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Passive funds are set to become investors of last resort in UK fossil fuel companies, a trend that could create stewardship “inertia” and threaten the climate transition, a think-tank has claimed. Common Wealth argued that passive, index-tracking funds should bolster their stewardship activities to help support the transition to a decarbonised economy as they become

“Modernise or decline”. A service under threat from “the explosion of digital media”. A company in need of “commercial confidence, capital and corporate experience”. Those were warnings not about Channel 4, though they chime with the tone of last year’s not exactly open-minded consultation about its future. They were instead made almost 14 years ago

DIOSynVax, a UK start-up founded by a vet-turned-vaccinologist, is hoping genetic sequences of viruses discovered in animal faeces will give vital clues for creating a vaccine to help prevent future pandemics. The Cambridge university spinout is working on two vaccines that it believes will outlive the current crop of Covid-19 jabs, including the one created

Rugby union’s governing body is considering external investment to fund the sport’s growth in the US ahead of the men’s and women’s World Cups in the early 2030s. World Rugby is set to confirm next month that the US will host the men’s tournament in 2031 and the women’s in 2033, having entered exclusive negotiations

When Rachel* got Covid, her employer expected her to carry on working remotely rather than take a sick day. “I was very, very tired,” she says. “[It] was very difficult to focus.” The special needs teacher based in the south-east of England delivered her lessons from home to pupils in the classroom, helped by a

While the UK government launches a search for Brexit opportunities, one group has already discovered them: Dutch warehouse owners. An influx of British-based companies to the Netherlands has swelled as they struggle with the disruption of a customs border across the North Sea. More than 90 investors have built or rented distribution space since 2017,

Professor Nick Bosanquet and Andrew Haldenby vividly highlight the impending emergency in world food stocks and the urgent need to increase arable planting (“Act now on food stocks to avert famine”, Letters, April 12). This is a need we in the UK are disregarding. The land in south Lincolnshire and much of East Anglia is

There has been hardly a better place to live through the Covid-19 pandemic than in Taiwan. With strict border controls, meticulous tracking and tracing and almost universal use of face masks, the country recorded among the lowest infection and death rates in the world, and achieved that even without lockdowns. However, that recipe for success

Korean Air’s chief executive has urged South Korean authorities to lift pandemic restrictions on air passengers, warning the country was opening “too slowly” to beat regional rivals in the race to capture pent-up demand. Walter Cho, chief executive and scion of the controlling family of the airline’s parent Hanjin Group, said bookings were full for

By Marta Bausells They had me at “Somewhere in northern Italy”. The phrase is scribbled over the opening shots of Call Me by Your Name: the protagonist Elio, played by Timothée Chalamet (pictured, above), pulling on a T-shirt as he looks out the window of the house of my dreams, watching Oliver (Armie Hammer), the

China’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter but official data revealed a recent contraction in consumer activity as lockdown measures to counter the spread of Covid-19 weighed on the country’s outlook. China’s gross domestic product rose 4.8 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, after expanding by 4 per

The writer is head of the centre for financial crime and security studies at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank As the Russian war in Ukraine grinds through its second month, Britain’s foreign secretary faces a looming challenge in applying financial pressure on Moscow. Since the UK has already used its most powerful sanctions tools,

Bank of America gave a bullish revenue outlook as the second-largest US lender reported better than expected earnings and brushed off recession concerns heightened by the war in Ukraine. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank expects net interest income, a closely watched metric that measures the profitability of a bank’s deposits, to jump about 20 per

Memories of Britain’s 1982 war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands may have faded in London but the wounds in Buenos Aires remain fresh: an image of the islands in the blue and white of the Argentine flag was beamed on to the national congress building on the 40th anniversary this month of the military

A defiant Boris Johnson will on Tuesday face MPs for the first time since being fined over the “partygate” affair, with allies privately criticising the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the issue. The UK prime minister will apologise to MPs but will insist that he was not aware he was breaking his own Covid-19 lockdown rules;

Officials in Lviv said seven people were killed in Russian missile strikes on the city in western Ukraine on Monday as Moscow’s brutal siege of Mariupol in the country’s south-east appeared to be entering its final stages. Andriy Sadovyy, Lviv’s mayor, reported “five targeted missile strikes” on the city, a haven for people fleeing violence in

Companies owned by rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have filed for bankruptcy after being hit by defamation lawsuits over Jones’s claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. Three companies, including Jones’s InfoWars media outlet, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Southern Texas on Sunday. InfoWars, which has been widely criticised for promoting

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US stocks and bonds fluctuated on Monday morning as investors look ahead to a busy week of corporate earnings and speeches from Federal Reserve officials that may give further guidance on how aggressively policymakers will raise interest rates this year. The S&P 500 swung between gains and losses in thin trading as markets reopened from

Mexico’s opposition politicians have denied the country’s nationalist president the two-thirds majority he needed to change the constitution and implement a radical energy reform bill. The reform, which would have guaranteed state electricity group CFE 54 per cent of the market, spooked the private sector, opposition and the US government. Critics argued that it was