Companies have made a ‘final offer’ to union including pay rise of 9% over two years
The RMT has received a fresh offer from train operators, the union said, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the long-running pay dispute.
Talks have been ongoing in London this week with the RMT and the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), representing train firms, as well as separately with Network Rail.
Continue reading...Jamie Dimon warns that US creditworthiness should be ‘sacrosanct’ as country’s debt races toward $31.4tn limit
The US should not be “playing games” with the debt ceiling, the JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, warned warring US political factions on Thursday as a heated row over the federal borrowing limit reached a crisis point.
“We should never question the creditworthiness of the US government. That is sacrosanct and it should never happen,” Dimon said on Thursday in an interview on CNBC. “This is not something we should be playing games with at all.”
Continue reading...Mild weather in Europe reduces gas demand but bills will remain higher than 2021 energy price cap
Annual energy bills are expected to fall to about £2,200 from July in a fillip for the government and households struggling with ballooning costs.
The energy consultancy Cornwall Insight has predicted that, excluding government subsidies, typical annual household energy bills will have fallen from £4,279 now to £3,208 from April, and then will ease to roughly £2,200 for the remainder of the year.
Continue reading...Data shows UK banks losing well-paid staff, as Italy, France and Spain make up 70% of rise in EU top earners
A record 1,957 bankers across Europe earned more than €1m (£878,000) last year, according to data that shows the scale at which some of the best-paid jobs in Britain have moved from London to the EU since Brexit.
The European Banking Authority disclosed on Thursday that the number of bankers earning €1m or more a year had increased by more than 40%, from 1,383 in 2020 to 1,957 in 2021. Excluding UK figures, it is the highest number of €1m-plus European bankers since the EBA began collecting the data in 2010.
Continue reading...Student debt cut for teachers who go rural; WA to ban display and possession of Nazi symbols. Follow the day’s news live
Growing impact of climate disasters on mental health revealed
In case you missed it, a new poll commissioned by the Climate Council shows that four in five Australians have experienced some form of natural disaster at least once since 2019.
This coal cap scheme will see NSW doing our part at the request of the Albanese government to contribute to the national solution of this national problem.
I know those currently providing coal for the local market will appreciate that companies enjoying super profits on the back of the war in Ukraine will now do their part for the domestic market.
Continue reading...Sector reacts to post-pandemic shift in digital spending and gloomy economic outlook for 2023
Microsoft is cutting 10,000 jobs as it cited a post-pandemic shift in digital spending habits and weakness in the global economy.
The tech group joined a list of US peers making extensive job cuts, including Facebook owner Meta, Amazon, and business software-maker Salesforce, who have scaled back on workforce expansions stoked by a pandemic-related boom in demand for their services and products that have lost momentum.
Continue reading...Miners to be required to set aside up to 10% of production for domestic users, state energy minister Matt Kean says
New South Wales will require thermal coalminers reserve as much as 10% of their output for domestic coal-fired power stations and other users in a bid to share the burden more fairly among producers.
The move, announced on Thursday, is the latest government intervention in energy markets in a bid to limit price increases and avoid a repeat of last June’s supply shortages that helped trigger a suspension of the national electricity market.
Continue reading...Eight-year-old daughter of wealthy gem dealer follows family’s Jain faith to enter strict religious order
An eight-year-old girl in India who was due to inherit a multimillion-dollar diamond fortune has instead been admitted as a nun to a strict religious order after renouncing worldly pleasures.
Devanshi Sanghvi was, until this week, an heiress to the Sanghvi and Sons jewellery business in the western city of Surat, known locally as Diamond City for its prominence in the global gem trade.
Continue reading...British luxury goods firm reports 1% increase in global sales in last quarter of 2022
Burberry offset a plunge in Chinese sales of more than a fifth amid Covid disruption, thanks to the return of tourists to Europe who snapped up bags, scarves and trenchcoats in the run-up to Christmas.
The British luxury goods firm reported a 1% increase in global sales in the three months to the end of December, below its 2% target and sharply down compared with the 11% growth reported in the previous quarter.
Continue reading...Supermarket’s rise to £13.18 on 1 February puts hourly minimum rate 20% ahead of January 2022
Aldi is increasing pay for UK warehouse workers for the third time in a year – with the hourly minimum rate now 20% ahead of last January.
The German-owned discounter, which is the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket chain, said pay would rise to £13.18 on 1 February, up 4% on the current minimum of £12.66, which was introduced in September.
Continue reading...Bank of England must proceed with caution as households are still cutting back and business confidence is weak
There is hope for households across Britain that inflation, finally, has peaked. After hitting a 41-year high of more than 11% in October as energy bills soared, the fall in the annual inflation rate in December for a second consecutive month will come as a relief.
