ANALYSIS

Plans for a high-wage, high-growth economy lie in ruins as Britain's Conservative prime minister struggles to answer a cost-of-living crisis, compounded by rising worker unrest.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz faces lawmakers' questions this week over his role in tackling a multibillion-euro tax fraud as a sprawling probe into the scheme threatens to undermine him as he grapples with an energy crisis and the fallout of war.

China's central bank is set to take more easing steps, pressured by a shaky economy that is undercutting jobs, but it faces limited room to manoeuvre due to worries over rising inflation and capital flight, policy insiders and analysts said.

Losses arising from cryptocurrency hacks jumped nearly 60% in the first seven months of the year to $1.9 billion, propelled by a surge in funds stolen from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, according to a blog post from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis released on Tuesday.

In the span of eight days in May, three young men were shot dead in a small neighborhood of the town of Orebro, part of a wave of gang violence spreading from big cities to small-town Sweden that is topping voters' concerns ahead of elections next month.

Degrowth is about the closest you can get to a heresy in economics, where growth is widely held as the best route to prosperity.

Fans weigh in on the Australian's fate after news broke that Oscar Piastri will drive alongside Lando Norris at McLaren next season.

Peruvian mining executives are losing whatever slim thread of faith they may have had in left-wing President Pedro Castillo's ability to boost the sector.

It should surprise no one that the first big pandemic-era display of worker power was in air travel, according to Sharan Burrow, head of the International Trade Union Confederation.

Aerospace has turned the page on an unprecedented pandemic demand shock with dozens new orders at its largest air show in three years - only to face mounting worries over supply chains and reminders that its future hinges on decarbonisation.

Europe's thirst for oil and gas to replace sanctioned Russian supply is reviving interest in African energy projects that were shunned due to costs and climate change concerns, industry executives and African officials said.

The global air industry is in the midst of a post-pandemic rebound, but supply chain problems have left suppliers and manufacturers scrambling to source everything from raw materials to small electronic components to keep production moving.

Record temperatures at the Farnborough Airshow this week have ratcheted up pressure on global aviation to shrink airplane emissions and turn a raft of potential solutions - many of which are yet to be proven - into reality.

Differences over how to revive Britain's slow-growth, high-inflation economy could hardly be starker within the ruling Conservative Party as the two remaining contenders to become its new leader, and thereby prime minister, clash over tax.

Debt-laden Italy finds itself in markets' crosshairs again, as the prospect of a collapse in its national unity government coincides with the European Central Bank preparing to deliver its first interest rate rise in 11 years.

Bodyguards could have saved Shinzo Abe if they shielded him or removed him from the line of fire in the 2.5 seconds between a missed first shot and a second round of gunfire that fatally wounded him, according to eight security experts who reviewed footage of the former Japanese leader's assassination.

The European Central Bank is set to deliver its first interest-rate hike since 2011 this week, yet markets are already fast-forwarding to focus on the path for higher rates beyond Thursday as economic prospects darken.

Margaret Thatcher has not been in power since 1990.

Shares of U.S. healthcare companies are gaining favor as investors bank on their ability to weather rocky economic times and the stocks look more reasonably valued than other defensive sectors.

India's inflation will hold above the top of the central bank's tolerance band for at least the rest of 2022, longer than previously thought, making several more interest rate hikes in coming months all but inevitable, a Reuters poll showed.

After a strong showing in an election overshadowed by the killing of former premier Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may have fresh momentum to hike defence spending on a scale beyond the grasp of his slain mentor.

Asian companies are likely to find it harder to refinance dollar-denominated debt, the decline in a key metric suggests, with the currency at a two-decade high and a recent surge in inflation forcing central banks to raise interest rates.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had a conventional rise to power for a Conservative politician: first the elite Eton College, then Oxford University.

The Hungarian forint is expected to gradually recover and add more than 7% in the next year after plunging to fresh record lows this week, a Reuters poll of central European currencies showed on Thursday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was clinging to power on Wednesday, after ministers quit the cabinet following a scandal over whether Johnson's office told the truth about sexual harassment allegations against a lawmaker.

Britain's new finance minister, Iraqi-born Nadhim Zahawi, has inherited a cost-of-living crisis that risks pushing the UK economy into recession.

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority has shown in its blockbuster abortion ruling and other high-profile decisions in recent days that it is fearless when it comes to overturning - and even ignoring - historic precedents.

Asian currencies will wallow in the near-term, analysts forecast this week, with any respite from their first-half losses only likely to come in the form of proactive policy normalization by regional central banks combined with a Chinese recovery.

Saudi Arabia's push for swifter oil production hikes by OPEC+, which were agreed in June, involved behind-the-scenes diplomacy to ensure Russia backed the move that followed U.S.