Us treasury secretary janet yellen called the downgrade arbitrary and said Economic Conditions had improved under the biden administration. The news of the downgrade came after the close of trade on wall street but in asia investors have been pulling out of equities in reaction. Lets look at markets now in asia. Japan is currently down by over 2 . Hong kong not that far behind. This was off the back of yesterday, and most of this week we have seen the sharemarket, certainly wall street and asia having a strong session but this is certainly spooked sentiment. Lets discuss this with tom stevenson, whos an Investment Director at fidelity. Good morning. Janet woody allen saying this is arbitrary. I have her statement janet yellen and she said she strongly disagrees and says it is based on outdated data. That is based on outdated data. That is riuht. Is based on outdated data. That is right it is based on outdated data. That is right. It seems is based on outdated data. That is right. It s
southern england and the outlook not looking too bad overall both today and tomorrow. sunny spells in the forecast but also some showers. looking at the satellite picture, the crowd quite broken up across the uk with varied weather conditions. the most frequent showers this afternoon in the north east of england pushing through yorkshire, and later on today these showers becoming spells of rain heading south. temperatures tonight also quite varied because of the cloud cover. temperatures could get as low as 4 degrees but around coastal areas temperatures closer to 10 c. the big picture across europe on thursday and a rather large area of low pressure dominating the scene. more vigorous low pressure heading our way and already to come on friday. so for tomorrow a few showers around once again, not as many as today. the wind a little bit lighter tomorrow with more frequent sunny spells so temperatures also recovering up to 17 in some spots. then a different picture with his big
we start here in the uk where a final battle to become the next prime minister is taking place as the country faces the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. as you ve been hearing, formerfinance minister, rishi sunak, and the foreign secretary, liz truss are the last remaining candidates. they will now face a vote by conservative party members around the uk with a result expected in september. whoever wins could mean a very different approach to the economy. truss says you cannot tax your way to growth she is proposing more than 30 million pounds in immediate tax cuts. sunak wants to delay the tax cuts until inflation is under control. borrowing your way out of inflation , he says, isn t a plan, it s a fairytale . the economic challenges facing the next prime minister are huge. last month, the rate of inflation hit 9.4% the highest rate for a0 years driven by a leap in the price of fuel, and also of basic foods like milk, cheese and eggs. our economics edi
translation: ifeel ashamed in front of my family i m so poor, i can t afford to buy good food. my sons are really thin because they re not eating. and spain, southern france, and parts of italy swelter through an extreme heatwave authorities are warning of water shortages. hello and welcome. president biden has announced an extra $1 billion in military support for ukraine, the largest single military aid package since the war began. the us defence secretary said at a nato meeting on wednesday that he will move heaven and earth to ensure ukraine gets the weapons it needs to combat russia s invasion. in the next half hour, nato defence ministers are set to start reconvening in brussels for the final day of their summit. this is the kind of military aid ukraine says it desperately needs. a billion dollar package including longer range rockets and missile systems. the goal, to help target russian troops and location farther away and bolster ukraine s embattled defence forces, i
plus the crypto crash deepens. could it spell disaster for el salvador s multi million dollar gamble on bitcoin? we start in the us where the federal reserve has announced the biggest rise in borrowing costs in 28 years. the fed raised its key interest rate by three quarters of a percent and signalled more big increases are on the cards. as our correspondent michelle fleury reports, from washington, it s battling to control the worst inflation in four decades. intensifying its five figure inflation which is currently at a a0 year high reserve raised its key interest rate by three quarters of a percentage point to a range of 1.5 to one and three quarters of a percent, move that will push up borrowing costs for and company. us interest rates haven t been hiked by this much in one go since bill clinton was in the white house in 199a, the size of the mood something federal chair reflected on during his press conference. clearly the 75 basis point is an unusually large one a