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China has announced wide-ranging relaxations to President Xi Jinping’s contentious “zero-Covid” restrictions, including for the first time home quarantine, as further evidence emerged of the economic damage from the pandemic controls. The new measures, outlined by the State Council on Wednesday, were foreshadowed by a meeting of the Chinese Communist party’s politburo, which emphasised the

The Treasury is finalising plans for a package of sweeping rules to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, including limits on foreign companies selling into the UK, provisions for how to deal with the collapse of companies and restrictions on the advertising of products. Ministers will shortly launch a consultation on the new regulatory regime, after the

EU countries cut gas demand by a quarter in November even as temperatures fell, in the latest evidence that the bloc is succeeding in reducing its reliance on Russian energy since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Provisional data from commodity analytics company ICIS showed gas demand in the EU was 24 per cent below the five-year

Investors predict the Federal Reserve will cut rates when faced with a slowing economy next year, betting the US central bank is far closer to ending its historic monetary tightening campaign than it has signalled. Traders in the US government bond market are wagering that the Fed will be forced to cut interest rates twice

Russia has quietly amassed a fleet of more than 100 ageing tankers to help circumvent western restrictions on Russian oil sales following its invasion of Ukraine, according to shipping brokers and analysts. Shipping broker Braemar estimates Moscow, which relies heavily on foreign tankers to transport its crude, has added more than 100 ships this year,

Blackstone has limited withdrawals from its $125bn real estate investment fund following a surge in redemption requests, as investors clamour to get their hands on cash and concerns grow about the long-term health of the commercial property market. The private equity group approved only 43 per cent of redemption requests in its Blackstone Real Estate

Sam Bankman-Fried said he “never tried to commit fraud” while admitting he made “a lot of mistakes” ahead of the collapse of his $32bn cryptocurrency empire, which threatens to inflict significant financial losses on users of his popular FTX trading platform. The founder of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX denied “knowingly” commingling customer funds with

Britain is poised to relax one of the biggest restrictions on the banking sector as part of “Big Bang 2.0”, the long promised liberalisation of post-Brexit financial services rules. The “ringfencing” of banks with retail and investment arms was introduced after the 2008 financial crash with the aim of reducing risk and preventing banking collapses.

The US is pushing European allies to take a harder stance towards Beijing as it tries to leverage its leadership on Ukraine to gain more support from Nato countries for its efforts to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. According to people briefed on conversations between the US and its Nato allies, Washington has in recent

Xi Jinping faces one of his greatest challenges as president of China after tens of thousands of people took to the streets over Beijing’s strict coronavirus controls and suppression of freedom of speech. At least 10 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu, were shaken by rare political protests over the weekend, triggering clashes with police

Elon Musk’s tumultuous reign at Twitter has led to a damaging rift with top brands and marketers, with the social media company’s $5bn-a-year advertising business hit by tensions over content moderation and resources. Multiple top advertising agencies and media buyers told the Financial Times that nearly all of the big brands they represent have paused

Qatar has launched a review of its investments in London after the city’s transport authority this week banned the Gulf state’s advertisements on the UK capital’s buses, taxis and underground train system. The move by Transport for London was prompted by concerns about Qatar’s stance on LGBT+ rights and its treatment of migrant workers. It

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s new strategy to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure and plunge it into darkness would not weaken the country’s resolve to liberate all occupied land, describing the conflict as a “war of strength and resilience”. Pushing back against western fears of escalation, Ukraine’s president insisted there would be no lasting resolution to the war

Rishi Sunak is under pressure from a broad alliance of British business, legal, worker and environmental groups to drop controversial plans to automatically strip swaths of EU-derived law from the British statute book by the end of next year. More than a dozen organisations including the Institute of Directors, Trades Union Congress and Chartered Institute

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried ran the cryptocurrency exchange as his “personal fiefdom” before its implosion, according to a lawyer working on the bankruptcy, with “substantial amounts of money” spent on items unrelated to the business such as vacation homes in the Bahamas. “We have witnessed one of the most abrupt and difficult collapses in the

Senior Walt Disney executives led a rebellion against chief executive Bob Chapek in recent weeks, which resulted in his ousting and replacement with predecessor Bob Iger, according to people familiar with the matter. The covert campaign to overthrow Chapek, which began in the summer, came after the outgoing chief executive lost the confidence of some

Bob Iger, who served as Disney chief executive for 15 years, has replaced successor Bob Chapek after a rocky tenure that lasted just 33 months Iger, who has sometimes been critical of Chapek’s performance, will serve for two years in the job that made him one of the world’s most celebrated business leaders. Iger has

The outcome of key UN climate talks hung on crunch negotiations over global warming targets on Saturday, after the EU made a dramatic threat to walk away from the fraught COP27 summit. Negotiators said that progress was made in getting an agreement over the previously deadlocked issue of “loss and damage” funding by rich countries

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt confronted a backlash from Tory MPs angry at a new era of high taxation even as the IMF hailed his efforts to restore the country’s fiscal credibility. On a day that two leading think-tanks said that high taxes had arrived for good and that wages were set for their most prolonged

British households are set for the steepest fall in living standards on record and the highest tax burden since the second world war after Jeremy Hunt laid out plans to cut public spending and raise revenue to fill a £55bn fiscal hole. The chancellor told a sombre House of Commons that a massive fiscal consolidation,