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A sell-off in UK government bonds accelerated on Wednesday, sending long-term borrowing costs higher after the Bank of England reiterated that it will halt its emergency gilt buying scheme as planned on Friday. The central bank said on Wednesday morning that it “has made clear from the outset, its temporary and targeted purchases of gilts

The Bank of England has widened its emergency bond-buying programme to include inflation-linked gilts in its latest attempt to stem “fire sales” by pension funds that have created a “material risk to UK financial stability”. The central bank said on Tuesday it was prepared to buy up to £5bn a day in index-linked UK government

Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities came under sustained missile and rocket attacks on Monday, a day after President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of terrorism over an attack on a bridge linking the occupied Crimean Peninsula with Russia’s Taman region. Several missiles hit downtown Kyiv as loud explosions were heard in the first attack on

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the move by Opec+ to cut oil production was “unhelpful and unwise” for the global economy, particularly emerging markets already struggling with high energy prices. The Biden administration has been loudly critical of the decision by the oil cartel backed by Saudi Arabia and Russia this week, which took

An explosion tore through Russia’s bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea early on Saturday, severely damaging it in a major blow to Vladimir Putin more than seven months into his invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s anti-terrorist committee said a truck exploded on the bridge’s roadside in the early hours of Saturday morning and caused seven

Millions of British households will be asked to cut back on energy consumption by National Grid this winter, as it warned them to prepare for rolling three-hour blackouts in the “extreme” case of gas shortages and reduced electricity imports from the rest of Europe. But despite the bleak assessment, Liz Truss’s government has resisted mounting

The UK’s largest private-sector pension scheme increased its exposure to debt-fuelled investment strategies earlier this year in spite of warnings the move would bring “significant risks”. The £90bn Universities Superannuation Scheme ploughed more of its members’ assets into leveraged hedging, the strategy that was engulfed by crisis last week after a surge in government bond

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for the initially agreed price of $44bn, in a move that could put an end to one of the highest-profile corporate legal battles in decades. The Tesla chief sent a letter to Twitter on Monday night offering to go ahead with the deal, less than two weeks before

Prime minister Liz Truss sought to hold her nerve during the course of a fraught Sunday at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, but at around 11pm in her hotel suite she finally admitted defeat. Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng met in the Hyatt Regency to consider whether a key plank of his “mini-Budget”

Jair Bolsonaro may have finished in second place in Sunday’s presidential election in Brazil, but his tally of 43.2 per cent outperformed pre-election polls and propels him into the runoff with fresh momentum. Many of his allies and former cabinet ministers were elected to congress and to state governorships. His Liberal party will form the

European shares and US stock futures kicked off the new month on a downbeat note, struggling to reverse course after Wall Street posted its longest streak of quarterly losses since the 2008 financial crisis. The regional Stoxx Europe 600 gauge lost 1.3 per cent in early dealings on Monday, while contracts tracking the S&P 500

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro will face leftwing former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a run-off vote at the end of this month after neither candidate gained a winning margin in a closer than expected presidential election. Lula claimed more than 48 per cent of valid ballots, failing to pass the 50 per cent

Bank of Japan board members are concerned about the risk of inflation rising faster than expected and the health of the bond market, according to minutes of last month’s policy meeting released on Monday. Japan’s core consumer prices, which exclude volatile food prices, hit 2.8 per cent in August, but the BoJ expects inflation to

Industry is back. For the last several decades, the sector has been overlooked and underinvested in, as Wall Street embraced Silicon Valley, services and all things technology-related. Manufacturing, particularly in rich countries like the US, was regarded as a “has been” business. Fewer and fewer wanted to invest or work in it. The inevitable decline

In the days before mobile internet spread across India, Byju Raveendran, an engineer and test preparation tutor from a coastal village in Kerala, could hold the attention of a stadium full of thousands of teenagers with the power of numbers. Or, at least, the magic numbers they would need to pass India’s competitive standardised engineering

China’s president Xi Jinping is poised to secure an unprecedented third term as leader at a congress of his Communist party this month, but behind the political theatre a broader shift is playing out. Demographers predict the world’s most populous country will start to shrink in 2022, a turning point with profound ramifications for its

The UK’s credit rating was threatened with a downgrade late on Friday when S&P, one of the world’s largest credit rating agencies, put the country on a “negative outlook” after chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini” Budget last week. The rating agency maintained the UK’s double A investment grade credit rating but warned the outlook was negative.

The chair of the Labour party has written to her Conservative counterpart calling on him to provide a full list of attendees at a private champagne reception attended by Kwasi Kwarteng just hours after his controversial “mini” Budget. Jake Berry, Tory chair, has defended the chancellor’s meeting with financiers at the home of a wealthy

Liz Truss has executed a humiliating U-turn by scrapping plans to axe the 45p top rate of tax, after facing a growing revolt from Tory MPs led by former cabinet ministers Michael Gove and Grant Shapps. After insisting on Sunday that the controversial plan would go ahead, Truss concluded after talks with her senior team

One of the leading contenders to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister has said he will not stand in the forthcoming leadership contest, as other Conservative MPs prepare to launch their campaigns. Defence secretary Ben Wallace was the favourite among the Tory grassroots, with a net approval rating of +86 among party members according to