You’ve been working hard to tick the expected boxes, maybe it’s time to find and tick you ownThe question I am 37, have a lovely husband and a wonderful child, and a job in the creative industries. The problem is that I haven’t been happy in my career for a long time and have felt very stuck, and every now and again I end up crying because I just don’t know what to do with my life. I was an over-achiever at school (worked hard, got the grades, went to a good university), but am now in a role where there is little progression and I’m not sure I even want to stay in this career.I am realising that I have spent so much time trying to do what is expected of me that I have absolutely no idea what it is that I want to do. I also cringe at how much I put up with in my 20s. I chased men I knew deep down I didn’t really like and took on all kinds of extra tasks at work with the promise that it would look good on the CV, but got few promotions. Continue reading...

With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Républicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidateSix months before a presidential election and France’s mainstream right finds itself squeezed – between the hammer and the anvil as they say here – without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam – the three i’s – and ban “non-French” names such as Mohamed. Continue reading...

Alex Saab, an ally of president Nicolás Maduro, was extradited to face money laundering charges after a 16-month legal battleVenezuela’s government is halting negotiations with its opponents in retaliation for the extradition to the US of a close ally of president Nicolás Maduro, who prosecutors believe could be the most significant witness ever about corruption in the South American country.Jorge Rodríguez, who has been heading the government’s delegation, said his team wouldn’t travel to Mexico City for the next scheduled round of negotiations. Continue reading...

Former UK prime minister says operation could be under way within days if world leaders signed off

Reports of suspect’s name come as police confirm he is being held under Terrorism Act

Filed under ‘forever favourites’, the classic shirt has upsized and moved on from the confines of the neat workwear uniform shirt favoured by city workersAn oversized shirt is the neutral power player of your wardrobe. Choose a striped fabric, or classic white or blue, and you will find that its versatility is limitless. Style it slightly dishevelled, à la Patti Smith, with narrow pants, or offset a miniskirt with its volume – think Julia Roberts in the shopping scene from the 1990 blockbuster Pretty Woman – with sleeves rolled up.Alternatively, you could supersize your whole look as the Row did with an open shirt over a tucked-in tank top worn with wide-leg trousers (swap the tank out for a fine-gauge black polo neck worn underneath on days when the weather is colder). Comme des Garçons’ aptly named “Shirt” line is top of the class. Top tip: go for men’s styles if you’re after a looser fit. Palmer/Harding are shirting maestros, creating statement seasonless pieces that are destined to be wardrobe talking points. Look for their dual styles with detachable sleeves suitable for year-round wear. Continue reading...

debbie tucker green’s adaptation of her stage play mixes spoken word, physical theatre and music to offer a vital perspective on racial injustice on both sides of the AtlanticA mother is talking to her teenage son about what to do when approached by the police. He shows his palms. “Inflammatory,” she says. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Belligerent,” she says. “I didn’t even …” he protests. “Attitude,” she bats back, her voice matter-of-fact but tinged with despair. No matter what he says, wears, does, the list goes on. “Arrogance, insolence, defiance.” What if he looks confidently at them? “Good,” says his mum, “but not.” If he turns away? “Impudence, disobedience.” If he looks at the floor? “We didn’t raise you to look at no floor, son.”And so begins ear for eye (BBC Two), debbie tucker green’s vital, eloquent and beautifully acted screen adaptation of her original stage play, which opened at the Royal Court in 2018 to rave reviews. I say adaptation, but this is so much more than a straight-up piece of filmed theatre. Which is great, because no matter how brilliant a play is, when the fourth wall becomes the black mirror of my own TV screen my suspension of disbelief is dismantled and the whole theatre comes crashing down. Happily, in making the delicate transfer from stage to screen, ear for eye ends up pushing the boundaries of both forms. Here is a blistering experimental film about British and American black experience, rarely seen side by side. The sparest and most unsparing of cine-poems. A play with extras using spoken word, physical theatre, installation and music to verbalise what remains beyond the bounds of articulacy. Continue reading...

Trio step out from behind pseudonym marketed as ‘Spain’s Elena Ferrante’ to accept €1m prizeA million euro literary prize has lured three Spanish men out of anonymity, to reveal that they are behind ultra-violent Spanish crime thrillers marketed as the work of “Spain’s Elena Ferrante”The men had published under the pseudonym Carmen Mola, which roughly translates as “Carmen’s cool”. Continue reading...

