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China will remove quarantine requirements for inbound travellers from January 8 as the country dismantles the remnants of a zero-Covid regime that closed it off from the rest of the world for almost three years. The National Health Commission on Monday unveiled the move as part of a wider announcement that downgraded the country’s management

Apple’s business is under threat from a widespread coronavirus outbreak in China, with supply chain experts warning of a growing risk of months-long disruption to the production of iPhones. The US tech giant has had to contend with more than a month of chaos at its main assembler Foxconn’s megafactory in Zhengzhou, China, known as

Chinese officials estimate about 250mn people, or 18 per cent of the population, were infected with Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, as Beijing abruptly dismantled restrictions that had contained the disease for almost three years. The estimates — including 37mn people, or 2.6 per cent of the population, who were infected on

The UK faces a fresh wave of strike action in the new year, as nurses, ambulance staff and rail workers prepare to walk out over pay. The PCS union, which represents striking civil servants including Border Force staff, on Friday warned industrial action would be ramped up even further if the government continued to refuse

Britain has joined the international criticism of Joe Biden’s massive US package of green subsidies, warning they are protectionist and will hit UK-based makers of electric vehicles, batteries and other renewables. Kemi Badenoch, the UK’s international trade secretary, has written to her US counterpart, Katherine Tai, to protest at the structure of the Biden administration’s

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy struck a defiant tone at the White House on Wednesday, questioning whether Kyiv could ever reach a “just peace” with Moscow and pressing Joe Biden to send additional weapons to sustain his war effort through the winter. The US president used a joint appearance with Zelenskyy, whose Washington trip was his

Health chiefs have warned they cannot guarantee patient safety when ambulance workers launch strike action on Wednesday, as Rishi Sunak refused to reopen this year’s NHS pay deal. Health secretary Steve Barclay met ambulance unions on Tuesday to discuss cover for 999 calls during the strike in England and Wales, but the talks broke down

The congressional committee probing last year’s violent attack on the US Capitol has voted to recommend that the US Department of Justice pursue criminal charges against former president Donald Trump for his role in the failed insurrection. During its final public hearing on Monday, the bipartisan nine-member panel unanimously said Trump should be prosecuted for

Britain is bracing for one of the most disruptive weeks of strike action in recent history after the government signalled its determination to face down the unions despite calls for pay negotiations from health leaders and some Conservative MPs. Nurses, ambulance workers, customs and immigration staff, postal and rail workers will all walk out in

The EU’s trading partners have hit out at the bloc’s plan to introduce the world’s first carbon border tax, saying it is protectionist and puts export industries at risk, as negotiations to complete the deal stretch into the weekend. According to two people familiar with the discussions, several developing nations have already begun to negotiate

David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister, is returning to public life with a new job teaching politics at a university in the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi. Cameron will lecture students on “practising politics and government in the age of disruption” for a three-week course in January at the New York University Abu Dhabi. It

The Bank of England raised interest rates on Thursday by half a percentage point to 3.5 per cent, the highest level in 14 years, and warned that further tightening of monetary policy was likely. In a vote showing a majority on the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee for “forceful” action against high inflation, six of

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is exploring plans to keep providing all British businesses with help for their energy bills once winter has passed, in what would be a break with current government policy to limit such aid to “vulnerable industries” after March. The potential change in the government’s support package for business, which several officials said

Sam Bankman-Fried has been accused of engineering “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” as US prosecutors filed criminal charges against the founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In an indictment unsealed on Tuesday, the US Department of Justice charged Bankman-Fried with eight counts including conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers and

New UK government proposals for a US-style register of “foreign influence” risks destroying Britain’s reputation as a global investment hub and will unnecessarily criminalise bank workers, academics and charities, a lobby group has warned. The proposed Foreign Influence Registration Scheme is expected to become law in the new year as part of a new National

The European parliament is at the centre of a spreading corruption scandal after Belgian police seized €600,000 in cash and detained two MEPs as part of an international investigation into claims that football World Cup host Qatar sought to buy influence. A Belgian judge charged four unnamed people on Sunday with “participation in a criminal

Blackstone has warned of the risk of delays to the launch of a new private equity fund designed for wealthy individuals, as it copes with heavy investor withdrawals at two other funds in real estate and credit aimed at a similar clientele. The New York-based investment manager has been preparing to open a fund called

Jeremy Hunt has warned trade unions not to jeopardise Britain’s recovery, saying that high pay demands will hit the fight against inflation and harm the workers they are trying to protect. In an interview with the Financial Times, the UK chancellor did not deny that ministers had blocked a potential 10 per cent pay offer

My journey to the school for spies starts in the half-light of a waking city. I do not know where I am going and have only been instructed to meet my contact at a central London landmark. We travel by car, boat and train to a place where officers of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, the

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund will become a more vocal shareholder and plans to vote against companies that fail to set a net zero target, overpay their top leaders, or do not have sufficiently diverse boards. Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of the $1.3tn Norwegian oil fund, told the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom event that