business

Donald Trump has said the US had “very good and productive discussions” with Vladimir Putin and that “thousands of Ukrainian troops” were surrounded by the Russian army, a claim refuted by the Ukrainian military and independent analysts. In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump added that there was a “very good chance” the … Read more

Rodrigo Duterte has become the first Asian former leader to appear before the international criminal court, where he stands accused of committing crimes against humanity during his notorious “war on drugs” which is estimated to have killed as many as 30,000 people. The ex-president of the Philippines, who was in office from 2016 to 2022, … Read more

Germany’s conservative chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, has said he has secured the support of the Green party for his radical plan to increase spending on defence and infrastructure after marathon talks that went through the night, paving the way for its approval in parliament. “Germany is back,” Merz said in Berlin on Friday. “Germany is making … Read more

A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment. Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international … Read more

The House of Lords watchdog has started an official investigation into revelations that a peer offered to secure meetings with ministers for a potential commercial client who wanted to lobby the government. The investigation into Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, was announced on Friday. He is the second peer now facing … Read more

A civil servant held multiple full-time jobs at different government departments at the same time, according to a Cabinet Office investigation. A report by the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) – a data-matching exercise carried out every two years by the Cabinet Office that helps prevent and detect fraud – made the discovery in 2022-23 when … Read more

Sudanese officials say they have rejected a request from the US to discuss taking in Palestinians displaced from Gaza under Donald Trump’s plan to turn the territory into a “Riviera on the Mediterranean”. According to an Associated Press report, the US and Israel contacted officials in Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about resettling uprooted Palestinians. The … Read more

Asda is to invest “a pretty significant war chest” in cutting prices and putting more staff on the shop floor as the supermarket chain battles a decline in sales and market share. Allan Leighton, the chair of the privately owned group that runs more 580 supermarkets, almost 500 convenience stores and 769 petrol forecourts, said … Read more

It’s not really about the tariffs. Not for Australia the brutal humiliation meted out on camera to Ukraine in the Oval Office. Nor Canada’s escalating war of invective and retaliatory sanctions. Australia, instead, got a desultory dismissal in the corridors of the White House – from a staffer: Canberra’s plea to be exempted from the … Read more

An American Airlines flight heading from Colorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth was forced to divert about 30 minutes after takeoff to make an emergency landing at Denver on Thursday evening, whereupon one of the plane’s engines dramatically caught on fire on the tarmac. Passengers were swiftly forced to evacuate, including via wing and emergency slide, … Read more