Richard Ratcliffe criticises failure to ‘deal with problems until they become crises’ after wife loses appealThe husband of jailed British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe last night criticised the government’s handling of his wife’s case after it was revealed she had lost her appeal against a second jail sentence in Iran.Richard Ratcliffe accused the government of failing to deal with problems “until they become crises”. Continue reading...

Rodolfo Martín Villa, interior minister between 1976 and 1979, ‘played a key role in the repressive structures of the dictatorship’An Argentinian judge investigating cases that happened during the Franco dictatorship in Spain has indicted a former Spanish minister on four counts of homicide.Judge Maria Servini de Cuba, sitting in Buenos Aires, issued the ruling against Rodolfo Martín Villa, 87, interior minister between 1976 and 1979. Continue reading...

Experts say there are important lessons for Australia in order to reduce the rate of transmission and hospitalisationAs Victoria and New South Wales prepare to reopen schools for face-to-face learning, experts who have studied the experiences of other countries are warning that not all lessons have been learned, particularly on mask-wearing and ventilation.NSW, which has about 5,500 active cases of the virus, and where 75% of the eligible population over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated, is preparing for students in kindergarten, years 1 and 12 to return to school on Monday. Continue reading...

Inclusion of Māori legal customs could profoundly alter the way law is applied in areas as diverse as defamation and trust lawWhen English settlers first arrived in New Zealand, they brought with them pests, diseases and England’s common law. Indigenous Māori already had legal customs in the form of tikanga, a set of rules and principles which governed daily life. But the settlers dismissed Māori as “savages” and tikanga as primitive. As their power grew, so did the common law’s. Eventually, though many Māori still followed tikanga, it was pushed to the legal margins.That is starting to change. In 2020 New Zealand’s supreme court allowed a dead man’s appeal to continue, apparently on the basis that his mana (the Māori concept of status) continues to fluctuate after death. This year the court quashed a mining company’s appeal over a resource consent application partly on the basis that it was inconsistent with tikanga. Continue reading...

UK death toll has increased by 148, according to figures; demonstrations in Rome follow protests last weekend over coronavirus pass regime

Former health secretary will no longer become special envoy for UN’s economic commission for AfricaMatt Hancock, the former UK health secretary, will no longer become a special envoy for the United Nations, after the job offer was withdrawn.Hancock said on Tuesday he was “honoured” to be working with the UN’s economic commission for Africa (Uneca) to help the continent recover from the pandemic. Continue reading...

The chef on 13 years of MasterChef: The Professionals, the many uses of Marmite and why she can’t have a banana in peaceI grew up in Samoa and, looking back, I don’t think I realised how wonderful life was back then. The chickens used to run wild on the family plantation and we’d collect their eggs. We’d pick guavas, pineapples, papayas. It was such a normal thing to do.Every Sunday, we’d have an “umu” – a big fire pit with volcanic rocks. When the fire dies down, the rocks are taken off and you lay it with the meat or palusami [wrapped bundles of taro leaves with a coconut and onion filling]. Then it all gets topped with the rocks and covered with banana leaves and left for an hour to cook. The whole family get involved, everyone had a role. Continue reading...

Dozens of temples attacked over claims a Qur’an was desecratedDeadly communal violence has broken out in Bangladesh after allegations of the desecration of an Islamic holy book led to dozens of Hindu temples being attacked and police opening fire on a crowd, leaving at least six people dead.The government deployed paramilitary troops to 22 districts after religious tensions and violence broke out in the city of Cumilla on Wednesday, resulting in the deaths of four Hindus. On Friday, further communal violence erupted in the capital, Dhaka, as well as the southern town of Begumganj, with two more Hindus killed in the unrest. Continue reading...

