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The US has held top-level talks with the UK on how the two nations can co-operate more closely to reduce the chances of war with China over Taiwan. It is the first time the countries have explored conflict contingency plans. Kurt Campbell, the White House Indo-Pacific co-ordinator, and Laura Rosenberger, the top National Security Council

The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago It’s a cliché that the US is a nation of immigrants — and a cliché that, for the past few years, has been just plain wrong. This nation of 330mn people managed to resettle a meagre 11,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended in September

The coronavirus pandemic is creeping closer to the halls of power in Beijing as authorities rush to avoid an uncontrolled Shanghai-style Omicron outbreak in China’s capital. Beijing is tightening coronavirus restrictions after reporting 41 cases on Sunday. Officials in the city of 22mn, which is also home to the ruling Chinese Communist party’s senior leaders,

Good morning. We don’t break years into thirds, but if we did, we’d be saying “the first third was just awful for stocks”. The S&P 500 hit its all-time high on January 3 — opening day for markets — and is down 14 per cent since then. Today I take the measure of what happened:

Few western statesmen have enjoyed much quality time with Xi Jinping, especially as China’s president has of late retreated into pandemic-era seclusion. Kevin Rudd is one who did. “I spent a total of 10 hours in conversation with Xi in six separate meetings, including about three hours around a winter fire at the prime ministerial

Investment by UK employers in training has fallen by more than a quarter since 2005, and an overhaul by the government of tax incentives is needed to stop Britain “sleepwalking into stagnation in skills”, according to new research. Employer spending per employee on training has fallen 28 per cent in real terms since 2005, dropping

The writer is author of ‘How to Be a Better Leader’ and is a visiting professor at Bayes Business School, City, University of London Marks and Spencer is hiring. It needs a new ESG communications manager. The British retailer is looking for a “stellar candidate who combines substantial knowledge of issues such as plastics, human

Totally independent of China’s alleged efforts to establish a military base in the Solomon Islands, it is reprehensible that the US “has not had a permanent diplomatic presence there since 1993”, as you report (April 23). This is a disgrace to the memory of the thousands of US soldiers, sailors and marines who gave their

By Chloë Ashby You might disbelieve me, but it’s not the half-dressed workmen in Gustave Caillebotte’s 1875 painting “The Floor Scrapers” (pictured, below) that I’m interested in — I can take them or leave them —  it’s the wooden floor. It’s the decorative energy of the iron window grille. The creamy baseboard with its golden

This article is part of a guide to Singapore from FT Globetrotter Here’s a question I’m asked a lot: is there a hotel or resort in the world you love so much, a place that gets it so right, that you’ve kept it to yourself, and never written about it? The answer I’m invariably inclined to give

To suggest as Constanze Stelzenmueller does, that Germany has a “special responsibility to stop Putin’s evil” (Opinion, April 25) would be a distraction for several reasons. First, each country in Europe and the rest of the world has the responsibility to stand up against the unjustified invasion of a sovereign country; the violation of human

More than 100 people were evacuated from a steelworks in Mariupol that has become a last holdout of Ukrainian resistance to Russian forces in the besieged port city. Repeated international efforts to broker safe passage for civilians sheltering in the Azovstal plant finally bore some fruit at the weekend as the UN and Red Cross

Senior British MPs have called on parliament to strengthen its human resources practices following the latest wave of harassment and conduct allegations in Westminster. Neil Parish, a Conservative MP and chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, was forced to quit parliament after admitting that he had watched pornography twice in the

In Sydney, the beauty on the Bay It’s hard to get a bad harbour view in Sydney, that world-beating harbour town; a handful of hotels in its Central Business District and The Rocks – in particular the Park Hyatt, with its forever perspective on the Opera House (and unassailable service) – deliver fine ones. If,

The expression is ugly and its content even uglier, but “Ukraine fatigue” is a real risk in western democracies. Their citizens are repulsed by Vladimir Putin’s war of unprovoked aggression and are full of sympathy for the Ukrainian people. Their leaders have surprised even themselves with the strength of their support for Kyiv. But as

Less is more, as every good designer knows. When it comes to bank capital’s blueprint, the UK’s top supervisor of lenders has suggested going back to the drawing board. It is a beguiling concept: complexity can bring cost, inhibit scrutiny and facilitate gaming of the system. Sam Woods, a Bank of England deputy governor, instead

A team of international experts ranging from epidemiologists to computer modellers should be created to quickly identify global health threats and improve co-ordination between countries, Bill Gates has said, warning that greater investment is needed to avoid another pandemic. The Microsoft founder and philanthropist, who in 2015 first cautioned publicly that the world was not

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. In this episode of Tech Tonic, how a mysterious death in Belgrade prompted Serbia to embrace Chinese surveillance technology, raising concerns among Serbian human rights and privacy activists. They’ve been fighting back against the Serbian government’s

Wearing a jewel should be a multisensory experience: the warmth of gold on the skin, the glint of gems, the clink of stacked bangles or the sway of long-drop earrings. This interaction is amplified when moving parts are involved in the construction – a design feature that is increasingly, and excitingly, appearing in today’s jewels.  “Movement reflects

Kim Jones, men’s artistic director of Dior The best souvenir I’ve brought home is a set of hill-tribe costumes from southeast Asia. I look at fabrics a lot when I travel and I just loved how modern they looked – like sportswear, but the patterns are hundreds of years old. I collect lots of different

Welcome to the Financial Times’ Europe Express Weekend newsletter. I’m Tony Barber, the FT’s European Comment Editor, and every Saturday I’m sharing my thoughts on one of the main events or trends of the week. It wasn’t a great week for hard-right politicians in Europe, was it? Marine Le Pen lost the French presidential election