Raj’ Two recent Beijing trips by global leaders have shed light on the many paradoxes of a future age of economic decoupling. A visit by Emmanuel Macron, president of France, and Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission

The cost of buying insurance against a US government default has shot to its highest level in more than a decade, in an early sign of market concerns about the political impasse in Washington over the debt ceiling. Amid a stalemate between the White House and congressional Republicans on raising the federal borrowing limit, the

HSBC has hired more than 40 investment bankers who used to work at Silicon Valley Bank, the latest move by the British lender to scoop up parts of the failed tech-focused bank. A month after HSBC acquired SVB’s UK subsidiary for £1, the bank is now hiring several dozen of its US bankers from First

Will Japan abandon its ultra-loose monetary policies now that Kazuo Ueda has replaced Haruhiko Kuroda as governor of the Bank of Japan? The answer, it seems, is “no”. The new governor, a well-known and respected academic economist, stressed that the two pillars of Japan’s current monetary policy — negative interest rates and yield curve control

Corporate America is facing its sharpest drop in profits since the early stages of the Covid pandemic, according to Wall Street forecasts, as high inflation squeezes margins and fears of an impending recession hold back demand. Companies on the S&P 500 index are expected to report a 6.8 per cent decline in first-quarter earnings compared

Will US inflation continue to slow? US inflation has slowed consistently over the past year, although declines have moderated in recent months as price pressures in sectors like shelter — which includes rents — have remained high. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its latest consumer price index report, which is forecast

Italian officials are racing to review a deal to sell the country’s largest refinery after the US government privately raised concerns about the sale of the Russian-owned site to a little-known fund in Cyprus. Russia’s Lukoil agreed in January to sell its Sicilian ISAB refinery to GOI Energy, a newly established branch of the Cypriot

Signs the US labour market is cooling have raised hopes that the worst inflation problem in decades is improving, but economists warn further action is still needed from the Federal Reserve to fully contain price pressures. Data released on Friday bolstered the view that the world’s largest economy, while still resilient, is gradually losing some

European stocks edged higher on Thursday while Wall Street futures slipped after a flurry of weaker than expected jobs data heightened investor concerns about a looming US recession. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 added 0.2 per cent in early trading. Germany’s Dax was steady as industrial production in the eurozone’s biggest economy advanced 2 per cent

Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the Financial Times. The comments by Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, are the most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it

Donald Trump was set to fly to New York on Monday to face criminal charges in a Manhattan court, marking an ominous new chapter in American political and legal history surrounding the former US president. Trump said he would depart at noon from his estate at Mar-a-Lago, on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and head