When teenage LA punks the Linda Lindas went viral, they caught the attention of Amy Poehler, Jimmy Kimmel and original riot grrrl, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, who joins them for a cross-generational chinwagIn May, the US punk band the Linda Lindas went viral with a performance of their no-holds-barred track Racist, Sexist Boy. Written in response to a real-life incident in which drummer Mila de la Garza was racially harassed by a classmate, the song alternates between sludgy punk and brisk, hardcore thrash, topped with cathartic, defiant lyrics: “You have racist, sexist joys / We rebuild what you destroy.” What made the performance even more striking was its setting among the usually hushed bookshelves of the Los Angeles Public Library.On the back of that viral hit (currently at 4.3m views on Twitter), the teenage Los Angeles quartet – Mila and her sister Lucia (guitar), their cousin Eloise Wong (bass), and longtime friend Bela Salazar (guitar) – have signed to Epitaph Records, recorded their debut album, due in 2022, and released a snappy, and snappily titled, punk-pop single Oh!. Continue reading...

Exclusion of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing ‘necessary decision to uphold Asean’s credibility’South-east Asian countries will invite a non-political representative from Myanmar to a regional summit this month, delivering an unprecedented snub to the military leader who led a coup against an elected civilian government in February.The decision taken by foreign ministers from the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), at an emergency meeting on Friday night, marks a rare bold step for the consensus-driven bloc, which has traditionally favoured a policy of engagement and non-interference. Continue reading...

In our new column, in which we make nice things happen for nice people, Victoria Cairns moves from litter-picking the streets to cleaning up the waterwaysIt was a turtle that changed everything. Victoria Cairns, 45, a headteacher from Derbyshire, was diving in Bali in 2008 when she saw one of the island’s famous turtles. It loomed towards her in the crystal clear water, and she was delighted – until she saw the plastic bag in its mouth. “I just thought: ‘Oh God, we are parasites’,” Cairns remembers. “Humans are at the top of the food chain and we’re having a devastating impact on the environment.”She set up anti-litter Instagram account, @plastic_reduction, to raise awareness of the damage caused by plastic pollution. She regularly litter-picks around her neighbourhood. “She’s done amazing work keeping the area clean, tidy and beautiful,” says friend and fellow litter-picker Laura Clifton, who co-runs @plastic_reduction. Continue reading...

Jonathan Perel’s low-key doc focuses on the companies, still in business, which collaborated with the killings and torture that followed 1976 coupJonathan Perel has made a stealthily powerful one-man documentary about corporate involvement in human rights atrocities during Argentina’s military dictatorship after the 1976 coup. It’s an account of how companies assisted in state terror: the kidnap, torture and murder of employees considered subversive, mostly trade unionists or political activists.Perel’s approach is startlingly – almost maddeningly – plain. Like a private detective, he parks his car outside 25 companies exposed by a 2005 government report about corporate accountability and the repression of workers during the regime. Over the footage he films from his car documenting the mundane comings and goings outside the buildings today, Perel calmly reads extracts from the report’s case studies. Continue reading...

Court documents shed new light on Yasir al-Rumayyan’s relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin SalmanYasir al-Rumayyan, the new non-executive chairman of Newcastle United, was involved in a controversial “anti-corruption” campaign in Saudi Arabia that included the transfer of assets on behalf of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.Details of Rumayyan’s role – including the transfer of a charter jet company to the Public Investment Fund (PIF), where he serves as governor – are contained in court documents that shed light on his relationship with Prince Mohammed. Continue reading...

The princess is now a constant presence on our screens, from a camp musical to The Crown. Such a blank canvas is a dream for directors and a nightmare for actors, writes Hadley FreemanThe first imitation I ever saw of Diana, Princess of Wales was in my bedroom when I was five. It was a Diana Bride doll, ordered by my mother from a catalogue, although with her rictus smile and huge helmet of hair she looked more like Nancy Reagan. The details didn’t matter: she had the vague outlines of princess – big glittery jewels, big glittery eyes – so I could project whatever I wanted on to her, and I did; I played with her so much I snapped off her right foot.This is a true story, but if the metaphor within it feels too heavy-handed, then I would advise you to keep clear of the many films and TV shows about Diana, none of which shy away from the obvious metaphorical nudge and shove. In his eulogy for his sister at her funeral in 1997, Earl Spencer described her as “the most hunted person of the modern age”. Screenwriters since have taken that description and run pell-mell with it: in the last season of The Crown, she was a beautiful stag; in Spencer – the new film by Pablo Larraín, starring Kristen Stewart as Diana – she is a pheasant, “beautiful but not very bright”, as she sighs sadly. Both the stag and pheasant are, of course, hunted by the evil Windsors, because that has been the narrative around Diana ever since her death, even though not even the Daily Express still believes they actually killed her. Continue reading...

