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I am on my fourth pint of the night and I feel fantastic. The atmosphere has, after simmering away with a post-work propriety, jolted alive with that inimitable spark of possibility that comes when an entire room of the tipsy and the timid finally drop their guard. On the table to my left, three hop-bellied

Elon Musk has sued the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to recover a portion of the $90mn fee paid by Twitter, the bulk of which was wired in the hours before the billionaire took over the social media company. Wachtell Lipton, an elite Wall Street firm, had helped Twitter’s then-board to close the

European stocks fell and yields on US government debt rose on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting indicated the central bank would resume interest rate increases to stamp out high US inflation. The pan-European Stoxx 600 lost 1.2 per cent, edging towards its lowest point since May, while France’s Cac 40

Federal Reserve officials signalled they intend to resume interest rate increases amid a growing consensus that more tightening is needed to stamp out high inflation in the world’s largest economy.  According to minutes from June’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, “almost all” officials who participated said that “additional increases” in the Fed’s benchmark interest

Ireland and Luxembourg have intensified calls for tougher global rules on shadow banks in a bid to curb the risk of further financial turmoil erupting from a sector that spans everything from hedge funds to crypto firms. Senior officials from the two EU member states, which together host shadow banks with around €10tn in assets,

On the same day that a 17-year-old of North African descent was killed by police outside Paris, teenagers attending a workshop at a youth centre in another of the city’s low-income neighbourhoods said his fate was a fresh reminder of the discrimination they faced in French society. “One asked, ‘since when should driving without a

Rioting erupted across France for a fourth night in the wake of the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver of North African origin as his family prepared to bury him on Saturday in his hometown of Nanterre. The interior ministry said 994 arrests were made overnight compared with 875 on Thursday night and suggested

German inflation was higher than forecast this month, even as Spain became the first major eurozone economy to beat the European Central Bank’s 2 per cent target in almost two years. The divergence between Germany’s 6.8 per cent rate for June and the 1.6 per cent recorded by Spain highlights the dilemma faced by the

Vladimir Putin has moved to shake up Russia’s security services in the wake of the Wagner group’s failed insurrection, rewarding loyalists with promotions and freezing out figures sympathetic to the paramilitary organisation’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Sergei Surovikin, a senior Russian general known to have a good relationship with Prigozhin, has not been seen since recording

Russia dropped charges against participants in the Wagner paramilitary force’s armed insurrection and said the group had agreed to hand over its weaponry. The announcements on Tuesday came in the wake of the deal between the Kremlin and Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and appeared to mark progress towards resolving the stand-off. The FSB, Russia’s main

Western nations have explored contingencies in the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted insurrection in Russia, including the threat to nuclear stockpiles from an unstable regime in Moscow. Talks led by G7 members have included the how a weakening of Vladimir Putin’s control over security and military forces could affect the state’s stability, people briefed on

The images that defined Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a leader were filmed on February 25 last year. As Russian troops closed in on Kyiv, the Ukrainian president walked the streets of the city with his close colleagues, reassuring citizens that: “All of us are here, protecting our independence and our country.” Now contrast that with Vladimir

Russian strongman Yevgeny Prigozhin has been charged with organising an armed uprising after threatening to attack Russian forces in retaliation for what he claimed was an air strike against his own paramilitaries. Prigozhin, founder of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, said on Friday that a “huge number” of fighters had been killed in the alleged

Halfway through watching Grandpa Was An Emperor, a fascinating recent documentary about Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, I was thrown by a minor, but completely unexpected, plot twist. Not long before he was killed in a coup, one of the film’s key protagonists, Ethiopia’s agriculture minister Kassa Wolde Mariam, had appeared on the

European equities followed Asian stocks lower on Tuesday as investors questioned whether China’s smaller than expected cut to its benchmark lending rate would be sufficient to boost the country’s sluggish economy. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 lost 0.1 per cent, extending its losses from the previous session, while Germany’s Dax was down 0.3 per cent. London’s

Credit Suisse has asked London’s High Court to strike out a lawsuit brought by Mozambique over the bank’s role in the $2bn “tuna bonds” scandal, claiming failures to disclose government documents mean there cannot be a fair trial. The Swiss bank and other parties are defending a lawsuit brought by the Republic of Mozambique, one

Italy has stripped China’s Sinochem of its influence as the largest shareholder in Pirelli, removing its right to appoint the chief executive or set the tyremaker’s strategy in response to worries about interference by the Chinese state. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has invoked national security concerns about the potential for misuse of Pirelli’s