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Western powers have presented a united front on the eve of a phone call between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, when the US president is expected to detail punitive measures that would inflict “severe” damage to Russia’s economy if the country invades Ukraine. The US president hosted consultations with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy

EU and Nato allies have swung behind the Biden administration’s assessment that Russia may be poised to invade Ukraine, following unprecedented sharing of US intelligence on Moscow’s military preparations. Weeks of sustained US diplomatic engagement with European governments, backed by a sharing of intelligence normally reserved for its closest allies, have helped convince some previously

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

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

Global stock prices slumped on Tuesday, as fears over the potentially damaging economic effects of the Omicron coronavirus variant and hawkish comments from the chair of the US central bank swirled through financial markets. The benchmark S&P 500 index closed the day down 1.9 per cent, erasing gains made on Monday. Since news of the

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

Face masks will be made mandatory in shops and on public transport from Tuesday, the UK health secretary said on Sunday, under fresh measures designed to contain the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant. Sajid Javid said the government was “nowhere near” imposing stricter rules on homeworking and social distancing after the UK detected its first

The World Health Organization has called for a balanced global response to the Omicron coronavirus variant, saying countries which report cases of the new strain should not be penalised, as the South African scientists behind its discovery prepare to ship samples to labs worldwide. The discovery of a new, highly mutated coronavirus variant in Botswana

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

Germany’s Social Democrats, Greens and liberals have reached a deal on forming a new government, paving the way for finance minister Olaf Scholz to succeed Angela Merkel as leader of Europe’s largest economy. The three parties will present their coalition agreement on Wednesday afternoon, the fruit of almost two months of intense negotiations following national

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

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

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

The euro struck its lowest level in 16 months this week as traders bet that the European Central Bank will stick to its accommodative policies even though widespread inflation is prompting US and UK policymakers to raise interest rates. Traders are dialling up their wagers that the Federal Reserve and Bank of England will lift

Three of Barclays’ top-20 shareholders have raised concerns over the terms of Jes Staley’s exit ahead of meetings between the bank and investors next week. Some investors have privately criticised the £2.4m in pay awarded to the departing chief executive, who resigned this month following a probe into his past ties to convicted sex offender

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

Royal Dutch Shell plans to ditch its dual share structure and move its tax residence from the Netherlands to the UK, in moves the oil group says will strengthen its competitiveness. The overhaul of the Anglo-Dutch group’s structure comes less than a month after the Wall Street activist investor Third Point announced a stake in

The COP26 climate summit in Glasgow succeeded in getting 197 countries to agree new rules on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, but last-minute objections from India and China stymied a commitment to end coal use and fossil fuel subsidies. Conference president Alok Sharma fought back tears in the final minutes as he apologised to other ministers

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

AstraZeneca has signed its first for-profit deals for its Covid-19 vaccine, moving away from the completely non-profit model that it used during the pandemic. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker is now expecting to transition the vaccine to “modest profitability” as new orders are received. The shot, developed with the University of Oxford, will remain non-profit for developing