Activist James Cromwell, 81, who plays Ewan Roy, says his role was rewritten to reflect his politicsActor James Cromwell says he demanded his character on Succession take a moral stand against his unscrupulous, ultra-rich family – and hopes the hit show does not normalise the abuses of power and privilege as The Apprentice did for Donald Trump.The 81-year-old actor, best known for his roles in The Green Mile, Babe and LA Confidential, as well as the TV series Six Feet Under and ER, plays Ewan Roy, the older brother of Brian Cox’s media mogul Logan Roy. Ewan is largely estranged from his fractured family on political grounds, though he retains a fortune worth $250m (£180m). Continue reading...

Front pages give full coverage of the fatal stabbing and renewed worries about security risks, five years after the murder of Jo CoxThe papers have reacted to the killing of Conservative MP David Amess with shock and anger, while also reigniting the debate over politicians’ safety.The 69-year-old died after he was stabbed several times at an open advice surgery at his constituency in Essex. The Metropolitan police have formally declared the incident as terrorism, and a 25-year-old man, believed to be a Briton with Somali heritage, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Police believe the man acted alone and are not seeking anyone else at the moment. Continue reading...

From immigration to environmental activism: can two strangers see eye to eye over lunch?• Click here if you’d like to dine across the divideShamus, 55, LondonOccupation CEO of an AI company Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron’s government thinks UK wishes to use France to keep Brexit alive in British politicsBoris Johnson’s foreign policy is 80% driven by short-term domestic political interests that make it impossible to come to stable arrangements with him, senior French sources have concluded.Paris is increasingly convinced the British prime minister is not interested in solving the bilateral problems weighing down the relationship, and instead wants to use France as a running sore to keep Brexit alive in British politics. Continue reading...

Ten students were rescued after a group fell into the water, with officials saying there was no flash floodingEleven students drowned and 10 others were rescued during a school outing for a river cleanup in Indonesia’s West Java province.Local officials said 150 students from an Islamic high school were participating in the cleanup on Friday along the banks of the Cileueur river when 21 of them slipped into the water. Continue reading...

Fifteen years ago, writer Charlotte Raven was diagnosed with the incurable neurodegenerative disease – what did it do to her family and her marriage?The day I found out how I was going to die began innocuously enough: the usual blur of nappy changing and tetchy texts to my husband. Life in our recently refurbished London home had settled into a rhythm, with a low-level background of domestic discontent. Arguments about wallpaper had run their course; our cats had made their peace with our one-year-old daughter, Anna; and I was pleased to have married a responsible hedonist who liked babies but never made me feel guilty for finding them boring.That day, my husband, Tom, had gone to work early; a documentary director, he was filming a series about the London Underground. After a sleepless night, I was eating breakfast with Anna when the landline rang. It was my dad’s old friend Eric, who had been keeping an eye on him ever since my mum had died four years earlier. We were all worried because Murph (everyone called my dad Murph) had been making some bad decisions, then digging in defiantly. Continue reading...

My friend is trying to invent a catchphrase, but he hasn’t had much traction so far. I’m doing what I can to helpMy friend Don Bowen may be the only person I know who has sought to coin and popularise a turn of phrase. He wanted his expression to grow organically, so didn’t deploy a viral campaign. He waited for people to ask him what he’d been up to. And when they did, he would say: “Why, I’m as busy as a horse on an escalator.”He hasn’t had much traction so far, probably for more than one reason. It could be that people lack the visual imagination to process the simile. Or they think the expression references a once-common form of cruelty. I’ve done what I can to help, on the rare occasion opportunity presents itself. Continue reading...

What started as protest calling for a lecturer to be sacked has evolved into a fraught debate over academic freedom and student safetyOn a sunny autumn morning on the campus of Sussex University this week, there was little evidence of the turbulence that has engulfed the institution, its students and staff in recent days.The leaves were turning, young people sat chatting on the lawns and benches, while sports teams assembled for practice and food stalls in front of the library served a steady trickle of customers. Continue reading...

