Britain has called on banks to support households finding it difficult to make payments on mortgages during the cost of living crisis.

More than 60% of those born in the 1950s and 1960s were homeowners by age 30, but only 36% of those born in the 1980s were.

The European Commission is likely to approve next week Hungary's post-pandemic recovery plan to keep open the possibility of EU disbursements later, but hold back any payouts until Budapest fulfils all agreed conditions, sources at the EU executive said.

British economic activity fell at close to its fastest pace in nearly two years in November, adding to signs of recession as orders sank and employment growth slowed, a survey showed on Wednesday.

In an upscale Seoul neighbourhood two years ago, a white Tesla Model X smashed into a parking lot wall.

British finance minister Jeremy Hunt appears to have delayed the "properly tough" decisions needed to balance the public finances, possibly in the hope of an economic upturn that will reduce the need for a painful squeeze, a think-tank said.

Britain will provide 13.6 billion pounds ($16.1 billion) of support to retail, hospitality and leisure companies facing higher business rate bills next year, to help them through the recession and a fall in consumer spending.

Higher interest rates can also boost a currency because investors are encouraged to bring money into the country to benefit from higher returns.

Human rights groups are mobilising against the death sentence by stoning of a woman in Sudan.

The BoE intervention followed criticism Tuesday from the IMF, which argued that Britain's budget could increase inequality and worsen inflation.

British opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer will on Tuesday lay out his plans to spur economic growth and end what he called a cycle of crisis, saying his party now stood for "sound money" in contrast to the Conservative government.

Britain on Wednesday announced a six-month plan to pay about half of energy bills for businesses.

The Bank of England looks set to raise interest rates by at least half a percentage point on Thursday in a bid to tame inflation that is just off a 40-year high, against a backdrop of a tumbling currency and a free-spending government.

Britain's economy grew by less than expected in July, raising the risk that it is already in a recession, with the sharp climb in energy tariffs hurting demand for electricity and a leap in the cost of materials hitting the construction sector.

Kenya in tense wait for Supreme Court verdict on election

Australian house prices will fall sharply this year and next as rising mortgage rates and cost of living pressures drag on demand, a Reuters poll found, but for many people buying a home will still remain far out of reach.

UK household incomes are set to fall 10 percent in real terms in the next two years in the steepest such drop for a century.

Mikhail Gorbachev was mourned in the West on Wednesday as a towering statesman who helped to end the Cold War, but his death received a cool response in Russia, engaged in a war with Ukraine to regain some of the power it lost when he presided over the Soviet Union's collapse.

Fuel price hikes, scarce rice add to hardship in Myanmar

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.

The Bank of England will deliver another bumper 50 basis points (bps) increase to borrowing costs next month but then slow the pace to a more regular 25 basis point rise in November before pausing, a Reuters poll forecast.

Stood on her hind legs to greet any prospective owner who might approach her glass-doored kennel, Harriet is a black English cocker spaniel abandoned as a deepening cost-of-living crisis pushes growing numbers of Britons to part with their pets.

UK households have faced unprecedented blows to their living standards in 2022.

The Bank of England raised interest rates by the most in 27 years on Thursday in an attempt to smother surging inflation on track to top 13%, even as it warned a long recession is coming.

Australian home prices slid for a third month in July and the pace quickened as Sydney suffered its worst decline in almost 40 years amid rising borrowing costs and a cost-of-living crisis.

Former finance minister Sunak has denounced Truss's "fairy tale economics", vowing to tame surging inflation first, but has admitted that he is the "underdog" against the foreign secretary.

Almost half of Britons are changing what they buy to feed their families as they try to navigate a worsening cost-of-living crisis, according to survey data published on Wednesday.

The basic idea is that the consistent ratcheting up of workers' pay to match inflation and cost of living increases leads to firms raising prices to protect their profit margins.

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.

The resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson deepens the uncertainty hanging over Britain's economy, already under strain from an inflation rate heading for double digits, the risk of a recession and Brexit.