Few western statesmen have enjoyed much quality time with Xi Jinping, especially as China’s president has of late retreated into pandemic-era seclusion. Kevin Rudd is one who did. “I spent a total of 10 hours in conversation with Xi in six separate meetings, including about three hours around a winter fire at the prime ministerial

By Chloë Ashby You might disbelieve me, but it’s not the half-dressed workmen in Gustave Caillebotte’s 1875 painting “The Floor Scrapers” (pictured, below) that I’m interested in — I can take them or leave them —  it’s the wooden floor. It’s the decorative energy of the iron window grille. The creamy baseboard with its golden

Totally independent of China’s alleged efforts to establish a military base in the Solomon Islands, it is reprehensible that the US “has not had a permanent diplomatic presence there since 1993”, as you report (April 23). This is a disgrace to the memory of the thousands of US soldiers, sailors and marines who gave their

To suggest as Constanze Stelzenmueller does, that Germany has a “special responsibility to stop Putin’s evil” (Opinion, April 25) would be a distraction for several reasons. First, each country in Europe and the rest of the world has the responsibility to stand up against the unjustified invasion of a sovereign country; the violation of human

This article is part of a guide to Singapore from FT Globetrotter Here’s a question I’m asked a lot: is there a hotel or resort in the world you love so much, a place that gets it so right, that you’ve kept it to yourself, and never written about it? The answer I’m invariably inclined to give

More than 100 people were evacuated from a steelworks in Mariupol that has become a last holdout of Ukrainian resistance to Russian forces in the besieged port city. Repeated international efforts to broker safe passage for civilians sheltering in the Azovstal plant finally bore some fruit at the weekend as the UN and Red Cross

Senior British MPs have called on parliament to strengthen its human resources practices following the latest wave of harassment and conduct allegations in Westminster. Neil Parish, a Conservative MP and chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, was forced to quit parliament after admitting that he had watched pornography twice in the

In Sydney, the beauty on the Bay It’s hard to get a bad harbour view in Sydney, that world-beating harbour town; a handful of hotels in its Central Business District and The Rocks – in particular the Park Hyatt, with its forever perspective on the Opera House (and unassailable service) – deliver fine ones. If,

The expression is ugly and its content even uglier, but “Ukraine fatigue” is a real risk in western democracies. Their citizens are repulsed by Vladimir Putin’s war of unprovoked aggression and are full of sympathy for the Ukrainian people. Their leaders have surprised even themselves with the strength of their support for Kyiv. But as

Less is more, as every good designer knows. When it comes to bank capital’s blueprint, the UK’s top supervisor of lenders has suggested going back to the drawing board. It is a beguiling concept: complexity can bring cost, inhibit scrutiny and facilitate gaming of the system. Sam Woods, a Bank of England deputy governor, instead

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. In this episode of Tech Tonic, how a mysterious death in Belgrade prompted Serbia to embrace Chinese surveillance technology, raising concerns among Serbian human rights and privacy activists. They’ve been fighting back against the Serbian government’s

A team of international experts ranging from epidemiologists to computer modellers should be created to quickly identify global health threats and improve co-ordination between countries, Bill Gates has said, warning that greater investment is needed to avoid another pandemic. The Microsoft founder and philanthropist, who in 2015 first cautioned publicly that the world was not

Wearing a jewel should be a multisensory experience: the warmth of gold on the skin, the glint of gems, the clink of stacked bangles or the sway of long-drop earrings. This interaction is amplified when moving parts are involved in the construction – a design feature that is increasingly, and excitingly, appearing in today’s jewels.  “Movement reflects

Kim Jones, men’s artistic director of Dior The best souvenir I’ve brought home is a set of hill-tribe costumes from southeast Asia. I look at fabrics a lot when I travel and I just loved how modern they looked – like sportswear, but the patterns are hundreds of years old. I collect lots of different

Welcome to the Financial Times’ Europe Express Weekend newsletter. I’m Tony Barber, the FT’s European Comment Editor, and every Saturday I’m sharing my thoughts on one of the main events or trends of the week. It wasn’t a great week for hard-right politicians in Europe, was it? Marine Le Pen lost the French presidential election

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. In this week’s episode we’ll be looking at why the government is anxious to find ways to fix rising fuel and food prices. Why is the Treasury not doing more? And how does this play into next week’s

There is a painting in Caroline Walker’s series Janet of her mother cleaning the bathroom sink. It’s a nice bathroom, the morning light a soft pink echoed in the pink of her mother’s jumper. The light from the window filters through the pale blue bottle of bathroom cleaner, matched by Janet’s blue rubber gloves. She

When the western Falkland Islands emerged through the haar, they did so like a rumour — gradually and doubtfully, then more convincingly. Soon, they were undeniable. We had been sailing for two and a half days across a raw and landless South Atlantic before they appeared, strangely Hebridean on the hazy horizon. Our ship, the

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. This weekend, we think about morality in the age of social media. According to writer Dan Brooks, we’re great at pointing out where good is missing, but we’ve forgotten how to be good people. Then, Yale

The writer, a former education secretary and minister for women and equalities, sits in the House of Lords Perhaps the elderly male MP meant nothing by it. But as I found out later, he’d already been into the chief whip to complain about my radio interview, in which the thorny issue of MPs’ pay had