The writer is global head of sanctions, compliance and risk at ACAMS It has been two months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began and the fog of war continues to obscure the country’s future. A similar uncertainty is now settling across global markets, where a deluge of economic and trade restrictions aimed at punishing Vladimir

How much has US economic growth slowed? The US is expected to report that economic growth slowed significantly in the first quarter, driven largely by a reversal of the previous quarter’s unexpected boom in inventory accumulation. The commerce department on Thursday is forecast to show that the US economy grew at an annualised rate of

Cambridge Innovation Capital has raised its largest round of funding to date as the venture investor seeks to capitalise on the UK city’s growing life sciences and tech economy. CIC — which benefits from a unique contract with Cambridge university — has raised £225mn to invest in early stage start-ups operating in areas from cell

This year’s Super Bowl was more than an American football game. It became a chapter in financial history as the cryptocurrency industry splashed out millions of dollars on star-studded television advertisements that played on fears of missing out on the next big thing in investing. “Fortune favours the brave,” said a commercial for Crypto.com, an

In 2017, billionaire Patrick Drahi made an audacious move: spinning off the US arm of his telecoms empire from its heavily indebted European parent in one of the biggest initial public offerings of that year. The listing was designed to free up Altice USA to embark on a series of ambitious acquisitions and a big

A battered car mounted with oversized loudspeakers greets visitors to Garanhuns, a provincial city in north-east Brazil. “How we’ve missed voting for Lula!” a recorded message blares as the vehicle trundles around with little regard for the racket. Nostalgia for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva permeates the municipality where the leftwing former president was born

When Ronald Daniels was appointed president of Johns Hopkins University in 2009, he set himself a tough task that put him at odds with many of its own faculty and alumni: to abolish its longstanding but inequitable practice of “legacy admissions”, offering preferential access for students with family connections in favour of purely merit-based applications.

He is maligned by Moscow and enmeshed in scandal in London, but when Boris Johnson visited Kyiv this month, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky could barely restrain his enthusiasm for the UK prime minister. With Britain playing a key role in the western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky thanked Johnson for “your leadership, your

South Korea’s growing global pop culture presence, from boy band BTS to the television series Squid Game, is driving a new marketing push into Japan, as consumer goods companies leverage the country’s soft power to drive sales of everything from liquor to clothes. Hite Jinro, South Korea’s leading beverage maker, said this week it will

At the advanced age of 123, Yoshinoya has a decent claim to being the world’s oldest fast-food chain: an arch survivor in Japan’s low-end culinary cage-fight for 24-hour dining on a budget. Competition among the ladlers of cheap, comforting bowls of gyudon beef on rice is intense, and Yoshinoya has consistently prevailed. But a dismayed

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at the Kremlin after Russian missiles killed eight civilians in the port city of Odesa, as America’s top diplomat prepared to visit Ukraine for the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began eight weeks ago. In heated remarks, Zelensky called the Russians “bloody bastards”, “Nazis” and “Rashists” — a

Turkey has banned Russia’s armed forces from using its airspace to reach Syria in a bid to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin as Ankara tries to revive peace talks with Ukraine. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Russian military aircraft would no longer be able to transit through his country en route to Syria, where

Ares Management is backing two bidders in the race to buy Chelsea Football Club from billionaire Roman Abramovich, who put the team up for sale after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The investment group, which has more than $300bn of assets under management, is prepared to take a minority stake in the English Premier League team,

Before Russian forces began withdrawing from territory around Kyiv at the start of the month, US war policy appeared aimed at delicately threading a geopolitical needle: bolstering Ukraine’s defences without triggering a conflict between Nato and the Kremlin. In the past two weeks, however, current and former US officials say that much of the caution

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. This weekend we’re returning to the first-ever episode of the FT Weekend podcast, from September. Lilah talks to Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm and Chez Panisse’s legendary Alice Waters to discover how the world’s top chefs

Perched on a reflective gold stool, beneath psychedelic tessellated wallpaper, surrounded by films of black women singing jazz, folk music and blues-infused a cappella, I am chilling in the British pavilion at the head of the main Giardini avenue in the Venice Biennale — a location declaring the imperial order circa 1900, when Britain led

There are two types of hard decisions. There are those where, after enough thought, you can arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. And there are those that, however many permutations you explore, you still end up in a bad place. It’s in this second bucket that we find Wimbledon’s decision to ban Russian and Belarusian tennis

Pandora Flower rug by Allegra Hicks, from £1,092 per sq m Individually made by hand, this design can be crafted to any size. allegrahicks.com Leo Rose lampshade by Matthew Williamson for John Lewis, from £40 This collaboration includes a range of different accessories designed by Williamson. johnlewis.com Daisy water jug by Petra Palumbo, £120 Hand

To hold a nutmeg in your hand — a tiny brown globe veined with mysterious patterns — is to be reminded how much our ideas of what is precious can change. This spice (which is actually a seed, not a nut) was once so prestigious that one of the monikers of an 18th-century Persian ruler

I am not a punctual person, so I leave slightly late for dinner. (There is, inevitably, a dispute between my partner Felicity Slater and me about which one of us bears responsibility: I tend to start getting ready first but do so at a very leisurely pace, while she is very efficient but only gets