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Kingdom Holding, one of Saudi Arabia’s highest-profile investors, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Russian energy firms shortly before and after the invasion of Ukraine this year, the group disclosed in a filing on Sunday. Majority owned by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Kingdom made the investments even as western leaders sought to increase pressure

The EU has demanded that Serbia and Kosovo abandon talk of war as the bloc and Nato prepare to hold crisis talks with the rivals this week in a bid to avert fresh conflict in the Balkans. Tension between the neighbouring states, which often threatens the stability of the Balkans, spilled over into violent protests

There has been some suggestion that the US judicial system should rein back its investigations of Donald Trump, or drop them altogether. American social peace, they argue, is more precious than the blind pursuit of justice. If the price of stability is forbearance, so be it. Thankfully, Merrick Garland, the US attorney-general, took an oath

The writer is executive director of American Compass At first glance, Republican opposition to the Chips and Science Act, through which Congress approved more than $70bn in support for the American semiconductor industry and roughly $200bn for scientific research, appears a straightforward story — of course the GOP resisted “big government” and “picking winners and

Donald Trump has mocked, dismissed and railed against the FBI and US Department of Justice for the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate this week. But the warrant that was presented to the former president’s attorneys to justify the swoop on his Florida home to retrieve boxes of classified documents he had retained since leaving the

Ali Carnegie, a business energy broker based in south-west England, spends most of his working day on the phone breaking bad news to clients. In normal times, Carnegie wrangles with gas and electricity providers over single-digit percentage increases in the bills of the more than 250 small to medium-sized enterprises he has on his books.

Saudi Aramco broke its quarterly profit record set in May, as soaring energy prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine deliver windfalls to refiners. Net income at the state-backed group rose to $48.4bn in the second quarter, a 90 per cent year-on-year increase and its greatest earnings since listing in 2019. The Saudi oil company

When millions of refugees flooded across its border in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland was hailed as a role model. Almost overnight its citizens formed a grassroots volunteer army to help the displaced, donated money and welcome Ukrainians into their homes. There has been a slowdown in arrivals since the February 24

Investors heartened by this summer’s recovery in US equity markets should not relax their guard so soon because corporate debt concerns will probably spark another downturn at the end of this year, one of the world’s pre-eminent volatility specialists has predicted. While sharply falling equity prices in the first half of the year reflected concerns

Alex Blyth thought his company had a genius strategy to reinvent cancer treatment. By examining the immunity of the lucky few who had no family history of the disease, Lift Biosciences discovered a potential treatment to destroy tumours for everyone else. Then the cell therapy hit a snag: it did not work when tested on

UK civil servants have been ordered to trawl through the social media accounts of guest speakers at one government ministry, including going back up to five years to see if they have ever criticised government policy, as part of a new vetting process. The new Cabinet Office rules cover the vetting of outsiders coming into

Fund managers are reducing pay packages and delaying hiring decisions in an attempt to curb costs, as pressure mounts from customer withdrawals and falling global stock markets. With inflation soaring to its highest level in four decades, putting upward momentum on wages, a number of asset managers are clamping down on expenses to protect profit

The most disconcerting thing about Masayoshi Son at the announcement of SoftBank’s quarterly results was not the record-breaking $23bn loss, the promise of ferocious cost-cutting or even, two days later, the historic selldown of the company’s stake in Alibaba. It was how much he looks and sounds like the 65-year-old chief executive of a Japanese

The writer is director of the Social Market Foundation think-tank For more than a decade, the British state has been in retreat. This ragged withdrawal has been unplanned and inconsistent, felt most keenly in the poorest places and by people who lack loud voices. Until this Conservative leadership contest prompted echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s call

Soaring energy prices could mean an even colder and darker winter across Europe, with governments racing to find new ways to protect households facing huge utility bills. Wholesale gas prices are hovering around €200 per megawatt hour — eight times higher than the average level of recent years, wholesale electricity prices have risen sharply in

Energy suppliers including British Gas, Eon and Octopus have called on the UK government to move a swath of charges from customer bills into general taxation as they face growing pressure to lower soaring costs for households. With UK gas and electricity bills forecast to reach as high as £5,000 a year next spring, four

Salman Rushdie, the author who has lived under a death threat from Iran for several decades, was stabbed on stage during a literary event in the US on Friday morning. Police said Rushdie, 75, suffered a stab wound to the neck and was flown to hospital by helicopter. The Booker Prize-winning author was still in

The House of Representatives has approved the $700bn climate, health and tax bill championed by Joe Biden and congressional Democrats, completing a significant legislative victory for the US president and his party. The lower chamber of Congress voted on the legislation on Friday following its final passage in the US Senate this past Sunday. It

The contestants? Fifty or so cars, some food stalls, an FT columnist, scooter taxis, alighting Skytrain riders and one of those street cats that, spared western feeding, manage to keep their figures. The prize? Space to move, or just to be. And this is one of the airier junctions of Sukhumvit Road. The rail line

The winner of the Conservative party leadership contest will face huge additional costs of servicing the nation’s debt and paying social security benefits as a result of rising inflation and interest rates, according to Financial Times calculations. The estimates, which are an update to the Bank of England’s previous official inflation forecast in March, show

Donald Trump is under investigation for potentially mishandling information related to US national defence in violation of the Espionage Act, along with other possible violations related to the handling of government documents, according to the FBI’s warrant to search the former president’s home. The search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, which triggered a fierce