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Yield on 10-year government debt hits highest level since November as investors weigh up PM's survival chancesBusiness live – latest updatesUK politics live – latest updatesUK borrowing costs rose on Monday as investors watched for signs of jitters in the markets over Keir Starmer's future.The yield, or interest rate, on UK benchmark bonds increased as traders reacted to Sunday's resignation of the prime minister's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. Continue reading......

Son says Hong Kong media figure, 78, fears dying alone while legal team say Lai is now world's highest profile political prisonerThe UK, the UN, EE and rights groups have condemned the sentencing of the pro-democracy activist and publisher Jimmy Lai, a British citizen who has been jailed for 20 years in Hong Kong on national security convictions that critics say are politically motivated.Yvette Cooper, the UK foreign secretary, said: “For 78-year-old Jimmy Lai, 20 years is an effective life sentence, following a politically motivated prosecution under a law that was imposed to silence China's critics. The Hong Kong authorities must end Jimmy Lai's appalling ordeal and release him to be with his family.” Continue reading......

Newly released documents detail convicted sex offender's early backing of bitcoin and Coinbase Millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein have brought to light his ties to the highest echelons of the cryptocurrency industry.Documents published last week by the US Department of Justice reveal Epstein bankrolled the “principal home and funding source” for bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, during its nascent stages; he also invested $3m in Coinbase in 2014, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, and cut a check that same year to Blockstream, a prominent bitcoin-focused technology firm. Both crypto startups accepted Epstein's investments in 2014 – six years after his 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Continue reading......

Push to restart uranium mining in Patagonia has sparked fears about the environmental impact and loss of sovereignty over key resourcesOn an outcrop above the Chubut River, one of the few to cut across the arid Patagonian steppe of southern Argentina, Sergio Pichiñán points across a wide swath of scrubland to colourful rock formations on a distant hillside.“That's where they dug for uranium before, and when the miners left, they left the mountain destroyed, the houses abandoned, and nobody ever studied the water,” he says, citing suspicions arising from cases of cancer and skin diseases in his community. “If they want to open this back up, we're all pretty worried around here.” Continue reading......

Gilston in Hertfordshire aims to be rebuke to cookie-cutter estates with network of 10,000 new homes within country parks and woodlandAfter two decades of legal wrangling and planning bottlenecks, the first bricks will finally be laid on a project being hailed by developers as the blueprint for the future of community building in Britain.Gilston in east Hertfordshire will be transformed into a network of seven interconnected villages, comprising 10,000 new homes nestled within a sprawling 660-hectare (1,630-acre) landscape of country parks and woodland. Continue reading......

Campaigners say industrial issues cannot be solved by watering down climate and environmental policiesEurope live – latest updatesBusiness live – latest updatesEU leaders have been warned against a rollback of the green agenda before a summit focused on reviving the bloc's waning economy.Campaigners from the Climate Action Network, a pan-European group of NGOs, said European industry was “under real pressure” from “high energy prices, ageing assets, global overcapacity and delayed investments”, but these issues could not be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies. Continue reading......

Family of media tycoon say he will 'die a martyr behind bars' amid widespread criticism from press freedom groupsJimmy Lai, the media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences, a punishment his daughter said could mean “he will die a martyr behind bars”.Claire Lai said the sentence was “heartbreakingly cruel” given her 78-year-old father's declining health, while her brother Sebastien Lai called the sentence “draconian” and “devastating”. Continue reading......

Firm accused of 'abusing' its dominant position for messaging in what appears to be breach of antitrust rulesThe EU has threatened to take action against the social media company Meta, arguing it has blocked rival chatbots from using its WhatsApp messaging platform.The European Commission said on Monday that WhatsApp Business – which is designed to be used by businesses to interact with customers – appears to be in breach of EU antitrust rules. Continue reading......

Corteva will discontinue a mixture of Agent Orange and glyphosate, but another of its herbicides will still use Vietnam war-era defoliantThe chemical giant Corteva will stop producing Enlist Duo, a herbicide considered to be among the most dangerous still used in the US by environmentalists because it contains a mix of Agent Orange and glyphosate, which have both been linked to cancer and widespread ecological damage.The US military deployed Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, to destroy vegetation during the Vietnam war, causing serious health problems among soldiers and Vietnamese residents. Continue reading......

Exclusive: António Guterres says world's accounting systems should place true value on the environmentEconomic growth is still heating the planet. Is there any way out?The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned.Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity's future required the urgent overhaul of the world's “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster. Continue reading......

Rising GDP continues to mean more carbon emissions and wider damage to the planet. Can the two be decoupled?During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO2 as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm. Continue reading......

