Author: staff

The UK insurance firm Aviva has improved on an earlier deal rejected by its smaller competitor Direct Line. Direct Line has agreed a takeover offer from Aviva that will pave the way for the combined group to own a fifth of the UK motor insurance market.The bid, which values Direct Line at £3.6bn, entails Aviva paying 275p per share.This comes after Direct Line rejected Aviva’s lower offer of 250p last week, stating that it “substantially undervalued the company”.On the terms of the new offer, Aviva would pay 129.7p in cash, and 0.2867 new Aviva shares would be issued for each…

But he was asked by ITV News whether he will donate £80 million to Reform as he arrived on Capitol Hill to meet Republican lawmakers Thursday, and replied: “No.” Farage — an ally of Donald Trump, who has tapped up Musk for a government efficiency drive — this week brushed aside talk of any donation as “entirely theoretical” and “pure speculation,” stressing he has never asked Musk for money. However, the Reform UK leader did not rule out support from the U.S. president-elect or Musk in the future: “Are Trump and Elon going to support me in the run up…

Yoon Suk-yeol appears to be losing his last remaining support after declaring a short-lived martial law order that shocked the country. Members of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s own People Power Party (PPP) said the leader posed a “significant risk” to South Korean citizens and called for his powers to be frozen during a party meeting on Friday. Yoon was likely to engage in “extreme actions, like reattempting to impose martial law, which could potentially put the Republic of Korea and its citizens in great danger,” PPP’s leader, Han Dong-hun, said. “It’s my judgment that an immediate suspension of President…

Sollicitée par POLITICO, la direction de Don’t Nod déclare simplement poursuivre “les négociations avec les représentants des salariés”. Privés d’aides publiques Du côté du patronat, la chute du gouvernement Barnier et la mise sur pause de l’examen du budget 2025, qui prorogeait le crédit d’impôt jeu vidéo (CIJV) jusqu’en 2031, est un coup dur. Et cela pourrait être une bonne raison pour dégraisser, face à la crise économique qui s’annonce. “Si l’absence d’aides publiques empêche notre industrie de tenir, c’est peut-être aux patrons de se remettre en question”, déplore un membre du STJV auprès de POLITICO. Chez Don’t Nod notamment,…

Storm Darragh is affecting severe travel disruptions at one of Europe’s main airports Schiphol Airport has advised passengers to prepare for delays and cancellations, due to ongoing weather conditions and severe winds caused by storm Darragh.So far, more than 100 flights have been cancelled after severe winds grounded planes this morning, and more could be expected during the afternoon, depending on how the weather develops. Schiphol Airport advises to expect delaysThe airport’s website currently shows most upcoming departures as either cancelled or delayed by at least one hour and the airport says to “take delays and cancellations into account”. Dutch…

Finally. After months of paralysis, the new leadership team in Brussels is up and running. Then again, the power trio of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas might already be out of date, reflecting centrist majorities that don’t really exist anymore and pushing for support for Ukraine that’s already on the wane in the age of Donald Trump. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO’s own power trio of reporters — Barbara Moens, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nick Vinocur — to debate whether the new dynamic in Brussels can face…

There are growing concerns about the crop in Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s biggest coffee producers. Coffee prices have hit a 47-year high. That is as a result of commodity market futures (contracts to buy or sell in the future at a given price) for the Arabica coffee recently reaching $3.35 per ounce (453 grams). That is 70% more than at the beginning of the year, and levels not seen since 1977.Prices have been pushed up because of fears about the effects of extreme weather and intense droughts in top coffee-producer countries such as Brazil and Vietnam. The latter has experienced a…

So majestic in fact, that everyone wants a piece of it. The poor animal has had no peace since it was built for the first time in 1966: Of 58 goats, only 16 have made it intact to Christmas day. Some were beaten with clubs, shot with flaming arrows or run over; others were eaten by birds and one was targeted by two mysterious men who planned to kidnap it with a helicopter — they even tried to bribe Mats the security guard a whopping €4,300 (50,000 kronor) to do it. Thankfully, Nordic security guards have too much integrity —…

“White-collar criminals and tax evaders with resources such as expensive law firms are dismissed too quickly from criminal proceedings,” Anne Brorhilker, the former lead prosecutors in Germany’s cum-ex proceedings who stepped back earlier this year, said in an interview. “The financial lobby in Germany is so strong and has so many resources to push through its interests that a counterweight is needed,” she added in view of her career switch to NGO Finanzwende. Within the cum-ex investigations, charges have been brought against a total of 18 defendants in 11 proceedings while a total of 133 investigations involving around 1,700 defendants…

“The number one issue is not NATO, not even Ukraine, as serious as that is. The number one issue is the displacement of Chinese exports that are going to the U.S. and will now go to Europe,” said Anthony Gardner, who served as U.S. ambassador to the European Union just before Trump’s first mandate. “There probably will be a significant displacement effect at an incredibly fragile time, where many industries are barely scraping by. That will have enormous consequences, potentially promoting deindustrialization and populist parties, a drift to the right as these people search for answers, often extreme answers to…