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Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen will face each other in the second and final stage of the French presidential election on April 24 after beating the other candidates in the first round of voting on Sunday, according to early estimates. Macron won 28.6 per cent and Le Pen 24.4 per cent

French voters began casting their ballots on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election in which far-right leader Marine Le Pen is mounting a strong challenge to the incumbent Emmanuel Macron. A victory for Le Pen, who is sceptical about the EU and Nato and has in the past boasted of her ties

Russian missiles on Friday hit a railway station in Kramatorsk, killing dozens in the town in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as Moscow intensified its offensive in the east of the country. “Thousands of people were at the station during the missile strike, as residents of Donetsk province are being evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine,”

Nato member states have agreed to supply new types of advanced weaponry to Ukraine, alliance representatives have said, as Kyiv prepares for a fresh offensive by Russia in the country’s east. The pledge came after a plea from Ukraine’s foreign minister for western countries to move faster with fresh supplies or instead see “many people

Meta has drawn up plans to introduce virtual coins, tokens and lending services to its apps, as Facebook’s parent company pursues its finance ambitions despite the collapse of a project to launch a cryptocurrency. The company, led by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is seeking alternative revenue streams and new features that can attract and retain

Volodymyr Zelensky has intensified his call for the international security system to be overhauled as new evidence emerged of alleged crimes by Russian forces in areas that were recently recaptured by Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian president intensified his criticism of the global community in a late-night video address after lambasting the UN for failing to

The US believes Russia is planning to invade Ukraine “as soon as early 2022” with an estimated 175,000 troops — in a sign of the escalating alarm in Washington about Moscow’s intentions towards its neighbour. A Biden administration official said on Friday night that Moscow’s plans “call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon

Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Opec+ alliance agreed to continue increasing monthly crude production, delivering a victory to consumer governments including the US that had called on the group to help push prices lower. Oil prices initially fell on the announcement, which surprised a market that had expected the group of major producers

The US has identified its first reported case of Covid-19 caused by the Omicron variant, with health officials confirming that an individual in California had tested positive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that the variant was discovered in an individual who returned from South Africa on November 22, two days

The global risk from the new Omicron coronavirus variant is “very high”, the World Health Organization warned, as Japan moved to ban foreign visitors in an attempt to limit the spread of the heavily mutated strain. Outlining its preliminary findings on the strain first detected in southern Africa, the health body warned of its potentially

New cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant continued to be detected around the world on Sunday, as nations tried to delay a surge in infections by restricting travel and imposing new quarantine measures. Omicron first emerged earlier this month in southern Africa. The World Health Organization designated it a “variant of concern” on Friday, saying

The UK has reported its first cases of the new Omicron coronavirus mutation as the variant continues to spread in Europe and scientists race to assess the new level of risk. The UK health department said one case had been identified in Chelmsford and a second in Nottingham. They were linked and connected to travel

Two Deutsche Bahn employees alleged that some senior staff at the state-owned railway company misused corporate funds as part of widespread fraud at one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects. While an investigation into the allegations was under way, one of the employees was fired. Fearing retaliation, the second whistleblower abruptly broke off contact with compliance

Telecom Italia is to hold an emergency board meeting on Sunday to evaluate a takeover offer from US private equity group KKR, a deal that would be one of the largest telecoms buyouts of all time. KKR already holds a 37.5 per cent stake in Telecom Italia’s “last mile” network but has moved to make

UBS has proposed former Morgan Stanley president Colm Kelleher as its next chair, succeeding Axel Weber when he steps down next year after a decade overseeing the Swiss lender. The appointment of Kelleher, a 64-year-old Irishman who spent 30 years at the Wall Street bank, was announced on Saturday morning. UBS conducted a wide external

The US House of Representatives passed the $1.75tn Build Back Better bill on Friday morning, sending Joe Biden’s ambitious social spending package to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate. The final vote was 220-213, with all but one Democrat voting in favour and every Republican opposing it. The Democrat-controlled House had aimed to

Turkey slashed interest rates on Thursday, sending the lira tumbling to a new record low and amplifying concerns President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fixation on low borrowing costs will worsen already acute inflation. The central bank cut its one-week repo rate by 1 percentage point to 15 per cent, marking the third straight reduction in interest

US President Joe Biden has called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether the country’s biggest oil companies are engaged in “potentially illegal conduct” that is resulting in higher gasoline prices for Americans. In a letter to FTC chair Lina Khan, Biden said there was “mounting evidence of anti-consumer behaviour” in the market, noting

Germany’s energy regulator said it had “temporarily suspended” certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, dealing a setback to the Kremlin-backed gas project and sparking a rise in UK and continental European gas prices. The regulator said it could not yet approve the project, led by Russia’s Gazprom, because its owners had not yet properly

The Dutch government has launched an eleventh-hour attempt to keep Shell in the Netherlands by seeking to abolish a controversial dividend tax cited by the energy group as a reason to unify its share structure and move its headquarters to the UK. Officials from the Dutch government told the Financial Times that the caretaker government