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The US and Germany will send main battle tanks to Kyiv, a significant increase of western military aid that was condemned by Russia and prompted cheers throughout Ukraine. The US will be sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine — or the equivalent of one Ukrainian tank battalion, senior Biden administration officials confirmed on Wednesday.

Germany is to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, in a move that marks a significant breakthrough in western efforts to bolster Kyiv’s fight against the Russian army. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that Germany would send the tanks, although he would not provide details on how many and what type were under

Nadhim Zahawi was fighting for his political life on Monday after prime minister Rishi Sunak ordered an ethics inquiry into the tax affairs of the Conservative party chair. Sunak’s support for Zahawi was highly conditional, after he declared that “there are questions that need answering” over Zahawi’s dispute with HM Revenue & Customs. Downing Street

The eurozone will avoid a recession this year according to a widely-watched survey of economists which illustrates the sharp about-turn in global economic sentiment in the past couple of weeks. As recently as last month, analysts surveyed by Consensus Economics were predicting the bloc would plunge into recession this year. But this month’s survey found

Banks are gearing up for the biggest round of job cuts since the global financial crisis, as executives come under pressure to slash costs following a collapse in investment banking revenues. The lay-offs — which are expected to be in the tens of thousands across the sector — reverse the mass hirings banks made over

Google’s parent company will axe 12,000 staff, pushing total tech job losses in the past 12 months above 200,000, as industry bosses concede they overextended during the pandemic’s digital boom. The industry-wide cull has affected more than 50,000 people across just four Big Tech companies that also include Amazon, Meta and Microsoft. Apple is the

Reed Hastings is stepping down as chief executive of Netflix, the company he co-founded 25 years ago, in a shake-up at the top of one of the most powerful studios in Hollywood. Hastings, who launched Netflix in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail service, wrote in a blog post that he has been increasingly delegating management in

Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, closed almost all of its eight-year bet on cryptocurrencies shortly before the market began to crash last year, generating about $1.8bn in returns. The San Francisco-based fund made its first investment in bitcoin in early 2014 and went on to invest large sums in

Business leaders and top government officials have expressed optimism about the global economy as China drops Covid controls, the US embarks on a green investment boom and western Europe adjusts to the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the IMF, signalled that

US drugmakers AbbVie and Eli Lilly have become the first pharmaceutical groups to pull out of a pricing agreement with the UK government in protest at a sharp rise in clawback payments. Eli Lilly said on Monday that the payments, which apply to branded medicines and have risen to more than a quarter of industry

US companies are turning to convertible bonds as fundraising in Wall Street’s main equities market is at its lowest level for three decades. December was the busiest month of last year for convertible issuance by deal count according to Refinitiv data, as activity picked up over the second half of 2022. The amount US-based companies

The White House said on Saturday it had discovered more sensitive documents at Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, piling political and legal pressure on to the US president. In a statement, Richard Sauber, Biden’s special counsel, said he had found five pages of classified material in a room adjacent to the garage of the

JPMorgan Chase said it might be forced to pay more for deposits this year in what analysts called “a warning shot for the entire industry”. Like other Wall Street banks, JPMorgan has benefited from Federal Reserve interest rate rises boosting net interest income — the difference in what banks pay on deposits and what they

The US attorney-general has appointed a special counsel to investigate the potential mishandling of government documents that were found in President Joe Biden’s residential garage in Delaware and his former private office in Washington. Merrick Garland on Thursday said the “extraordinary circumstances” surrounding the discovery of the documents meant he had to appoint a special

More than three quarters of a million UK households are at risk of defaulting on their mortgage payments in the next two years, the country’s top financial regulator has warned. In a letter to the House of Commons Treasury select committee on Wednesday, the Financial Conduct Authority said about 200,000 households had fallen behind on

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has said he is preparing to leave the US and return home within the next few weeks, after coming under fire in the wake of an attack on his country’s capital by thousands of his radical supporters. The far-right populist has been in Florida since the end of last year

Eurozone unemployment hit a fresh record low, while output from German factories rose in November, boosting hopes of a milder-than-feared economic downturn across the single currency area. Figures from Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics bureau, showed that the number of people in the labour market without work fell slightly in November. Eurostat reported 10.849mn workers

EY is setting aside $2.5bn to fund an acquisition spree for its consulting arm following its planned separation from the Big Four firm’s audit business, as it presses ahead with preparations for the historic split. The war chest will allow the new company, which EY is aiming to float in New York, to double the

Companies have rushed to borrow money in the US corporate bond market in the first week of the year, taking advantage of easier financial conditions as investors scale back their expectations for the path of future interest rates. In the first seven days of 2023, companies from Credit Suisse to Ford issued $63.7bn worth of

Rishi Sunak has invited Britain’s trade union leaders to talks on Monday in an attempt to find a solution to the wave of disruptive strikes across the UK. The prime minister said that government departments had written to relevant unions inviting them for talks. Workers including nurses, postal staff and train drivers have been taking