Malaysian national charged after $140m worth of the drug found hidden in container of tilesAn estimated $140m worth of heroin hidden inside a shipping container sent to Melbourne from Malaysia has been intercepted by Australian authorities.The 450kg haul is the largest shipment ever detected in Australia. Continue reading...

The worker has encouraged trans employees to protest the company’s release of the Dave Chapelle show in which he made anti-trans jokesNetflix has fired an employee organizer for allegedly leaking internal documents as the fallout over offensive comments in the new Dave Chappelle stand-up special continues.The streaming platform confirmed to the Guardian on Friday it had fired the employee, whose name has not been released, for sharing “confidential” and “commercially sensitive” information outside the company. Continue reading...

Man, 25, in custody as police investigate ‘potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism’The killing of the Conservative MP David Amess, who died after being stabbed several times at an open advice surgery for his constituents in Essex, has been declared as a terrorist incident.The death of the 69-year-old veteran backbencher brought heartfelt tributes from all parties. Just five years after the murder of Jo Cox, it also prompted renewed worries about the security risks for MPs in an increasingly rancorous and polarised political era. Continue reading...

Fears grow over effect of government blockade on worsening food, water and energy situationThe UK has announced an extra £29m of humanitarian aid to people affected by the deepening conflict in northern Ethiopia, as the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, reviews what kind of further pressure can be placed on the new Ethiopian government to open up badly needed humanitarian corridors.The UK has provided more than £75m to alleviate the risk of famine – making it the second largest aid donor to Ethiopia – but officials acknowledge the de facto government blockade of Tigray is deepening the crisis. Continue reading...

Priti Patel asks all police forces to review security arrangements for MPs ‘with immediate effect’ after David Amess is killed at surgery for constituents

Suicide attack by Isis affiliate also injured more than 80 in southern city of Kandahar after Friday prayersA suicide bombing at a mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has killed at least 47 people and injured more than 80, in the second major attack on Shia worshippers in Afghanistan in a week.The Imam Bargah mosque was particularly crowded when the attackers struck, because the community had been holding memorial prayers for the victims of the previous bombing, in northern Kunduz province. Continue reading...

People gathered at the police cordon to lay flowers and pay tribute to long-serving member of parliament Sir David Amess, who was stabbed to death on Friday during a constituency surgery at a church in Leigh-on-Sea. A 25-year-old man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, and detectives said specialist counter-terrorism officers from London were leading the initial investigation

My friend and mentor Betty Wood, who has died of cancer aged 76, was a Cambridge academic and a historian of the study of slavery, gender, and religion in the Atlantic world. She was among the first to study enslaved people, and specifically enslaved women, at an elite UK university and was instrumental in building the profile of early American history in the UK.Born in Melton Constable, Norfolk, the daughter of Marjorie (nee Green) and Stanley Wood, a railway guard, she was educated at grammar schools in Fakenham and Scunthorpe and became the first in her family to attend university, studying geography at Keele. Graduating in 1967, the following year she took a master’s in social and economic history at the London School of Economics. Continue reading...

Many in the Saposa Islands are wrestling with the dilemma of starting a new life on the mainland or staying to watch their homes vanishFrancis Tony is buried on an island that is shrinking.The sea breaks on a shoreline that is now less than five metres away from his simple gravesite on Toruar Island in the Solomon Sea. But his son Christopher Sese says the family have no plans to move Tony’s bones to a new gravesite. Continue reading...

The government is using an array of sweeteners, gimmicks and incentives to raise inoculation rates, including turning a 787 Dreamliner into a vaccination clinic

