No recommendation
No news or research item is a personal recommendation to deal. Hargreaves Lansdown may not share ShareCast's (powered by Digital Look) views.
(Sharecast News) - UK prime minister Keir Starmer has said Andrew MountbattenWindsor should give evidence to the US Congress regarding his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to The Guardian.
Speaking in Japan after talks with prime minister Sanae Takaichi, Starmer was asked whether the former prince should apologise to Epstein's victims and provide testimony about what he knew of the financier's crimes. MountbattenWindsor was stripped of his titles last year following renewed scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein.
The Guardian reported that the king's brother features prominently in the latest batch of Epsteinrelated documents released by the US justice department. One image appears to show him crouching over a woman lying on the floor, while emails suggest he invited Epstein to Buckingham Palace in September 2010 - two years after Epstein's conviction for soliciting minors.
Calls are mounting within Iran for an independent investigation into the number of people killed during recent protests, after the government said it would take charge of publishing the names of the dead, The Guardian reported.
The announcement was framed as an effort to counter allegations that crimes against humanity had been committed and that as many as 30,000 people had been killed. Official figures from the Martyr's Foundation put the death toll at 3,117, including security personnel.
Reformist voices cited by The Guardian said the governmentled identification process lacked transparency and was unlikely to resolve the dispute over the true number of fatalities.
Donald Trump said Iran was now "seriously talking" to the US following repeated warnings of potential military action, according to reporting from The Independent. His comments came as Iran's supreme leader cautioned that any confrontation with Washington could spiral into a wider regional conflict.
Trump declined to confirm whether he had made a "final decision" on the possible use of force, but suggested Tehran was shifting towards diplomacy. Asked whether Iran might feel emboldened by the US holding back, he said: "some people think that and some people don't. If you could make a negotiated deal that would be satisfactory with no nuclear weapons they should do that [...] But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us."
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky signalled that planned trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the US were likely to be delayed until next week as Washington focuses on the "situation with Iran", The Independent reported.
In his nightly address, Zelensky said Kyiv was awaiting further details from the US on the timing and location of the next round of negotiations. He had already warned that Sunday's expected meeting could slip due to rising tensions between Washington and Tehran.
"We are in constant communication with the American side and are expecting specific details from them regarding further meetings," he said. "We are counting on meetings next week and are preparing for them."
Heathrow will receive roughly 900m in business rates relief over the next three years, according to reporting from The Times, a move that has triggered renewed criticism from hospitality groups, which described the current system as a "crazy, distorting and broken" regime.
The paper said the UK's largest airport, which is owned by a consortium of overseas sovereign wealth and pension funds, will benefit from socalled transitional relief, which means a single company will absorb more than 20% of the 4.3bn package unveiled by chancellor Rachel Reeves in November to help firms manage higher rates bills.
Industry bodies told The Times the scale of the discount underscored longstanding concerns about how the business rates system allocates relief across sectors.
Artemis, the largest shareholder in International Personal Finance, has criticised the lender's agreed 543m takeover and warned that the London market risks losing yet another established listed company, according to The Times.
The fund manager, which holds 13.7% of IPF, told the paper it was concerned that UKlisted businesses continue to be bought out at what it sees as depressed valuations, while IPO activity remains thin. IPF, spun out of Provident Financial in 2007, first received an approach in July before recommending an allcash offer from US specialist lender BasePoint Capital in December.
Under the terms of the deal, shareholders were set to receive 235p per share - a 31% premium to its 179.2p closing price recorded in late July when the initial proposal emerged.