The Guardian Nachrichten

 

Rachel Reeves to announce temporary cap in England and Wales, but not help for wider hospitality sectorRachel Reeves is poised to unveil a support package worth about £100m annually for pubs, after being warned of widespread closures and job losses after the announcement of controversial changes to business rates.The chancellor is expected to announce the relief package on Tuesday, after officials admitted that they had not foreseen the total financial impact of the rates shake-up in England and Wales announced in the budget in late November. Continue reading......

Keir Starmer says move is 'good news for homeowners' in TikTok video announcing changeGround rents are to be capped at £250 a year for leaseholders in England and Wales, Keir Starmer has announced, as his government unveiled proposals to ban leaseholds for new flats.New leasehold flats will be banned and existing leaseholders will get the right to switch to commonhold in an attempt to give homeowners greater control over their properties, under proposals to be put out to consultation. Continue reading......

US president says tariffs on automobiles, lumber and pharmaceuticals will rise to 25%, accusing Seoul of not living up to a trade deal struck last yearDonald Trump has said he is raising tariffs on South Korean goods including automobiles, lumber and pharmaceuticals, accusing the country of not living up to a trade deal struck last year and briefly sending shares in Korean carmakers tumbling.In a post on social media, the US president said the tariffs paid on South Korean exports into America would rise from 15% to 25% because the “Korean Legislature hasn't enacted our Historic Trade Agreement, which is their prerogative”. Continue reading......

Innocent people are being frozen out of basic banking services – and it all traces back to reforms rushed through after 9/11Hamish Wilson lives a few miles away from me, in a cosy farmhouse in the damp hills of mid Wales. He makes good coffee, tells great stories and is an excellent host. Every summer, dozens of Somali guests visit Wilson's farm as part of a wonderfully wholesome project set up to celebrate their nation's culture, and to honour his father's second world war service with a Somali comrade-in-arms.Inadvertently, however, the project has revealed something else: a deep unfairness in today's global financial system that not only threatens to ruin the Somalis' holidays, but also excludes marginalised communities from global banking services on a huge scale. Continue reading......

Newsom launched a review of the platform, despite TikTok saying a systems failure was responsible for the issueCalifornia governor Gavin Newsom has accused TikTok of suppressing content critical of president Donald Trump, as he launched a review of the platform's content moderation practices to determine if they violated state law, even as the platform blamed a systems failure for the issues.The step comes after TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, said last week it had finalised a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture that will secure US data, to avoid a US ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. Continue reading......

Does Britain have any leverage over human rights or security concerns or is it a decaying nation that cannot risk trade relations?This week, Keir Starmer will reportedly visit China. This will be the first trip of this kind by a British prime minister since Theresa May's three-day visit to Beijing in 2018. Since then, relations between London and Beijing have become increasingly fraught, caught between growing security concerns and deep economic interdependence. Allegations of espionage and influence operations have sharpened political and public suspicion in the UK, even as deep trade links and supply chains on which the country depends make disengagement unrealistic. As fierce debate about the recent approval for the new Chinese embassy has shown, there are strong opinions about how to best manage relations with Beijing – as well as what, precisely, constitutes a threat and what is an opportunity. The result is an uneasy balancing act in which caution and cooperation coexist, often uncomfortably.Thes...

French port's green energy push, evoking second world war spirit of resilience, is seen as a testing ground for reindustrialisationA new cargo and passenger ferry service directly linking Scotland and France could launch later this year as the port of Dunkirk embarks on a €40bn (£35bn) regeneration programme it claims will mirror the second world war resilience for which it is famed.The plans could include a new service between Rosyth in Fife and Dunkirk, eight years after the last freight ferries linked Scotland to mainland Europe, and 16 years after passenger services stopped. Continue reading......

Project employs technology that can be used to store and release renewable energy using even gentle slopesA hillside “battery” outside Plymouth in Devon has begun generating electricity using a first of a kind hydropower system embedded underground.The pioneering technology means one of the oldest forms of energy storage, hydropower, can be used to store and release renewable energy using even gentle slopes rather than the steep dam walls and mountains that are usually required. Continue reading......

Respondents to King's Trust survey cited AI and a lack of work experience as reasons they might fail in lifeMore than seven in 10 teens and young adults in the UK say they wish they were not starting their careers in the current economic climate, according to new research from the King's Trust.The study also found that more than a quarter of people aged 16 to 25 feel they are going to fail in life, highlighting growing anxiety among those entering the labour market. Continue reading......

Latest BRC figures show year-on-year rate of increase was 3.9% in January, up from 3.3% the month beforeRetailers have blamed rising energy bills and the chancellor Rachel Reeves's hike in employers' national insurance contributions for a jump in food prices, as suppliers and supermarkets struggle to absorb higher costs.The British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body for retailers, said prices across all goods in shops rose by 1.5% in January compared with the same month last year, up from a 0.7% rise in December and higher than the 0.7% increase economists had been expecting. It is also above the three-month average of 0.9%. Continue reading......

