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The price of bitcoin has dropped below $30,000, wiping out almost all of its gains for the year, with a sweeping regulatory crackdown putting the world’s leading digital asset under persistent pressure. Bitcoin fell as much as 12 per cent on Tuesday to $28,824 in the latest leg of a sell-off that has pulled the

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily is on the verge of closure after its assets were frozen by the government last week, restricting its ability to operate. The asset freeze follows the arrest of two of the newspaper’s senior executives who were charged under China’s tough national security law after a raid by 500 police

The Delta coronavirus variant that swept the UK has become dominant in Portugal and appeared in clusters across Germany, France and Spain, prompting European health officials to warn further action is needed to slow its spread.  While the new strain, which first emerged in India, still only accounts for a fraction of the total coronavirus

Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative cleric, was set for a landslide victory in Iran’s presidential election that would give regime hardliners complete control over all branches of the state for the first time in almost a decade. Raisi’s two main rivals conceded on Saturday and congratulated the 60-year-old who many Iranians believe is the favoured candidate

The EU has lost a legal attempt to force AstraZeneca to speed up delivery of doses of its Covid-19 vaccines or face large fines, in the latest twist in a bitter battle over delivery shortfalls. A court in Brussels ruled on Friday that the company must deliver only a fraction of what the European Commission

Global stocks continued a steady descent from record highs reached earlier in the week and the dollar strengthened after the US central bank brought forward the anticipated timing of its first post-pandemic interest rate rise. The FTSE All-World index of developed and emerging market stocks, which hit a closing record on Monday, headed for its

US president Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are meeting in Geneva on Wednesday for talks aimed at arresting a rapid decline in relations between two countries beset by mutual distrust. In their first face-to-face encounter as leaders, the presidents will grapple with accusations, complaints and charges against one another, including alleged Russian

The EU has excluded 10 of the heaviest-hitting banks in the debt market from running lucrative bond sales as part of its €800bn recovery fund, over historic breaches of antitrust rules. Brussels’ biggest ever borrowing spree kicks off on Tuesday with the sale of a new 10-year bond to fund the NextGenerationEU programme under a

Nato leaders are seeking how to best strengthen security in cyber space, outer space and emerging technologies as they gather to plot how to modernise the 72-year-old military alliance.  US president Joe Biden’s first Nato summit on Monday will “sharpen” the 30-member grouping’s “technological edge”, said Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general, and reinforce its response to potential

Israel’s parliament is poised to vote in a new government later on Sunday, ending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year grip on power after four elections and two years of political paralysis. The vote will mark a historic change in the Jewish state’s leadership, replacing its longest-serving premier with Naftali Bennett, an ultranationalist whose Yamina party

Emmanuel Macron, French president, has warned Boris Johnson that efforts to reset relations between Paris and London will fail unless the UK prime minister keeps his word over the Brexit deal in Northern Ireland. At a breakfast meeting on the margins of the G7 summit in Cornwall, Macron made it clear he expected Johnson to

The private capital industry has grown to more than $7tn thanks to demand for higher-returning but pricey and opaque strategies, spurring the likes of Schroders and JPMorgan to launch new divisions and sending others on the prowl for acquisitions.  Although still dwarfed by the traditional asset management industry — which primarily invests in mainstream, public

US consumer prices accelerated by the most in nearly 13 years in May as pent-up demand combined with higher prices for goods to stoke concerns about inflationary pressures.  Consumer prices rose 5 per cent last month compared with a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Thursday. That represents the steepest increase since

Royal Dutch Shell is to accelerate its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions after an order by a court in the Netherlands, with the oil major saying it would “rise to the challenge”. Last month, the District Court in The Hague ruled that Shell must reduce its net carbon emissions by 45 per cent by

The Biden administration is considering an investigation into whether imports of rare earth magnets made largely in China pose a national security threat that could warrant the imposition of tariffs. The White House said the commerce department would examine whether to probe neodymium magnets, which are used to manufacture everything from smartphones to electric vehicle

Bill Ackman has already once tried — and failed — to redefine the Spac. Now he is trying again. The hedge fund manager’s special purpose acquisition company, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, which raised $4bn last year, was not just the largest blank-cheque vehicle ever launched. It did away with some of the perks for founders,

The surge of trading in offbeat stocks is duping inexperienced investors in to high costs and a battle with Wall Street that they cannot win, according to the founder of one of the largest trading firms in the world. Zero-commission trading helps to build an illusion that amateur investors have never had it better, Alex

Brussels has warned that it is ready to intensify retaliation against the UK if Boris Johnson further postpones applying the two sides’ deal on Northern Ireland, in another sign of strained relations ahead of talks this week.  EU Brexit commissioner Maros Sefcovic, writing in the Daily Telegraph, warned that “unilateral action” by the UK to

Americans love pick-up trucks. Carmakers hope they will get a jolt of excitement from electric ones too. When Ford unveiled the F-150 Lightning last month, it became the latest US carmaker to unveil a product to compete in a segment that comprised about 20 per cent of the US auto market’s 14.4m sales in 2020.

Narendra Modi, Indian prime minister, has announced that his government will offer Covid-19 vaccines to all citizens for free, reversing a much-derided policy requiring India’s states to buy their own jabs at higher prices. India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has for weeks been battling a severe shortage of jabs. Thousands of British tourists are