News

Twitter said it plans to enforce the $44bn takeover agreement with Elon Musk, just hours after the Tesla boss declared the purchase “cannot move forward” unless the social media company can certify the number of fake accounts. The San Francisco-based group made the comments in a detailed filing on Tuesday, outlining the whirlwind weeks in

Vladimir Putin has signalled Russia will tolerate Finland and Sweden joining Nato but warned that the Kremlin would respond if the alliance installed military bases or equipment in either country. Putin said on Monday that the proposed Nato enlargement posed “no direct threat for Russia”, according to the news agency Interfax. He added that he

Finland is applying for Nato membership in a historic move that would more than double the defence alliance’s borders with Russia and change the geopolitics of Europe. “This is a historic day. A new era starts,” Finnish president Sauli Niinistö said at a press conference, as Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, another non-Nato member

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the G7 group of industrialised nations was urgently seeking alternative routes for the export of Ukrainian grain as Russia’s war against its western neighbour raised the risk of a global “hunger crisis”. Speaking at the conclusion of a three-day meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Germany, Baerbock said some

Elon Musk on Friday tweeted that he had put his $44bn deal to take Twitter private “temporarily on hold” pending details supporting the calculation that spam and fake accounts represented fewer than 5 per cent of users. Musk posted his remarks on the microblogging site with a report from the Reuters news agency about the

BP has committed to reinvest all its profits from its North Sea oil and gas production over the next decade back into the UK, as it sought to head off political pressure for a windfall tax to help offset energy costs for consumers. “This decade with our current plans we expect to reinvest every pound

US consumer price growth remained at a four-decade high in April, despite the first moderation in the annual pace in eight months, underscoring the urgency of the Federal Reserve’s push to stamp out inflation. The consumer price index rose at an annual pace of 8.3 per cent last month, a step down from the 8.5

A global equity sell-off hit Asian markets on Tuesday after the steepest one-day fall on Wall Street since 2020 as investors worried about a slowdown in the world’s largest economies. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid 2.8 per cent in afternoon trading after a one-day holiday. Chinese technology groups listed in the territory recorded some

Vladimir Putin has claimed Russia was forced to “strike back pre-emptively” against Ukraine, adding that the Kremlin’s troops were “fighting on their own land” in the conflict, just as Soviet forces did in the second world war. In his speech at the annual Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square, the Russian president sought to

The director of the CIA said that Chinese president Xi Jinping has been “unsettled” by the war in Ukraine, which had demonstrated that the friendship between Beijing and Moscow had “limits” at a time when western allies were moving closer together. Speaking at the FT Weekend Festival in Washington on Saturday, Bill Burns said the

A jubilant Sinn Féin was poised to clinch a historic victory in Northern Ireland’s elections and become the region’s biggest political force for the first time in a century, after more than half the seats to the Stormont assembly were decided. Sinn Féin, the party long associated with the paramilitary IRA, was clearly ahead of

Boris Johnson will face renewed pressure on his leadership on Friday after the Conservatives suffered significant defeats in local elections across the UK, including losing the flagship London council of Wandsworth. Labour won the borough beloved of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher for its ultra-low local tax rates after 44 years in Tory hands, but

The Bank of England has warned that the UK economy will slide into recession this year as higher energy prices push inflation above 10 per cent, a forecast that pushed sterling to a two-year low. Rising prices would cause the worst squeeze in household finances for many decades, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said as

Brussels will propose a phased-in ban on imports of all Russian oil as member states prepare to discuss a sixth package of penalties against Moscow for its invasion in Ukraine. The ban will cover all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined, European commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. She vowed

BP recorded its highest quarterly earnings in more than a decade, benefiting from soaring prices for hydrocarbons and “exceptional” oil and gas trading revenues, even as it wrote down the value of its business in Russia to almost zero. The UK-listed oil major’s underlying profit on a replacement cost basis for the first three months

Brussels regulators have charged Apple with breaking EU competition law by abusing its dominant position in mobile payments to limit rivals’ access to contactless technology. Antitrust investigators are concerned that the US tech group is preventing competitors from accessing “tap and go” chips or near-field communication (NFC) to benefit its own Apple Pay system, the

Chinese regulators have held an emergency meeting with domestic and foreign banks to discuss how they could protect the country’s overseas assets from US-led sanctions similar to those imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the discussion. Officials are worried the same measures could be taken against Beijing in

European shares and the euro followed Asian markets higher on Friday, after Chinese authorities pledged to safeguard the world’s second-largest economy from coronavirus lockdowns, lifting sentiment following disappointing economic growth data. The regional Stoxx 600 share index added 1 per cent, after strong gains in Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 4 per cent

Growth in the eurozone economy weakened during the first quarter while inflation inched up to a new record in April, raising the spectre of stagflation in a region blighted by soaring energy and food prices. Gross domestic product in the 19 countries that share the euro grew 0.2 per cent in the first three months

European energy companies that comply with Moscow’s requirement to open a rouble-based account with Gazprombank would be violating sanctions against Russia, EU officials have warned. Several European companies have indicated they will comply with the March 31 decree by president Vladimir Putin to introduce a two-tiered payment system. The system involves paying in euros or