This tragedy should spur a meaningful debate about the empathy that liberal democracies requireThe death of Sir David Amess, after allegedly being stabbed several times at his Essex constituency surgery on Friday, is shocking. This is the 10th time an MP has been killed or attacked since 1979. Only five years ago a far-right sympathiser shot and stabbed the Labour MP Jo Cox as she made her way to her constituency surgery in West Yorkshire a week before the EU referendum. Her murder was the first assassination of a British MP since the death of Conservative MP Ian Gow in 1990. Sir David was a decent, hard-working Conservative with rightwing views and friends across the Commons. His death is a bleak moment for the country, and Britain will be poorer without him. A suspect has been arrested on suspicion of murder. In a democracy, politicians must be accountable and available to voters. No one deserves to be killed while working for their constituents.Surgeries give voters more direct contact with their representatives than in many other countries. After a Muslim extremist attacked a Labour MP in 2010, security was tightened. Perhaps not enough. Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, has said that parliament will discuss how to keep MPs safe. Sir David’s death must also spur a meaningful debate about the empathy that liberal democracies require. The facts leading to his death are yet to be established by the court but for too many elected representatives, death threats are seen as a grim but unavoidable part of the job. That this continues is a sign that our political system itself is unwell. The rising tide of anger feels like an inevitable consequence of our hyperpartisan age. The internet has led to people’s political affiliations increasingly determining what information they absorb. Pre-web this was probably the other way around. MPs endure personal abuse on social media, are sent needlessly aggressive emails and have to endure physical intimidation. Female MPs and those from ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by the wave of toxicity. Rage is distorted, often by feelings of impotence about matters that do not lie within the province of politicians at all. Continue reading...

UK figures fall slightly compared to previous day; White House set to lift travel restrictions for some fully vaccinated foreign nationals

Readers respond to an article by Susan McKay discussing the prospect of a united Ireland and the need for constitutional changeSusan McKay falls into the same trap as others who predict the imminence of a united Ireland (On the far side of borders, a new Ireland is taking shape, 9 October). She fails to address the question of what form reunification would take.Does she envisage the six counties and their 18 Westminster constituencies simply decanting into the Irish Republic, to be governed directly from Dublin? Or would she favour some kind of federation preserving the Belfast agreement and guaranteeing northern unionists a separate status with a say in their own affairs? These are the key questions that resulted in partition in 1918-20. No referendum could be fought today without answering them.

World leaders appeal for peace in Lebanese capital as militia groups prepare to bury deadA day after the worst sectarian violence in Beirut in more than a decade, a fraught calm hung over the city on Friday with streets largely empty and government offices closed as militia groups started to bury their dead.Gunfire briefly resounded through areas that on Thursday were the scenes of intense fighting, but armed men were shooting into the air – a defiant precursor to funerals that were due to start. Continue reading...

As attendance of President Xi of China hangs in balance, UK and US launch frantic round of meetingsThe UK, the US and the EU are embarking on a frantic round of climate diplomacy in a last-ditch attempt to bring key countries into a deal on greenhouse gas emissions before the Cop26 climate summit.Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister who will preside over the talks, has meetings planned with representatives of China after questions were raised over whether the president, Xi Jinping, would attend Cop26 in person, as well as the other G20 big emitters yet to produce plans on emission cuts before the summit, which opens in Glasgow on 31 October. Continue reading...

UK residents abroad are shocked at the lack of mask wearing back home, and point fingers at the government’s blase approach

Tourist from London, 25, was apparently held captive in an apartment for eight daysAn Italian judge has confirmed the arrest of four people for the alleged kidnap of a 25-year-old British man.Patrick Sam Kourosh Demilecamps, from London, had been on holiday in Italy when he was allegedly kidnapped and held captive for eight days in an apartment in Monte San Giusto, a small town in the central Marche region. He was freed by police on Wednesday after they traced him via the location tracker on his mobile phone. Continue reading...

Housing activity accounts for 29% of GDP, but Evergrande’s debt crisis is sign that things could soon changeIn China today, the buzz is all about how the government there too has stumbled into an energy crisis with widespread power cuts. Yet this and other supply shocks will eventually pass, while the $300bn(£218bn) of debt enveloping China’s second biggest property developer, Evergrande, is of greater significance. It suggests China’s long housing boom is over, and bodes badly for the increasingly troubled economy, with implications for the rest of the world too.China’s real estate market has been called the most important sector in the world economy. Valued at about $55tn, it is now twice the size of its US equivalent, and four times larger than China’s GDP. Taking into account construction and other property-related goods and services, annual housing activity accounts for about 29% of China’s GDP, far above the 10%-20% typical of most developed nations. Continue reading...

Brussels has been ‘preparing for worst’, with options ranging from tariffs on UK imports to ditching dealDavid Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, has warned there is a big gap between the EU and the UK negotiating positions as he enters talks with the European Commission over changes to the arrangements for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The EU has offered to sweep away most customs and health checks on animal and plant products entering Northern Ireland under a revision of the current system but both sides privately recognise that fundamental differences remain between their visions for the future. Continue reading...