Opinion

  Before the House of Commons debate over Sue Gray’s long-awaited Partygate report was even close to being concluded, the Tory benches in Parliament had half-emptied out — like at a one-sided football match. But that doesn’t mean Partygate is over for Boris Johnson or his MPs. Two things ensure that Partygate sticks to Johnson like a red-wine stain. The ...

President Joe Biden and his administration presumably hoped that the White House’s latest attempt to woo Asia, its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, would be seen as a dramatic return for the United States to a region where allies have felt largely neglected since 2016. In this part of the world, however, the sprawling and unwieldy framework has been met ...

It’s about time investors were hit with the reality about electric vehicle startups. But what do tanking shares mean for the much-hyped, cheap capital-sucking EV makers that took the market by storm last year? Stocks of EV upstarts, from New York-listed, Chinese firms such as Nio Inc, Xpeng Inc and Li Auto Inc to their American peers Rivian Automotive Inc ...

  If Stuart Kirk had been a nondescript hedge-fund manager when he gave a speech questioning the financial consequences of climate change, it wouldn’t have attracted half as much controversy. But Kirk’s job title was head of responsible investments at HSBC Holdings Plc’s asset-management unit. That changes everything. Kirk created a social-media storm last week after saying investors don’t need ...

  When someone like Boris Bondarev, a Russian counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva, slams the door on his employer, the Russian Foreign Ministry, and on his home country, it’s only natural to wonder if Vladimir Putin’s system is showing cracks three months into the dictator’s disgraceful Ukraine adventure. The answer, however, is “not really.” Despite the relative failure ...

Once is a gaffe, three times is a policy. During his trip to Asia, President Joe Biden stated, for the third time, that the US would defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, a comment seemingly at odds with Washington’s longstanding strategy of ambiguity on that subject. Biden’s comments are starting to seem like a deliberate effort to strengthen deterrence without ...

Still haven’t booked your summer vacation? Here’s a tip: If you’re in the US, now is probably the best time in ages to come and visit Europe. Not only has most of the continent finally shed most Covid restrictions, but the euro is at its cheapest in about six years, too. In mid-May, it dipped below the $1.04 mark, bringing ...

  In just the past few weeks, at least 92 confirmed and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported across Europe, Canada, Israel, the US and Australia. And that number stands to grow as surveillance expands, Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization (WHO) said. This is concerning, but no reason for anyone to panic. The global response ...

  The US dollar might just have peaked, and if it has then a blog post by Christine Lagarde has a lot to do with it. The president of the European Central Bank chose to post an essay to the ECB website, effectively setting out a new and more hawkish policy. Both the policy itself and the fact that she ...

When French container-shipping giant CMA CGM Group announced a cargo partnership with Air France-KLM, the real surprise was its plan to acquire only 9% of the airline. Having made 18 billion euros ($19 billion) of net profit last year, the world’s third-largest container line by capacity could afford to acquire all of Air France with plenty of change to spare. ...