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By George Upton For a traditional Alpine setting This four-bedroom home is situated in a quiet hamlet in South Tyrol, Italy near the border with Switzerland and Austria. Built in 1582, the property is typical of the traditional vernacular style of the German-speaking region. It has recently been renovated with much of its original detail

The Biden administration is restarting a stalled visa programme for Cubans and will allow more flights and visits to the island, softening former president Donald Trump’s harder line against the communist government. President Joe Biden’s decision came after a more than year-long review of policy towards the country, where the economy has been squeezed by

The UK government will on Tuesday introduce legislation to offer an amnesty from prosecution to some perpetrators of attacks during Northern Ireland’s Troubles after rowing back from controversial plans to introduce blanket immunity. Brandon Lewis, secretary of state for Northern Ireland, said in a statement: “The current system is failing; it is delivering neither truth

Research analysts at JPMorgan Chase have endorsed a clutch of Chinese internet stocks deemed “uninvestable” just two months ago in a significant shift in sentiment towards the sector. In a series of rating changes on Monday, technology analyst Alex Yao and his team upgraded seven companies to “overweight”, having assigned them “underweight” ratings in March.

Protests against the new HS2 high-speed railway line have cost the government £122mn so far and are expected to cost as much as £200mn, its management has revealed. Mark Thurston, chief executive of HS2, told the public accounts committee of MPs on Monday that the organisation was seeking an injunction to “combat” a spate of

Ministers are being urged to review “grossly unfair” compensation arrangements affecting 83,000 elderly members of the UK’s pension lifeboat fund as the cost of living soars. The Pension Protection Fund said it had received complaints from members over the lack of inflation protection on their retirement benefits as energy and food bills skyrocket. The PPF,

Ukraine on Monday claimed that its troops had reached the border with Russia near Kharkiv after weeks of successful counterattack that pushed Moscow’s invading forces back from the country’s second-largest city. But officials in Washington and Kyiv stressed that fierce battles between Ukrainian and Russian troops raged south of Kharkiv over the far eastern Donbas

Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has proved a catastrophic mistake. After Russian forces withdrew from around Kyiv last month, Ukrainian troops were on Monday filmed restoring border posts on the Russian frontier, having mostly pushed Moscow’s army back from the second city of Kharkiv. Finland and Sweden are meanwhile due this week to apply to

Having no luck with the board of Spirit Airlines, JetBlue has moved on to Spirit’s shareholders. The board of the US no-frills airline signed up to an all-stock merger with arch-rival Frontier in February. That valued Spirit at nearly $7bn in aggregate. Two months later, JetBlue crashed that party by offering a big premium, all-cash

And . . . relax. Vodafone must be feeling mightily relieved. Emirates Telecommunications group, or Etisalat, which is 60 per cent owned by the government of the Gulf state, said this weekend it had amassed a 9.8 per cent shareholding in the UK-headquartered telecoms group. These are much easier people for a chief executive to have on board than

The writer is a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and chief economist at Kroll Governments are spending a lot of time and resources trying to mitigate the soaring cost of energy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the war has sown the seeds of an even bigger crisis that is not getting nearly the

Brambles, one of Australia’s oldest companies, has entered talks over a potential A$20bn (US$13.8bn) sale of the business as private equity and infrastructure funds target the country’s listed assets. The transport and logistics company said it had held talks with CVC Capital Partners over potentially taking the group private but that the negotiations were preliminary,

Hello and welcome to Trade Secrets. As this lands in your inbox, the EU and the US will be coming towards the end of their second Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting, this one in Saclay, a tech hub on the outskirts of Paris. (Did you know Paris had a tech hub? I didn’t.) The

Nomura is to launch a new company to help institutional clients diversify into cryptocurrency, decentralised finance and non-fungible tokens, despite a recent run of volatility in the crypto market that has raised fundamental questions over its safety for investors. According to people with knowledge of the company’s plan, Japan’s largest investment bank will combine a

‘I got involved with no clue what a blockchain was’ A week is a long time in cryptoland. The $1.3tn cryptocurrency industry was on Thursday hit by one of its toughest challenges when stablecoin Tether — a critical cog in the market — failed to maintain its link with the US dollar. The plunge in

“This station,” according to the English announcement that follows the Hindi original, “is New Delhi.” The sleek airport train slows to a gentle stop. When the doors on the left glide open, I swing my navy-blue backpack on to my shoulders. With a large bottle of water and two books inside, it’s heavier than usual

“Have you seen we’re on a bus now?” says Simon Mayo to co-presenter Mark Kermode in the opening episode of Kermode and Mayo’s Take, referring to the posters for their show adorning British public transport. They have every reason to feel discomfited by this. Both have long maintained that advertising a film on the side

There can be no other word for what happened in Finland and Sweden this weekend but “historic”. For decades in Finland’s case and centuries in Sweden’s, the thought of joining a military alliance was all but impossible. Now, in the 81 days since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, the situation has changed so

Sanctions on Russia and a Covid lockdown in China have reduced freight volumes in Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest seaport. But one cargo is booming: liquefied natural gas. Importing more LNG is a priority as the EU tries to cut its reliance on gas supplied from Russia, intending to starve Moscow of funds for its war in

When Elon Musk announced he was putting his $44bn acquisition of Twitter “temporarily on hold” on Friday, it sent a familiar spasm through the stock market. Once again, the Tesla chief executive had used a brief tweet to deliver market-moving news. And once again, his offhand way of dealing with Wall Street provoked questions about