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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

The German government has said it backs a phased-in ban on Russian oil imports into the EU, as officials in Brussels try to seek consensus on an embargo as part of the latest package of sanctions against Moscow. Jörg Kukies, one of chancellor Olaf Scholz’s closest advisers, said Berlin was in favour of an oil

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

Some of Europe’s largest energy companies are making arrangements to comply with a new payment system for Russian gas sought by the Kremlin, which critics say will undercut EU sanctions, threaten the bloc’s unity and deliver billions in critical cash to Russia’s economy. Gas distributors in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia — including two of

European gas prices rose by a fifth on Wednesday after Russia’s Gazprom suspended supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, saying the countries had failed to make rouble payments that were due a day earlier. Futures contracts tracking Europe’s wholesale gas price advanced about 20 per cent at €117 per megawatt hour in early trading. Prices are almost seven

Twitter’s board has accepted a roughly $44bn offer to sell the company to Elon Musk, handing control of the influential social media platform to the world’s richest man. Announcing the deal, Musk said “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy” and described the social media platform as “the digital town square where matters

Emmanuel Macron is set to be re-elected for a second term as French president after defeating his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the second round of voting on Sunday, according to projections by polling agencies based on early returns. Victory for the liberal internationalist Macron, first elected in 2017, will mean continuity in economic

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at the Kremlin after Russian missiles killed eight civilians in the port city of Odesa, as America’s top diplomat prepared to visit Ukraine for the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began eight weeks ago. In heated remarks, Zelensky called the Russians “bloody bastards”, “Nazis” and “Rashists” — a

The EU will force Big Tech companies to police content online more aggressively after approving a major piece of legislation that sets the rules for the first time on how companies should keep users safe on the internet. In the early hours of Saturday morning, after nearly 16 hours of negotiations, legislators in Brussels endorsed

Sterling dropped to its weakest level since late 2020 after a sharp drop in British retail sales underlined the depths of the cost of living crisis fuelled by surging inflation. The volume of retail sales in Great Britain fell 1.4 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said, worse than the 0.3 per cent drop

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered Russian forces to “block off” the last remaining Ukrainian fighters at the Mariupol steelworks as he claimed Moscow had conquered the port city. Putin hailed Mariupol’s “liberation” after a two-month battle — a victory that would mark a major success in his war — but Ukraine has depicted the steelworks

US stock futures dropped and Treasuries extended their losses, following disappointing earnings from Netflix and further signs that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates aggressively to curb inflation. Contracts tracking Wall Street’s technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 index were down 1 per cent during the early European morning after Netflix said its decade-long run of subscriber

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had begun a long-awaited major new offensive in the country’s eastern Donbas border region after its forces intensified attacks along the frontline. Zelensky said in a late-night TV address on Monday that Russia had concentrated a “significant part” of its forces in the region and vowed that Ukraine would

China’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter but official data revealed a recent contraction in consumer activity as lockdown measures to counter the spread of Covid-19 weighed on the country’s outlook. China’s gross domestic product rose 4.8 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, after expanding by 4 per

This year’s hawkish change in tack from central banks is close to ending the era of negative-yielding debt, shrinking the global tally of bonds with sub-zero yields by $11tn. Bond prices have tumbled this year as central banks move to end large-scale asset purchases and raise interest rates in their battle with soaring inflation, pushing