However, prices remain high and are still rising fast. Lower inflation rates do not mean prices are falling for consumers; it is just that they are not rising quite as fast as a month ago. The cost of living crisis may be fading but it is very far from over.
Continue reading...Britain’s car industry relies on petrol or diesel vehicles – and every failure to be part of the electric revolution makes it more exposed
The battery startup Britishvolt eyed a big opportunity. With the looming UK ban on sales of internal combustion engine cars after 2035, big demand for batteries was guaranteed. The problem was actually building the batteries.
The company’s efforts have now come to nothing. It collapsed into administration on Tuesday after funding talks failed, leaving a string of disappointed backers ranging from the FTSE 100 companies Glencore and Ashtead to the property investor Tritax, owned by investment group abrdn, which had committed to fund a battery “gigafactory” in Northumberland.
Continue reading...Airline to continue aggressive post-Covid expansion, offering 10% more seats in the UK this summer compared with 2022
Ryanair took record numbers of bookings in January, the budget airline has announced, passing 2m sales in a weekend for the first time.
Its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said there was no sign of a slowdown in demand despite the economic uncertainty.
Continue reading...Kyiv officials ask allies at World Economic Forum to step up military supplies to defeat Russia
Ukraine has urged world leaders to intensify efforts to remove Vladimir Putin’s troops from its soil as the country’s war with Russia dominated the first full day of the gathering of the global elite in Davos.
With the war clouding the outlook for the global economy in 2023, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Yuliia Svyrydenko, urged the country’s allies to step up supplies of military hardware so that Russia could be more quickly defeated.
Continue reading...The economy grew 3% in 2022, exceeding some forecasts, but still well below China’s official target for the year
China’s GDP expanded at its slowest pace since the mid-1970s bar the Covid-hit 2020 year, as the world’s second-largest economy struggled under tight pandemic restrictions that were abruptly ditched late in 2022.
The economy grew 3% last year, well shy of the 5.5% pace the government had targeted at the start of the year and the 8.1% recorded for 2021. The actual rate though, was better than the 2.7% predicted by the World Bank earlier this month.
Continue reading...Rising flood waters have cut north Queensland’s main transport corridor, the Bruce Highway, with more rain on the way. Follow the day’s news live
Dreyfus opens discussion about judicial watchdog
Today the attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, will open consultation for the creation of a federal judicial commission, to police what he described as the “relatively rare” instances of “problematic conduct by judges”.
The three diseases that we’re focusing on on this trip – malaria, HIV and tuberculosis – three diseases that Australia has a good control over or good management over.
HIV cases are on the rise for a range of different reasons. Tuberculosis is just devastating and any young child with tuberculosis is an extremely confronting and devastating thing to see it’s a horrible disease. And malaria is an ongoing killer.
Continue reading...Charities and non-profit bodies urge Jeremy Hunt to introduce discount tariff from April 2024
Jeremy Hunt is facing calls for a “social energy tariff” providing cheaper gas and electricity for low income households to be introduced when government support ends next year.
In an open letter to the chancellor, 95 charities and non-profit organisations have urged the government to move quickly to legislate for a change in energy bills for “those in greatest need to ensure they are able to live in their homes comfortably”.
Continue reading...Producers argue Albanese government’s price cap intervention has ‘paralysed the market’
Strains in the gas market have not been eased by the Albanese government’s price caps imposed late last year, with an industry group claiming supply shortages remain while the peak gas lobby is warning the sector has become “virtually paralysed”.
One month on from the government’s rare intervention to limit domestic gas prices to $12 a gigajoule and black coal to $125 a tonne, big commercial gas users are hoping new compliance guidelines to be released soon by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will force suppliers to provide an adequate supply.
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Continue reading...Africa’s most industrialised economy being hit by daily power cuts as anger grows among opposition and public
Cyril Ramaphosa has cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland as South Africa grapples with an unprecedented energy crisis that has resulted in daily power cuts of between eight and 11 hours across the country.
Anger is growing as offices, hospitals, factories and tens of thousands of small businesses are forced to close, with outages also causing increased crime, traffic disruption and massive wastage as food supply chains collapse.
Continue reading...Equinor chief says bills won’t return to levels seen before Ukraine invasion given windfall taxes and move to greener energy
The boss of one of Europe’s biggest energy companies has warned that higher gas and electricity prices are here to stay and consumers should not expect them to return to levels seen before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anders Opedal, the chief executive of Norway’s state oil company Equinor, said factors including windfall taxes and the large sums energy firms must invest to move from fossil fuels to greener alternatives mean bills are likely to remain elevated.
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