Investors are buying more US farmland in search of a hedge against inflation as commodity shortfalls caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drive world food prices to record highs. Land values in the Midwest grain belt have gained 25-30 per cent in the past year while auctions draw intense bidding for available ground. Demand for

France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen did something out of character when Russia invaded Ukraine: she advocated welcoming refugees fleeing the war. “They are neighbours, they are Europeans, and we must shelter them from the war as long as it lasts,” she said. Her stance on Ukrainian refugees broke a taboo in the far-right

A feeling of déjà vu hangs over the French presidential election this year, with the same cast for the run-off as in 2017: incumbent Emmanuel Macron against far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. Yet there are subtle differences in this year’s rematch, including how the two leading candidates have altered their clothing and styles to convey

Deep inside a reinforced bunker in north-western Germany, a dozen Nato air force troops bustle around computers set up in front of a huge screen showing a map of eastern Europe’s airspace. About 30 green dots, representing Nato planes, cluster the skies on the alliance’s eastern flank bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The mix of

Volkswagen, the pioneer of the “people’s car” that epitomised the auto industry’s obsession with expansion, will axe dozens of combustion engine models by the end of the decade and sell fewer cars overall to concentrate on producing more profitable, premium vehicles. “The key target is not growth,” said Arno Antlitz, chief financial officer, in a

Regarding Larry Davis’ suggestion (“A neighbourhood name change that might catch on”, Letters, FT Weekend, March 26) that his San Francisco Russian Hill neighbourhood name should be changed to “Ukrainian Hill”, we’ve been here before. San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden, in Golden Gate Park, conceived in 1894 from a World’s Fair exhibit, was developed into

Joseph Cotterill’s article on the Chagos islanders (“Chagos islanders push Mauritius and UK to heal history’s wounds”, Special Reports, FT.com, April 1) notes that Mauritian officials have asked Google Maps to “mark the [Chagos] islands as Mauritian”. If the experts at Google decline this request from Port Louis, the Mauritian capital, I wonder if they

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s vision of a giant floating wind farm in the Irish Sea will fail for the same reason as the National Shipbuilding Strategy: the absence of efficient, world-class marine engineering on British shores (Report, March 17). While every other sector of UK industry has benefited from the arrival of overseas expertise, British

You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player Is carbon capture a help or a hindrance? From my point of view, it’s a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. I don’t think at this stage we really have a plan of getting to net zero without some role

Your editorial of March 29 (“Electric vehicles’ success is a headache for Sunak”, FT View) recognises the loss of revenue to the UK exchequer from the transition to electric vehicles, suggesting a broad-based carbon tax as the most efficient replacement. While there is economic logic to this idea, a charge for the use of electric

I disagree with Patrick Jenkins’ article “Russia investors should put morals ahead of profiteering” (Opinion, March 29). No one is advocating giving more capital to Russia-linked companies or the Russian government. Trading in the secondary market simply provides liquidity for the investors who need to depart for various reasons. Some of those investors will have

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. In the first of a two-part series on the end of work as we know it, Isabel talks to two of the FT’s experts on employment and work trends – Sarah O’Connor in London and Taylor

Xiaomi and Meituan may be world leaders when it comes to smartphones or online shopping, but China’s top companies are falling behind in a global movement to shake up all-male boardrooms. Now, Hong Kong’s stock exchange is moving to change what critics deride as corporate China’s “boys’ club” by requiring that its more than 2,500

Instagram has cut the amount it pays makers of short videos as the Meta-owned business adapts its strategy towards so-called influencers while facing fierce competition from TikTok. The invite-only scheme, which is available to some Instagram users in the US, pays a rate based on the views received on clips called “Reels”. Instagram introduced the

US and eurozone government debt sold off on Tuesday as traders weighed the prospect of stronger sanctions against Russia and comments from a top policymaker at the Federal Reserve that signalled that the central bank would move more aggressively to curb inflation. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note, which moves inversely to its

The Federal Reserve will begin a “rapid” reduction of its $9tn balance sheet as soon as its next policy meeting in May and is prepared to take “stronger” action when it comes to raising interest rates in order to bring down inflation, a senior US central bank official has said. Lael Brainard, who sits on

The Czech Republic has been sending tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, in a below-the-radar bid to bolster the eastern European nation’s capacity to resist Russia’s invasion. The deliveries are the first known time that a foreign country has supplied tanks to Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has repeatedly appealed for western military support

The mass expulsion of Russian officials from embassies across Europe accelerated on Tuesday amid outrage over Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and growing concern over spies masquerading as diplomats. Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and Romania announced the expulsion of a total of 90 Russian diplomats, following similar moves in recent days by Germany, Poland and

Volodymyr Zelensky has called for Russia’s leaders to be “brought to justice” for committing “the most terrible war crimes” since the second world war, as he blasted the UN for failing to prevent the conflict in Ukraine. Speaking by videoconference at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Ukraine’s president called for “complete

Rising pressure on prices is likely to keep inflation at its highest level for more than three decades in many countries and cause long-term problems for central banks, warned the head of the Bank for International Settlements. Agustín Carstens, general manager of the BIS, the umbrella body for central banks, pointed to a “new inflationary