Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
A flurry of takeover talk speculation has pushed up shares in budget airline EasyJet this morning.
EasyJet’s shares are up over 7%, leading the risers on the FTSE 100 share index.
“[The group] does not believe the redress methodology proposed by the FCA appropriately reflects actual customer loss or achieves a proportionate outcome.
“...the FCA’s proposed approach to assessing unfairness does not align with the legal clarity provided by the supreme court judgement in respect of the “Johnson” case, which confirmed that the test for unfairness is highly fact specific and must take into account a broad range of factors. The group will continue to engage with the FCA in respect of these points.
“Many motor finance lenders did not comply with the law or the rules. It’s time their customers get fair compensation. Recent court judgments show that liabilities exist no matter what.
“We believe our scheme is the best way to settle the issue for both consumers and firms, and alternatives would be more costly and take longer. We recognise not everyone will get everything they would like. But it’s vital we draw a line under the issue so a trusted motor finance market can continue to serve millions of families every year.”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA
© Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA
© Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA
Thorny questions such as whether Hamas will disarm and who will govern Gaza are still to be answered, highlighting fragility of truce
Speaking at the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – yesterday, Donald Trump said the US is prepared to make a deal with Iran when Tehran is ready.
Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks, prior to Israel’s 12-day war Iran in June, which Washington joined by striking key Iranian nuclear sites.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP
© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP
© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP
Observers and opposition says prosecution of Riek Machar for crimes in relation to attack by rebel militia puts peace deal at risk
South Sudan’s opposition and observers have warned that the prosecution of the country’s suspended vice-president, Riek Machar, risks jeopardising a peace agreement that ended a devastating civil war and plunging the country into full-scale conflict once again.
On 11 September, Machar was charged with murder, treason, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes in connection with a deadly attack by the White Army rebel group on a government army garrison in Nasir county in the country’s north-east. President Salva Kiir then suspended him from his post.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Peter Louis Gume/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Peter Louis Gume/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Peter Louis Gume/AFP/Getty Images
Counter-terror laws being ‘weaponised’ against pro-Palestine groups in UK, US, France and Germany, says FIDH
The right to protest has come under sustained attack in the west, according to a report highlighting the growing criminalisation of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The study by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) pays particular attention to the UK, the US, France and Germany, where it says governments have “weaponised” counter-terrorism legislation as well as the fight against antisemitism to suppress dissent and support for Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Mosengo-Omba said to run CAF as a ‘proprietorship’
Employee: ‘Anyone who dares speak up is terminated’
The Confederation of African Football’s general secretary, Véron Mosengo-Omba, has been accused of running the organisation as his “proprietorship” and creating a toxic culture of fear where employees are fired for speaking out against him.
Several former and current members of staff have told the Guardian there is an atmosphere of intimidation and paranoia at the Caf headquarters in Cairo, where Mosengo-Omba is accused of sidelining colleagues and silencing whistleblowers.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Sebo47/Alamy
© Photograph: Sebo47/Alamy
© Photograph: Sebo47/Alamy
I long for physical intimacy and feel ashamed and unattractive when she rebuffs me – but she gets angry when I try to discuss it
My wife and I have been together for more than 10 years and married for four. We have small children. I love her deeply, but our marriage is essentially empty of sex and physical intimacy, and she refuses to talk about it beyond acknowledging there is a problem. I am a woman who values physical intimacy and I am deeply attracted to her. I want to feel more desired and alive. But lovemaking is extremely rare, always initiated by me and follows the same pattern. She does not focus on giving me pleasure. The rest of the time I am rebuffed, leaving me feeling ashamed and unattractive. Even the mildest of playful or suggestive messages I send are met with silence. So I bother less and less.
Naturally, I want to know what is going on for her. We are already having couples therapy, but this is not a subject we have tackled successfully. Outside these sessions, my attempts to discuss it are either avoided or met with anger. Do I simply give up, after so many years of trying and failing to make things better? I cannot forget my needs and desires just because they are not reciprocated.
Continue reading...
© Composite: Guardian Design; Wavebreakmedia/Getty Images
© Composite: Guardian Design; Wavebreakmedia/Getty Images
© Composite: Guardian Design; Wavebreakmedia/Getty Images
In the latest novel from the acclaimed avant garde author, the narrator considers the impact of the relationships she’s left behind
“English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way,” Claire-Louise Bennett wrote in her first book, 2015’s Pond, a series of essayistic stories by an autofictional narrator. What was her first language, then? She doesn’t know, and she’s still in search of it. “I haven’t yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things.”
