As it happened: Italian elections
Italians cast their ballots in a tight election, with Brussels, Berlin and the markets looking on. By Tom Burgis, Lina Saigol, Ben Fenton and Shannon Bond with contributions from FT correspondents across Italy and beyond. All times are GMT.
Live: Davos Day One
It’s the first day of the World Economic Forum. We’ll keep you up to date. By Tom Burgis, Claire Jones and Ben Fenton in London with dispatches from FT correspondents in Davos. All times are GMT.
18.26 That’s it for the first day of Davos live.
Among the talking points were monetary policy, currency wars and that speech by David Cameron.
The British PM arrived in Switzerland today and is due to talk at 10.30am local time (9.30am UK time) tomorrow.
18.03 Unsurprisingly, the “resilient dynamism” (see 10.09) theme of this year’s Davos hasn’t gone down too well with the British press pack:
Klaus Schwab, Davos chief, says Christine Lagarde is the embodiment of WEF theme of “resilient dynamism”. I might be sick
@ChrisGiles_
Chris Giles
#wef Christine Lagarde is up to try and explain the conference’s unfathomable theme of “resilient dynamism” So far she ‘s struggling
@jeremywarnerUK
jeremy warner
17.48 The IMF’s managing director Christine Lagarde took the stage after Mario Monti and she’s just taken a swipe at Cameron:
17.40 Gideon Rachman’s analysis of the Italian PM’s reaction to Cameron’s speech:
Gideon Rachman: His line that Europe does not need reluctant Europeans will be spun as anti-Cameron. But, in context, I think Monti was trying to be positive.The Italian PM said Cameron was right that “prosperity and growth have to be priority number one” and that he was confident “Britain will vote to stay inside” in the event of a referendum. He also said it’s good that Cameron will ask the “fundamental” question of whether nations are in or out and that this will provoke Brits to make a proper analysis of costs and benefits.
Live: eurozone crisis
Welcome to our live coverage of the eurozone crisis. We’ll bring you all the developments. By Tom Burgis and Ben Fenton in London with contributions from FT correspondents across the world. All times are GMT.
17.37: As the EU’s political leaders get down to talks, we are closing down the live blog for today, but it will be up again bright and early tomorrow to pick up on whatever is decided overnight. Meanwhile, elsewhere on FT.com you’ll be able to find coverage of the summit kept fresh by our sleep-deprived Brussels team.
17.29 More bleak news for the UK’s Triple A credit rating, via FT markets editor Chris Adams:
17.24 More twists and turns in this tale of what said what to whom about the Italian elections at the centre-right EPP’s pre-summit meeting today (see 15.49 and 17.06).
Antonio Tajani, the Italian EU commissioner and a Berlusconi ally, is quoted by Italian news agency Adnkronos as saying that none of the leaders of the EPP “expressly asked Monti to be a candidate”.
“Everyone spoke well of Monti but no one wants to interfere.”
US election round-up, Wednesday October 24
President Barack Obama at a rally in the swing state of Ohio. (AFP/Getty)
Welcome to the US election news round-up on the day that the candidates switched from sparring over military planning to blitzing the battlegrounds of the ‘burbs.
The debates are done. A fortnight from now, we’ll know whether Mitt Romney has evicted Barack Obama from the White House. Unless, of course, it’s 2000 all over again and the nail-chewing lasts for 36 days.
So narrow are the margins in some states that 10 are “toss ups”, according to the rolling average of polls by RealClearPolitics.com. All 10 voted for Obama in 2008, including four – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada – that he won with double-digit margins. Read more
US election round-up, October 4
Photo: Getty
Good morning and welcome to the daily presidential election news coverage round-up. As the dust settles after last night’s opening debate between the candidates in Denver, the consensus is: first blood to Mitt Romney. The question is whether that will translate into helping the challenger narrow Barack Obama’s lead in the polls. That will take a day or two to emerge. But an immediate CNN poll gave the spoils emphatically to the Republican hopeful, with two-thirds of respondents deeming Romney the victor and only a quarter handing the bout to Obama.
