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The UK government’s move to delay post-Brexit checks on imports of EU food products is an “accident waiting to happen”, farming, veterinary and meat industry groups have warned. They sounded the alarm after industry insiders revealed the UK Food Standards Agency had recently warned pig farmers of illegal “white van” shipments of pork meat coming

Vladimir Putin has claimed Russia was forced to “strike back pre-emptively” against Ukraine, adding that the Kremlin’s troops were “fighting on their own land” in the conflict, just as Soviet forces did in the second world war. In his speech at the annual Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square, the Russian president sought to

The director of the CIA said that Chinese president Xi Jinping has been “unsettled” by the war in Ukraine, which had demonstrated that the friendship between Beijing and Moscow had “limits” at a time when western allies were moving closer together. Speaking at the FT Weekend Festival in Washington on Saturday, Bill Burns said the

A jubilant Sinn Féin was poised to clinch a historic victory in Northern Ireland’s elections and become the region’s biggest political force for the first time in a century, after more than half the seats to the Stormont assembly were decided. Sinn Féin, the party long associated with the paramilitary IRA, was clearly ahead of

Boris Johnson will face renewed pressure on his leadership on Friday after the Conservatives suffered significant defeats in local elections across the UK, including losing the flagship London council of Wandsworth. Labour won the borough beloved of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher for its ultra-low local tax rates after 44 years in Tory hands, but

The Bank of England has warned that the UK economy will slide into recession this year as higher energy prices push inflation above 10 per cent, a forecast that pushed sterling to a two-year low. Rising prices would cause the worst squeeze in household finances for many decades, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said as

Brussels will propose a phased-in ban on imports of all Russian oil as member states prepare to discuss a sixth package of penalties against Moscow for its invasion in Ukraine. The ban will cover all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined, European commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. She vowed

BP recorded its highest quarterly earnings in more than a decade, benefiting from soaring prices for hydrocarbons and “exceptional” oil and gas trading revenues, even as it wrote down the value of its business in Russia to almost zero. The UK-listed oil major’s underlying profit on a replacement cost basis for the first three months

Brussels regulators have charged Apple with breaking EU competition law by abusing its dominant position in mobile payments to limit rivals’ access to contactless technology. Antitrust investigators are concerned that the US tech group is preventing competitors from accessing “tap and go” chips or near-field communication (NFC) to benefit its own Apple Pay system, the

Chinese regulators have held an emergency meeting with domestic and foreign banks to discuss how they could protect the country’s overseas assets from US-led sanctions similar to those imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the discussion. Officials are worried the same measures could be taken against Beijing in

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bet big on the US stock market in the first quarter, buying $51.1bn of shares, as he ploughed the sprawling conglomerate’s cash pile to work as financial markets slid from record heights. It is a dramatic shift from an investor who had been a seller of stocks for the past two

Growth in the eurozone economy weakened during the first quarter while inflation inched up to a new record in April, raising the spectre of stagflation in a region blighted by soaring energy and food prices. Gross domestic product in the 19 countries that share the euro grew 0.2 per cent in the first three months

European energy companies that comply with Moscow’s requirement to open a rouble-based account with Gazprombank would be violating sanctions against Russia, EU officials have warned. Several European companies have indicated they will comply with the March 31 decree by president Vladimir Putin to introduce a two-tiered payment system. The system involves paying in euros or

European gas prices rose by a fifth on Wednesday after Russia’s Gazprom suspended supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, saying the countries had failed to make rouble payments that were due a day earlier. Futures contracts tracking Europe’s wholesale gas price advanced about 20 per cent at €117 per megawatt hour in early trading. Prices are almost seven

Twitter’s board has accepted a roughly $44bn offer to sell the company to Elon Musk, handing control of the influential social media platform to the world’s richest man. Announcing the deal, Musk said “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy” and described the social media platform as “the digital town square where matters

The euro was largely stable following a decisive victory for Emmanuel Macron in France’s presidential election, while global equities followed Wall Street lower in the wake of Friday’s sharp sell-off and China’s currency continued to fall as lockdowns weighed on the country’s economic outlook. The euro was off 0.2 per cent at about $1.08 during

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at the Kremlin after Russian missiles killed eight civilians in the port city of Odesa, as America’s top diplomat prepared to visit Ukraine for the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began eight weeks ago. In heated remarks, Zelensky called the Russians “bloody bastards”, “Nazis” and “Rashists” — a

The EU will force Big Tech companies to police content online more aggressively after approving a major piece of legislation that sets the rules for the first time on how companies should keep users safe on the internet. In the early hours of Saturday morning, after nearly 16 hours of negotiations, legislators in Brussels endorsed

Sterling dropped to its weakest level since late 2020 after a sharp drop in British retail sales underlined the depths of the cost of living crisis fuelled by surging inflation. The volume of retail sales in Great Britain fell 1.4 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said, worse than the 0.3 per cent drop

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered Russian forces to “block off” the last remaining Ukrainian fighters at the Mariupol steelworks as he claimed Moscow had conquered the port city. Putin hailed Mariupol’s “liberation” after a two-month battle — a victory that would mark a major success in his war — but Ukraine has depicted the steelworks