Bennett was concerned then – and remains concerned now – with finding words to make inner experience legible, and to make familiar objects, places and actions unfamiliar. Pond was a kind of phenomenology of 21st-century everyday female experience, concentrating on the narrator’s momentary physical and mental feelings and sensation, isolated from the larger social world. Bennett became an acclaimed avant garde writer, and if acclaimed and avant garde may seem at odds, then that tension has powered her books ever since, as she’s been drawn to working on larger scales. In Checkout 19 she showed this phenomenological vision unfurling across a life. It was a kind of Künstlerroman, a messy, sparkling book that threw together the narrator’s early reading history with her early story writing (she retold the picaresque antics of her first literary protagonist, Tarquin Superbus) and her experiences of menstruation and sex.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Patrice Normand/Leextra/opale.photo/eyevine
© Photograph: Patrice Normand/Leextra/opale.photo/eyevine
© Photograph: Patrice Normand/Leextra/opale.photo/eyevine
Grace Hughes-Hallett’s film focuses on the story of Jim Ambrose, who was raised female after he was born with atypical genitals
Although this documentary spreads its net wide to encompass the recent history of intersex identity in the US, mostly it centres around the story of Jim Ambrose, who until he was 20 years old was called Kristi and raised female. Raised in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, Jim was born in 1976 with XY chromosomes and had atypical genitals. So his parents, under the advice of a local doctor, decided to have surgery performed on the infant to create more female-looking organs, and then raised him as a girl without ever telling him the truth. It wasn’t until he read about intersex people in a university feminism course that he realised who he really was. Although Jim would go through further painful surgeries and much mental anguish, eventually he would find his voice as an activist, a place within the increasingly visible intersex community, and a loving partner.
The emotional climax of the film follows Jim as he prepares to meet the surgeon who operated on him as a baby. The encounter doesn’t go at all as you might expect, given footage earlier in the film where one intersex person talks about getting revenge using a rusty knife. Let’s just say. The phrases “at the time” and “in retrospect” get invoked a lot.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Publicity image
© Photograph: Publicity image
© Photograph: Publicity image
From Rocky Horror to the Muppets, Curry’s extraordinary career made him world-famous. Then, a stroke left him paralysed. The actor talks about his cocaine years, his friendship with David Bowie – and the moment his mother came at him with a knife
‘It’s difficult not to see it as a kind of finale,” says Tim Curry of his memoir, Vagabond. That he’s written it at all is a surprise. Curry has always liked the comfort of privacy – my efforts to persuade him to do an interview with the Guardian began more than five years ago. At 79, he still prefers looking forward, too, which is how he has covered so much ground in his career.
Boundless energy has been the actor’s hallmark. He once exerted so much while filming the murder mystery comedy Clue – in which he plays the frantic, sharp-tongued butler Wadsworth – that a nurse who took his blood pressure on set told him he was at risk of having a heart attack.
I’ve always tried to make my villains amusing. It gives them a bit more edge
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Cinetext Bildarchiv/20th Century Fox/Allstar
© Photograph: Cinetext Bildarchiv/20th Century Fox/Allstar
© Photograph: Cinetext Bildarchiv/20th Century Fox/Allstar
With general elections in two weeks, housing crisis is a big issue, with the far-right Party for Freedom blaming migrants
Carlos Fernandes is proud of the metalwork he does on Dutch superyachts that sail the world. But the Portuguese migrant worker was surprised to hear he might be paying hundreds of euros too much in monthly rent for his family’s apartment.
“We found it and we moved in,” he said. “It should be between €800 and €1,115 but we are paying €1,380.”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian
© Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian
© Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian
Running tourism is booming and nowhere more so than in France where a 24km race around Nîmes doubles as a surreal, whistlestop sightseeing tour
We could hear the band before we saw it: a group of retirement home residents with trumpets and drums waiting to greet us as we approached. Others using wheelchairs waved homemade flags. As we swarmed into the building and up the staircase, a bottleneck formed. I slowed down as a nurse put a stamp on my sweaty arm, then I jogged off down the corridor.
