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UK prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Belfast on Tuesday to sell his post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland to business leaders after the region’s main unionist party welcomed progress but said concerns remained. Sunak unveiled the so-called Windsor framework with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Monday, hailing it as a “new

Rishi Sunak will on Monday claim he has negotiated “fundamental” changes to the post-Brexit trading regime in Northern Ireland, as he seeks to finally end a bitter row with Brussels on the issue. The UK prime minister and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, are expected to seal the deal to reform the

The record-breaking global bond market rally since the start of this year has fizzled out as mounting signs of persistent inflation force investors to reverse their views on the likely future path of interest rate rises. Investors rushed into fixed income in the first few weeks of 2023 as they became increasingly expectant that the

Joe Biden has said he did not think China would send weapons to Russia to help its military campaign in Ukraine, in comments that appeared to undercut claims from his top officials that Beijing was considering the idea. In an interview with ABC television on Friday that was aired on the evening of the anniversary

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to defeat Russia in 2023, as Ukraine marked the solemn anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion and a year that forever altered the country and upturned the global order. “A year ago on this day, from this same place around seven in the morning, I addressed you with a brief

The EU and its allies are investigating a surge in exports to economies in Russia’s vicinity as they seek to prevent companies from evading western sanctions imposed on Moscow. David O’Sullivan, the EU’s newly appointed sanctions envoy, told the Financial Times that big increases in trade with countries in Russia’s neighbourhood raised questions as to

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak is exploring a 5 per cent pay rise for public-sector workers to end an escalating wave of strikes after the Treasury was given an unexpected £30bn windfall. In a sign of a change of mood after months of strife, the Royal College of Nursing on Tuesday called off a 48-hour

The sanctioned Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin generated revenues of more than a quarter of a billion dollars from his global natural resources empire in the four years before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to corporate records. A Financial Times investigation has found that years of western sanctions against the Wagner mercenary group’s founder failed

Poland’s head of state has called on Nato powers to give postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, on the eve of a visit by the US president to Warsaw to reaffirm the west’s support for Kyiv a year into Russia’s war. Andrzej Duda told the Financial Times that promises of security guarantees “would be important” for

Investors are piling into high-quality corporate bonds this year at a record rate, reflecting their enthusiasm for an asset class that is typically seen as relatively low risk but now offers the best returns in years. A total of $19bn has poured into funds which buy investment grade corporate debt around the world since the

The White House will next week hold secret talks with Taiwan’s foreign minister Joseph Wu and national security adviser Wellington Koo as part of a special diplomatic dialogue intended to remain private to avoid sparking an angry reaction from China. Five people familiar with the secret talks — known as the “special channel” — said

Rishi Sunak has launched a high-stakes gamble to seal a deal with Brussels over Northern Ireland, making a surprise visit to Belfast as Tory Eurosceptics warned he was going too far to accommodate the EU. The UK prime minister is seeking to win backing from Northern Irish parties for an outline deal with the EU

Profits at Centrica more than tripled year on year to a record high of £3.3bn in 2022, as the energy group’s North Sea production and nuclear power businesses benefited from a surge in gas and power prices. The owner of British Gas, which has recently been embroiled in a scandal over forcibly installing expensive prepayment

UK inflation slowed by more than expected to a five-month low in January, adding to growing evidence that price pressures have peaked. The annual rate of consumer price inflation declined to 10.1 per cent in January, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, down from 10.5 per cent in December. Inflation hit a high

UK wage growth accelerated by more than expected in the three months to December, according to official statistics that will be closely watched by the Bank of England ahead of its next interest rate decision. Growth in average regular pay, excluding bonuses, rose to 6.7 per cent in the final three months of 2022, compared

One of the UK pension industry’s biggest asset managers abandoned mark-to-market pricing on funds reeling from the country’s government bond crisis last year, instead choosing higher values that presented a rosier picture of its position. The highly unusual and previously unreported move by Insight Investment came at the height of the September crisis that began

A Deutsche Bank probe into the mis-selling of risky foreign exchange derivatives in Spain has found that staff acted disingenuously, exploited flaws in the bank’s controls and broke EU rules, according to people with knowledge of the report. One of the people said employees acted in “bad faith” over years, pushing small and medium sized

Gillian Keegan, UK education secretary, has signalled she will fight any Home Office attempts to cut migration into Britain by driving away overseas students, saying universities were a “hugely valuable” export success. Keegan, in an interview with the Financial Times, said she wanted to build on the UK’s booming export market in university education, and

The UK economy stagnated in the final quarter of 2022, narrowly avoiding a recession despite output shrinking by more than expected in December. Gross domestic product was unchanged between the third and fourth quarters of 2022, following a contraction in the previous three months, according to data published on Friday by the Office for National

Credit Suisse has reported its biggest annual loss since the 2008 financial crisis, laying bare the scale of the challenge the bank faces in restoring its fortunes. The lender on Thursday reported a SFr1.4bn ($1.5bn) loss for the fourth quarter, as investment banking revenues slumped and clients pulled money from the group’s wealth management business.