Exclusive: Multimillion-pound contract raises concerns about controls designed to prevent firms unwittingly aiding destruction of Ukraine, specialists sayThe government has been urged to re-examine a British company's contract to export hi-tech machinery to Armenia, after the Guardian uncovered links to the supply chain for Russia's war machine.Sanctions experts and the chair of the House of Commons business committee questioned the government's decision to award an export licence to Cygnet Texkimp. Continue reading......

Union is to appeal after losing legal action against historic talent database in battle that could reshape UK acting landscapeFor almost a century it has been the casting directors' bible, a shopfront for actors from Laurence Olivier, Olivia Colman and Daniel Craig to 16-year-old Adolescence star Owen Cooper to help land their next theatre, film or TV role.But now Spotlight is locked in a costly legal battle sparked by Equity, the equally venerable union that represents tens of thousands of performers that rely on the casting directory's services, in an internecine conflict that could dramatically reshape the UK acting landscape. Continue reading......

Data shows deprived communities have more off-licences and takeaways and fewer childcare facilities and gymsEngland's poorest communities have 70% more vape shops, off-licences and bookmakers than wealthier ones and far fewer cafes and gyms, a study has found.The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (Icon), chaired by the Labour peer Hilary Armstrong, said ministers risked overlooking vitally important neighbourhood shopping precincts by focusing on town centres. In deprived areas, local shops have roughly double the number of retailers selling unhealthy food and significantly higher vacancy rates, its research has found. Continue reading......

Banking group beats Barclays to snare biggest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008Business live – latest updatesNatWest has agreed a £2.7bn deal to buy Evelyn Partners, one of the UK's biggest wealth managers, in the bank's largest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008.The move signals an attempt to bolster the wealth management business for the banking group, which returned to full private ownership last year, and already owns the private bank Coutts. Continue reading......

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsSanae Takaichi's conservatives cement power in landslide Japan election winGood morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.Political drama will be on investors' minds today, as they react to a landmark election in Tokyo and mounting pressure on UK prime minister Keir Starmer.Prime minister Takaichi's decision to leverage her popularity for her party turned out to be successful.The landslide victory will reinforce her responsible but expansionary fiscal spending and a more Japan-focused foreign policy. Risk-on sentiment will dominate the market for now. Continue reading......

A mining disaster in the Democratic Republic of Congo underscores the human cost of extraction. Intensified competition for resources isn't helpingWhen Donald Trump boasted recently that he had stopped the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – though fighting persists in the DRC, at appalling human cost – he made clear that his goals went beyond a long-sought Nobel Peace prize.“They said to me, 'Please, please, we would love you to come and take our minerals.' Which we'll do,” the US president added. Now he is following through. Last Monday he launched a new strategic reserve plan, “Project Vault”, worth almost $12bn. Two days later, JD Vance hosted a summit seeking to create a trade zone for critical minerals. Continue reading......

By freezing thresholds, Labour is quietly loading the cost of public services on to young graduates, while insisting it has not raised taxes at allThe personal finance expert Martin Lewis upbraided the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, for freezing the threshold at which millions of graduates repay their loans, saying that this was treating student debts like tax. He was right, and Ms Reeves's defence last weekend made his case for him. She argued that her decision would help to fund a reduction in patient waiting lists. But money used to repay student loans cannot simultaneously fund public services. In economic terms, such charges are taxes in all but name.Mr Lewis's reasoning was nuanced. He pointed out that freezing the repayment threshold is either a retrospective rewriting of the terms of a private contract or a targeted tax rise on a cohort of young people. Neither, he said, fits Ms Reeves's claim that the policy is “fair and reasonable”. There are five student “loan” plans in operation co...

Concerns about the cultural damage being done by the student loan system are raised by Prof Vaughan Grylls Your coverage of the dispute between Martin Lewis and the chancellor touches a deeper issue that deserves far more attention (Student loans: why is Martin Lewis clashing with Rachel Reeves?, 3 February).Student “loans” are not really loans. They are, in substance, a graduate tax – compulsory for all but the wealthy, income‑linked, unavoidable and often long‑lasting. Calling them loans is not neutral language; it is a political convenience that removes them from proper democratic scrutiny. Continue reading......

Labour will introduce legislation this week for reduction from current age of 20 in effort to prevent big shortageLabour will introduce legislation to lower the minimum age for train drivers to 18 in the House of Commons this week, as figures show fewer than 3% of drivers on Great Britain's railways are under 30.The government is pressing ahead with its proposals for teenage recruits, lowering the minimum age from the current 20 years old, in a move that ministers hope will stave off a potential shortage of thousands of drivers. Continue reading......