Move comes as the SEC has taken a series of friendly stances towards the cryptocurrency industry under TrumpThe US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday agreed to dismiss its enforcement case against a cryptocurrency exchange founded by billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, after investors in its lending program recovered their assets in full.The SEC has taken a series of industry-friendly actions in recent years, a shift in its approach to crypto enforcement under Donald Trump, who promised to be the “crypto president”. He brought in more favorable rules and pledged to popularize mainstream use of digital currencies. Continue reading......

Southern state becoming ground zero in fight against rapid growth of facilities using huge amounts of energy and waterLawmakers in several states are exploring passing laws that would put statewide bans in place on building new datacenters as the issue of the power-hungry facilities has moved to the center of economic and environmental concerns in the US.In Georgia a state lawmaker has introduced a bill proposing what could become the first statewide moratorium on new datacenters in America. The bill is one of at least three statewide moratoriums on datacenters introduced in state legislatures in the last week as Maryland and Oklahoma lawmakers are also considering similar measures. Continue reading......

Tech company denied illegally recording and circulating private conversations to send phone users targeted adsGoogle agreed to pay $68m to settle a lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated assistant spied inappropriately on smartphone users, violating their privacy.A preliminary class action settlement was filed late on Friday night in the San Jose, California federal court, and requires approval by US district judge Beth Labson Freeman. Smartphone users accused Google, a unit of Alphabet, of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations after Google Assistant was triggered, in order to send them targeted advertising. Continue reading......

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, who had held senior roles in Russian government, used a variant spelling of his name to access UK banking systemBank of Scotland has been fined £160,000 by the UK's sanctions watchdog after opening a bank account and processing payments for an ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, who became the first person to be prosecuted for circumventing UK sanctions last year, made 24 payments totalling £77,383 to or from a personal current account during February 2023. Continue reading......

European retailers urge traders to adhere to commitments after Brazilian lawmakers drop forest protection agreementLeading British and European retailers are trying to salvage the core elements of the Amazon soy moratorium after the world's most successful forest protection agreement was wrecked by Brazilian lawmakers and abandoned by international traders.In an open letter, high street brands including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda warn the breakdown this month of the 20-year-old agreement will damage consumer confidence in Brazil and the shipping firms unless new arrangements are put in place to ensure grain production is not linked to deforestation. Continue reading......

Business wing of Christian Democrats aims to scrap legal right to fewer hours, saying people should need permissionThe business wing of Germany's leading Christian Democrats party is proposing a ban on workers' legal entitlement to work part-time, arguing that those wishing to work fewer hours should have to acquire special permission to do so.Currently, every employee in Europe's largest economy has a fundamental right to carry out part-time work, with many, particularly women, often needing to do so for reasons relating to childcare or looking after elderly relatives. Continue reading......

James Daunt is relaxed about bills and the higher living wage, and says bookselling is having 'a nice time'The boss of Waterstones has defended the government's approach to the high street, arguing that controversial changes to business rates were “sensible” and had benefited outlets in struggling areas.James Daunt said the bookseller's total business rates bill for this year was going to be similar to last year's as big increases at large, successful sites such as its flagship on London's Piccadilly had been offset by “quite significant” decreases at shops in more troubled locations. Continue reading......

Shares in FTSE 250 company jump as it reveals Bridgepoint and Triton are among groups interested in takeoverBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK's biggest private hospital provider, Spire Healthcare, is in talks about a sale to private equity that could lead to it being delisted from the London Stock Exchange.The company, which owns the Claremont hospital in Sheffield and the historic St Anthony's hospital in south London, said on Monday that Bridgepoint Advisers and Triton Investments Advisers were “amongst the parties” with which it was in talks. Continue reading......

Investigation comes after Elon Musk's firm sparked outrage by allowing users to 'strip' photos of women and childrenEurope live – latest updatesThe European Commission has launched an investigation into Elon Musk's X over the production of sexually explicit images and the spreading of possible child sexual abuse material by the platform's AI chatbot feature, Grok.The formal inquiry, launched on Monday, also extends an investigation into X's recommender systems, algorithms that help users discover new content. Continue reading......

Airline raises forecasts for profits and passenger numbers, after boss said spat with Tesla CEO boosted bookingsBusiness live – latest updatesRyanair would be open to using Elon Musk's Starlink wifi on its planes in the future, its finance chief has suggested, amid a feud between the boss of the Irish airline and the world's richest person.The airline would look at “whoever is the best, when the tech and price is right” for in-flight wifi, the Ryanair chief financial officer, Neil Sorahan, said. Continue reading......