Running through a retirement home is just one of the many surreal moments that participants signing up for the Nîmes Urban Trail (NUT) get to experience on this 24km race around the city, which takes place each February. Not only does the route give you a whistlestop sightseeing tour, taking you past the town’s impressive Roman monuments and landmarks, it also grants you access to places that would normally be off limits to outsiders.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: THIERRY_JOUANIN/THIERRY JOUANIN
© Photograph: THIERRY_JOUANIN/THIERRY JOUANIN
© Photograph: THIERRY_JOUANIN/THIERRY JOUANIN
Pinball, boomboxes and vintage cars! Victor Wedderburn’s photographs capture the joys – and struggles – of the era for the city’s immigrant communities
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Victor Wedderburn
© Photograph: Victor Wedderburn
© Photograph: Victor Wedderburn
Premium commuter cans upgraded with longer battery life, USB-C audio and improved sound, but still cost a lot
Bose has updated its top-of-the-line noise-cancelling headphones with longer battery, USB-C audio and premium materials, making the commuter favourites even better.
The second-generation QuietComfort Ultra headphones still have an expensive price tag, from £450 (€450/$450/A$700), which is more than most competitors, including Sony’s WH-1000XM6.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Controversial law change that forced councils to put the fate of Māori wards to a public vote saw 25 vote to disestablish the guaranteed seats
The number of guaranteed seats for Māori representatives on New Zealand councils will be slashed by more than half, following a controversial law change that forced local governments to put the fate of hard-won Māori seats to a public vote.
Māori wards, which may have one or more councillors depending on local population numbers, were established in 2001 to give Indigenous voters the option to vote for a guaranteed Māori representative in local and regional authorities. Initially, councils could only establish a Māori ward by first putting it to a public vote in their area. Communities often spent years generating local support and pushing their councils to create Māori wards.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Mark Tantrum/AP
© Photograph: Mark Tantrum/AP
© Photograph: Mark Tantrum/AP
As Israel and Palestinian families waited for loved ones to be released, Trump met world leaders to continue ceasefire talks. Will Christou, Dan Boffey and Jason Burke report on an extraordinary day in the Middle East
It was a day of joy, sorrow and diplomatic drama in the Middle East. Chief reporter Dan Boffey was in “hostages square” in Tel Aviv as the final hostages who were kidnapped on 7 October were released. As news broke out that the first seven hostages were safe, cheers erupted throughout the crowd.
Boffey tells Lucy Hough about the final hostages and what their release means to people. One person in the square told him: “Israel is a place where Jews are meant to be safe, and if these people didn’t come home, then what is the point of Israel?”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
© Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
© Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Kosovo win 1-0 in Stockholm to keep playoff hopes alive
France held 2-2 by Iceland in Reykjavik
Sweden’s faint hopes of qualifying for the World Cup were all-but extinguished as the 2018 quarter-finalists lost 1-0 against Kosovo in Stockholm. Fisnik Asllani fired a first-half effort that allowed the Kosovans to complete a remarkable double over their opponents and boost their own hopes of booking at least a playoff place.
Sweden – who featured £125m man Alexander Isak up front alongside Viktor Gyökeres – remain rooted to the bottom of Group B on one point. Isak, who played another 90 minutes after doing the same in the 2-0 defeat to Switzerland on Friday, failed to find the target as he continues to work his way back to fitness following his summer move from Newcastle to Liverpool. Leaders Switzerland dropped their first points of the campaign as they were held to a goalless draw by Slovenia in Ljubljana.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Adam Ihse/TT/EPA
© Photograph: Adam Ihse/TT/EPA
© Photograph: Adam Ihse/TT/EPA
Keeper has kept eight clean sheets in succession but is keen to acknowledge the team ethic
As they like to say in the US, dee-fense wins championships. The sentiment is not an exclusively American thing. “Attack wins you games, defence win you titles,” Sir Alex Ferguson once said. And he should know, having won quite a lot of them with Manchester United.
As England look forward to next summer’s World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, the idea has come to resonate, mainly because of how miserly they have been at the back under Thomas Tuchel.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters
© Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters
© Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters
Greaves edges out world champion 6-5 in semi-final
She will now face Gian van Veen in November finale
Beau Greaves won a thrilling last-leg decider to shock Luke Littler 6-5 in the semi-finals of the PDC world youth championship in Wigan.
Greaves, a three-time WDF women’s world champion who has secured a PDC Tour card for the 2026-27 season, had gone 2-1 up in the semi-final. Littler responded with the next three legs, the PDC world champion competing the day after defeating rival Luke Humphries 6-1 in the World Grand Prix final in Leicester.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Zac Goodwin/PA
© Photograph: Zac Goodwin/PA
© Photograph: Zac Goodwin/PA
Connexion