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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

Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, warned that China’s air incursions by fighter jets, bombers and other warplanes near Taiwan appeared to be rehearsals for military operations against the country. “It looks a lot like them exploring their true capabilities and sure it looks a lot like rehearsals,” Austin said in a speech on Saturday at

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

Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing group hit by Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on technology companies, said it would delist from the New York Stock Exchange in an acceleration of China’s decoupling from US capital markets. The company wrote on its official Weibo account on Friday that it would begin the process of delisting and prepare to

The US is delaying a deal to remove Trump-era tariffs on UK steel and aluminium because of Washington’s concerns about London’s threats to change post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland. Brussels and Washington have repeatedly warned London that unilaterally changing the EU-UK accord that sealed Britain’s exit from the bloc in 2020 could threaten peace

US junk bonds fell in November by the most in more than a year on fears the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant will hinder the ability of low-rated companies to repay their debts. A high-yield bond index compiled by Ice Data Services dropped just over 1 per cent in November, marking only the second

Asia-Pacific stocks began the trading week lower, extending a decline triggered on Friday by the Omicron coronavirus variant, but markets showed signs of recovery by mid-morning on reports that the virus strain presented only mild symptoms. Australia and Japan recorded the region’s biggest declines on Monday, where shares fell sharply in early trading before recovering

Global stocks and oil prices tumbled on Friday as investors dashed for shelter in safe haven assets after a new coronavirus variant shook market sentiment. A broad sell-off in European shares followed similar moves in Asian markets. Europe’s Stoxx 600 fell 3.1 per cent in early trade, with France’s CAC 40 index and Germany’s Dax

President Joe Biden has announced the release of oil from the US’s strategic stockpile in a bid to drive down petrol prices and snuff out a crude market rally that the White House has said poses a threat to the global economic recovery. The White House said on Tuesday the president was authorising the release

Joe Biden has nominated Jay Powell to serve a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve, opting for continuity at a delicate moment for the US economy as it grapples with persistently high inflation and a patchy labour market recovery. Lael Brainard, considered Powell’s fiercest competitor for the top job, was tapped for the

China’s hypersonic weapon test in July included a technological advance that enabled it to fire a missile as it approached its target travelling at least five times the speed of sound — a capability no country has previously demonstrated. Pentagon scientists were caught off guard by the advance, which allowed the hypersonic glide vehicle, a

Joe Biden’s battle to pass a $1.75tn package to enhance the social safety net and combat climate change moves to the thorny terrain of the US Senate, after clearing the House of Representatives. The House on Friday passed the sweeping Build Back Better bill, which includes subsidies for early childhood education, tax credits for families

The vice-chair of the US Federal Reserve on Friday opened the door to a faster withdrawal of its massive bond-buying programme, suggesting the central bank could take earlier-than-expected action to tame inflation. Richard Clarida said the Federal Open Market Committee could consider discussing the pace of the planned “taper” at its upcoming policy meeting in

Nancy Pelosi said the US House of Representatives would press ahead with a vote on Joe Biden’s $1.75tn Build Back Better bill on Thursday night, after an independent government agency said the package would add $367bn to the federal deficit over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office, which provides cost estimates for big legislation,

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

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have agreed to hold talks aimed at reducing tensions, as US anxiety grows at China’s expanding nuclear arsenal and its recent test of a hypersonic weapon. Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, said the US and Chinese presidents had discussed the need for nuclear “strategic stability” talks in their virtual

Joe Biden has signed his flagship $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill into law in a big legislative victory for the US president at a time when his approval ratings have hit an all-time low. At an event at the White House on Monday, Biden said that the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would

Beijing has accused the EU of risking damage to world supply chains by throwing up regulatory and trade hurdles to foreign businesses, warning “discriminatory” practices could strain the global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The Chinese ambassador to the EU said the European Commission’s drive to sharpen its trade toolkit was seen by some businesses

A last-minute intervention from India and China weakened the move to end coal power and fossil fuel subsidies in the Glasgow Climate Pact in the closing stages of the UN COP26 summit. Countries agreed to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal, in wording that was watered down several times in the course of the

Jes Staley exchanged 1,200 emails with Jeffrey Epstein over a four-year period with content that included unexplained terms such as “snow white”, according to people familiar with the correspondence between the former Barclays chief executive and the convicted sex offender. Staley resigned from Barclays last week after seeing preliminary conclusions of an investigation by UK

Toshiba’s board is poised to rule out pursuing a deal to take the whole company private and is preparing to reveal an alternative plan to split the business in three that some investors say they may reject, according to people familiar with the matter. A $20bn offer for the conglomerate by UK private equity group

US consumer prices are expected to have surged in October at their fastest pace in three decades, as bottlenecks and other supply-chain disruptions intensify and inflationary pressures broaden. Consensus forecasts compiled by Bloomberg indicate that the consumer price index to be published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday rose 5.9 per cent in

US industrial group General Electric is to split itself into three public companies from 2023, a big step in chief executive Larry Culp’s plan to streamline the sprawling conglomerate. The companies will focus on healthcare, energy and aviation. GE Healthcare will be spun off in 2023, with GE retaining a 19.9 per cent stake in

The Federal Reserve warned on Monday that stresses in the Chinese real estate sector “posed some risk to the US financial system”, pointing to heavily indebted property companies like Evergrande as a potential source of global contagion. “Given the size of China’s economy and financial system as well as its extensive trade linkages with the

Elon Musk at the weekend asked Twitter users to decide whether he should sell more than $20bn worth of his Tesla shares and pay tax — and the online crowd responded with a resounding “yes”. Musk’s apparent willingness to cash in a tenth of his stock and incur a tax bill of more than $4bn

Investors propelled US stocks to a record high last week, buoyed by declining unemployment and advancements in the treatment of Covid-19 giving hope to a resurgent economy. The S&P 500 index of blue-chip US stocks, seen as a benchmark for the health of corporate America, rose 2 per cent for the week to Friday, its