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Today’s agenda: Inside China’s mega iPhone factory; Blair’s postwar Gaza role; UK’s two-child benefit cap; and Russian spy ship stalking Europe’s waters.
Good morning. We start with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has called on the EU to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine’s war effort.
New financial impetus: Writing in the Financial Times, Merz insisted the bloc must find a legal mechanism to use the assets and “make these funds available for the defence of Ukraine”.
He argued the move could unlock a €140bn loan for Kyiv and show “staying power” against Russian aggression, adding that it was imperative to “systematically and massively raise the costs of Russia’s aggression”.
Change of tune: In a reversal of Berlin’s previous scepticism about tapping seized Russian assets, Merz said the loan should be used to fund military equipment, with EU governments deciding on procurement alongside Kyiv. Member states, including Germany, have long resisted confiscating the assets, citing financial and legal risks.
The appeal from the leader of Europe’s largest economy and Ukraine’s biggest backer comes as the European Commission examines options to leverage the €194bn worth of Russian assets held at Euroclear, Belgium’s central security depository. Read the full story.
Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today and over the weekend:
UN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to give a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York today, followed by a meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday.
Latvia: Two-day Nato military committee conference begins in Riga today.
E3: Deadline expires tomorrow on the 30-day process for Britain, France and Germany to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.
Moldova: Parliamentary elections are held on Sunday.
UK: Labour party conference begins in Liverpool on Sunday until October 1.
How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.
Five more top stories
1. Exclusive: Chinese factory staff assembling Apple’s latest iPhone face precarious conditions, working many hours of overtime, suffering wage delays and discrimination against ethnic minorities, according to a leading labour rights group. Read more on Eleanor Olcott’s undercover investigation at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant.
TikTok split: The social media app’s US unit will be valued at about $14bn under Donald Trump’s deal to force its divestiture from its Chinese parent.
‘Cease and disable’: Microsoft has stopped providing some services to the Israeli military after a probe into the use of its products to surveil Palestinian civilians.
2. The US justice department has filed charges against James Comey after pressure from Trump to prosecute the former FBI director who investigated contacts between the president’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Read more on the case.
3. Sir Tony Blair is seeking to play a senior role in running postwar Gaza under a peace plan being developed by the Trump administration, according to people briefed on the proposal, with one saying the former UK prime minister would like to be on the supervisory board. Read more on Blair’s potential role.
4. Germany’s new deregulation tsar has vowed to be more subtle than his former US counterpart Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency wreaked havoc shutting down state-funded programmes. Karsten Wildberger’s appointment comes as Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made cutting red tape a cornerstone of his plan to revive the economy. Read the full interview.
Sweetener from Milan: Italian bank UniCredit is open to making its board more German if it helps swing a takeover of Commerzbank, a cross-border deal that has been fiercely opposed by Berlin.
5. Exclusive: UK ministers are examining plans to either overhaul or scrap the two-child benefit cap, amid growing pressure from Labour MPs to jettison one of the most contentious welfare policies of the past decade. Here are the approaches being debated on and the costs.
FT Investigation
© FT montage/PA/Planet Labs/CIA
Russian espionage operations around the British Isles and off the coast of Scandinavia pose a grave threat to critical undersea cables, presenting a dilemma for Nato allies on how to respond. Read more on the spy ship stalking Europe’s waters.
We’re also reading . . .
Nicolas Sarkozy: The former French president has been sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy in a trial over accusations that he took campaign contributions from Libyan dictator Muammer Gaddafi.
Trade curbs: Taiwan has suspended chip export controls on South Africa days after it made unprecedented use of the island nation’s technological dominance for diplomatic retaliation.
Climate tirade: Trump’s geoeconomic energy fight with China spells more upheaval for business and risk for the planet, writes Gillian Tett.
World’s break-up capital: A recent court ruling is expected to bring a new flood of “divorce tourists” to London seeking higher payouts.
Chart of the day
A study has shown that voters and mainstream politicians have long been aligned on economic issues such as tax and public ownership, writes John Burn-Murdoch. But on sociocultural issues such as immigration and criminal justice there is a yawning gulf. The result is the opening up of a wide “representation gap” into which the populist right is rapidly expanding.
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Take a break from the news . . .
The Lapalala Wilderness Reserve in Limpopo Province, three hours north of Johannesburg by car, is a sanctuary for lions, rhinos, giraffes and antelopes. It is also home to Lepogo Lodges, one of the few entirely not-for-profit safari lodges in South Africa. As impressive as the scenery are the retreat’s pioneering efforts in protecting wildlife and indigenous culture.
© Dana Allen