After he came out aggressively in a debate that featured more sparring over economic policy detail than rhetorical pile-drivers, Politico.com concludes that:
What Romney definitely did was earn himself a second look from the slim pool of undecided and persuadable voters still considering their options, and give himself a tighter messaging framework to use, if he is able to, before the next debate in New York two weeks from now.
Eurozone live: German justice, Dutch election
Welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone crisis. German judges have ruled in favour of the eurozone’s rescue plans – albeit with conditions, Dutch voters are going to the polls and Brussels publishes plans for eurozone-wide banking supervision. By Tom Burgis, John Aglionby and Ruona Agbroko on the London newsdesk with contributions by FT correspondents around the world. All times are BST.
16.51 That’s a wrap for our live coverage of a big day in the eurozone. The message of the past week seems to be: all hail the ECB. See ft.com for more news and analysis through the evening. We leave you with a last summary of the market mood from Ralph Atkins, the FT’s capital markets editor.
Markets have reacted positively to today’s news but it had largely been priced-in – the party took place last week. Spanish 10 year bond yields which have fallen by some 200 basis points since late July dropped a further six points. Spanish two year bonds were down 10 basis points. Shares rose initially, but the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index is closing more or less unchanged at 1108.0.
16.26 In Frankfurt, FT bureau chief and eurozone economics guru Michael Steen has been assessing the impact for the ECB of moving into the murky world of banking regulation.
By taking on oversight of eurozone bank supervision, the ECB can at best hope to prevent situations arising in which a bank needs to be bailed out and its depositors repaid. But, as people inside the ECB have themselves acknowledged, supervision is very far removed from the intellectual world of setting interest rates.
“When you deal with banks, you deal with politics. Automatically,” one senior ECB official said. “It’s very dangerous.”
The full piece is coming soon to ft.com/europe Read more
Timeline: Assassinated Iranian scientists
At least five Iranian scientists believed to have links to the country’s nuclear programme have been attacked in the past two years, four of them fatally.
Iran maintains that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes; western powers say Tehran is seeking to develop atomic weapons. Read more
Eurozone crisis: live blog
Welcome back to our live coverage of the eurozone crisis. By Tom Burgis and Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura on the newsdesk in London, with contributions from FT correspondents around the world. All times are GMT.
A summit in Brussels ended in deep division, with the UK refusing to back a new treaty for all 27 EU members and leaving the eurozone countries plus at least six others to forge ahead with a pact of their own to enshrine strict new rules on deficits and debt. It was meant to be the summit that would decisively chart a course out of the eurozone’s debt crisis.
19.03 That’s the end of our live coverage today. We’ll leave you with a quick summary of the day’s developments. See FT.com for more news and analysis through the evening.
Eurozone crisis: live blog
Welcome back to our live coverage of the eurozone crisis. By Tom Burgis on the newsdesk in London, with contributions from FT correspondents around the world. All times are GMT.
18.25 That’s the end of our live coverage of the eurozone crisis today. We’ll be back tomorrow morning for a day that includes the ECB rates decision and Mario Draghi’s press conference, as well as the meeting of centre-right European leaders in Marseille ahead of the start of the EU summit in Brussels in the evening. And, just as the leaders tuck in their napkins for a working dinner, the European banking authority will unveil the details of which banks need to raise what capital.
We’ll leave you with a round-up of today’s developments. Read more
Eurozone crisis: live blog
Welcome to our continuing coverage of the eurozone crisis. All times are GMT. By Tom Burgis, James Crabtree and John Aglionby on the news desk in London, with contributions from FT correspondents around the world.
The turmoil in the eurozone has taken a troubling turn in recent days, with anxiety spreading from Europe’s periphery to its “core” countries. Even as Italy’s Mario Monti readies his economic agenda to be presented today, investors are looking at France, the Netherlands and Austria with increasing unease and wondering whether the ECB might yet ride to the rescue. Over in Greece, today is the anniversary of 1973′s mass student protests – with demonstrators once more planning to take to the streets. And the bond markets are showing ever more strain, with today’s Spanish bond auction souring sentiment still further. Read more
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