News

Canada’s government has relaxed a law that temporarily bans foreigners from purchasing homes in the country in the hope of boosting housing supply. The law, which came into effect on January 1, blocks non-Canadians from buying residential properties until the end of 2024 in an effort to improve home affordability after prices soared. The government

Binance hid substantial links to China for several years, contradicting executives’ claims that the crypto exchange left the country after a clampdown on the industry in late 2017, according to internal company documents seen by the Financial Times. Chief executive Changpeng Zhao and others holding senior positions repeatedly instructed Binance employees to hide the company’s

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog has implored the government to halt a bitterly contested judicial overhaul, warning that the polarisation it had caused had put “our security, economy, society” under threat. Mass protests erupted across the country overnight with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked his defence

Germany’s defence minister has become an unexpectedly popular figure less than three months into a notoriously difficult job, as he promises to overhaul the nation’s armed forces and champions a strong response to the war in Ukraine. Boris Pistorius’s zeal for his new role has catapulted him to the top of the public popularity rankings

The demonstrators at Place de la République in Paris were chanting, weirdly, in Italian: “Siamo tutti antifascisti,” — “We are all antifascists.” In French, they targeted their chief enemy, the president: “We are here, even if Macron doesn’t want it.” Watching them were ranks of massed riot police, who, in the French policing tradition, made

Outside Zurich’s central station a statue of Alfred Escher looks proudly down Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world’s most expensive shopping streets, to Paradeplatz, the heart of the city’s financial district. Trains still trundle along the Swiss rail network that the 19th-century industrialist pioneered — but the bank he founded 167 years ago to finance its

Switzerland has raised interest rates by half a percentage point, despite the financial turmoil that this week led to a rescue-takeover of one of the country’s largest lenders. The Swiss National Bank opted to plough ahead with its fourth consecutive interest rate rise, saying the chances of inflation becoming entrenched had risen. It follows a

UK inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February, adding to pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates again at its meeting on Thursday. The annual rate of consumer price inflation rose to 10.4 per cent in February, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. That was up from 10.1 per cent in January

Credit Suisse bondholders were in uproar on Monday and the European Central Bank raised concerns after the rescue deal by rival UBS wiped out $17bn of the failed Swiss bank’s bonds, upending debt recovery norms and undermining financial market confidence. “In my eyes, this is against the law,” said Patrik Kauffman, a fund manager at

Cash is no longer trash. Assets invested in US money market funds hit a record $5tn last week. Investors rattled by the collapse of three US banks and a crisis of confidence in smaller regional lenders scrambled for safe, liquid alternatives to park their assets. About $120bn flooded into US money market funds in the

Credit Suisse shares rebounded sharply on Thursday after the lender revealed plans to borrow up to SFr50bn ($54bn) from the Swiss central bank and buy back about SFr3bn of its debt in an attempt to boost liquidity and calm investors. The Swiss National Bank had said on Wednesday it was willing to provide a liquidity

The UK government will extend its energy price cap for households by an additional three months as it seeks to shield consumers during the cost of living crisis. The Energy Price Guarantee, which has capped typical annual energy bills at £2,500 this winter, will continue from April to June, saving a typical household £160 during

Credit Suisse said it had identified “material weaknesses” in its internal controls over financial reporting, the latest blow to a bank battling to revive its fortunes. In its annual report on Tuesday, Credit Suisse said “management did not design and maintain an effective risk assessment process to identify and analyse the risk of material misstatements

China has named a general who is under US sanctions as its new defence minister, creating an additional hurdle for military dialogue as the two countries fret that geopolitical tensions could boil over into conflict. Li Shangfu, an aerospace engineer with little previous international exposure, was confirmed as the top military official on Sunday. His

Something is going very wrong for teenagers. Between 1994 and 2010, the share of British teens who do not consider themselves likeable fell slightly from 6 per cent to 4 per cent; since 2010 it has more than doubled. The share who think of themselves as a failure, who worry a lot and who are

Russia has carried out one of its largest strikes on Ukraine including with nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that hit cities and knocked off back-up power at Europe’s largest atomic plant. Of the more than 80 rockets fired, six were nuclear-capable hypersonic Kh-47 Kinzhal air-to-surface missiles, according to Ukrainian officials. The assault has left much of Kyiv

China’s foreign minister has warned of a clash with the US unless Washington ceases its attempts to contain Beijing, highlighting the Chinese Communist party’s concerns over escalating tension between the rival superpowers. “If the US doesn’t hit the brakes and continues to barrel down the wrong track, no amount of guardrails can prevent the carriage

America leads on innovation, and Europe on regulation, or so the conventional wisdom goes. But recently, the US seems to have taken the lead in the latter, particularly in politically powerful industries like technology, pharma and finance.  Just last week, Eli Lilly, the producer of popular insulin medications Humalog and Humulin, pledged to reduce its

China will target an economic expansion of “around 5 per cent” for 2023 as President Xi Jinping seeks to restore pre-pandemic levels of growth and prepares to centralise power further in his own hands. Announcing the target, which was below last year’s goal of 5.5 per cent, China’s outgoing premier Li Keqiang told its rubber-stamp

The biggest selling point for the UK stock market in recent months has been its slow, steady, boring nature. This is a quality that should not be taken for granted. The era dominated by whizz-bang, US tech-led stocks is fading. Sure, it made a good shot at reasserting itself in the final months of last