Happy Thursday and welcome to your wrap of the key headlines from around the world.
First this morning, multiple major news websites are leading with Hong Kong’s deadly high-rise fire, which has spread across seven apartment buildings.
The BBC reported that the death toll has risen to 36, with at least 279 people unaccounted for.
More than 700 firefighters are at the scene trying to tackle the blaze at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po District, which began yesterday.
The residential complex houses 4600 people, and Tai Po District councillor Mui Siu-fung has told BBC Chinese that thousands of people have been evacuated to shelters.
It is still unclear how many people are trapped inside the building or what caused the fire.
To the United Kingdom now, where sovereign borrowing costs seesawed before falling after the country’s Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) unexpectedly published its economic and fiscal forecast ahead of the Labour government’s Autumn Budget, CNBC reported.
UK bond yields, which have an inverted relationship with their face value, were now down across the board as the fiscal watchdog gave details of the government's tax-raising measures. These included freezes on income tax thresholds, taxes on private pension contributions that exceed £2000 a year, new distance-based taxes on electric vehicles, and an annual tax on homes valued above £2 million.
Meanwhile, the tax rate on dividends, property and savings income will increase.
As she began delivering the Budget, Finance Minister Rachel Reeves labelled the early release as “deeply disappointing and a serious error on their part”.
Among the new initiatives announced were tax breaks for start-ups and the removal of a so-called two-child limit on welfare.
The OBR has lowered its UK growth forecast by 30 basis points, citing lower underlying productivity growth, saying it now expects gross domestic product to grow by an average of 0.5% over the coming five years.
“This represents a significant fiscal tightening that the UK economy will feel for the next five years,” Allianz Trade senior UK economist Maxime Darmet said.
The British pound has gained against the US dollar in response to the Budget, while UK stocks have staged a late rally after initially sliding.
Turning to Israel, and hundreds of Israeli soldiers have conducted raids in a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank in the biggest military deployment since the Gaza ceasefire came into effect last month, The Guardian reported.
Palestinian media reported that a curfew was imposed on Tuesday night in the town of Tubas. Roads were closed by earthen barriers, and families forced from their homes to allow Israeli forces to use the buildings.
Israel’s military and internal security services, in a joint statement, said they had launched a “broad counter-terrorism operation” that was expected to continue for several days.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that leaflets distributed by the Israeli military in the area informed people that it had become a “haven for terrorism”.
In business news, the two largest shareholders of the dating app Grindr have withdrawn their proposed US$3.46 billion ($6.08b) offer to take the company private after the company ended talks over financing concerns, Reuters reported.
Ray Zage and James Lu, who together own more than 60% of Grindr’s shares, offered US$18 per share last month, which was a 51% premium over its last traded price at the time.
Nicolas Sarkozy.
But the company’s special committee ended talks earlier this week because it was unable to “obtain satisfactory information about definitive financing”.
The pair said they had strong interest from lenders and investors to support the deal, but did not name names.
Zage formally withdrew the proposal overnight. He urged the board to expand its stock buyback and consider dividends.
Finally, France’s top court has upheld former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction for illegal campaign financing of his 2012 re-election bid, Associated Press reported.
The decision by the Court of Cassation confirmed his sentence of a year in prison, half of it suspended, for fraudulently overspending on the failed campaign.
The decision comes just two weeks after Sarkozy’s release from prison pending an appeal in another campaign financing case. The 70-year-old was incarcerated for 20 days after he was convicted of scheming to get secret financing from Libya in his winning campaign for the presidency in 2007. He has denied any wrongdoing.
