Companies House collects just £1,250 in fines in corruption crackdown

The UK government agency responsible for overseeing a national register of companies has collected just £1,250 in fines after being given new powers to crack down on corruption, it has emerged.Companies House is implementing a series of reforms, amid embarrassing revelations about fraudsters and jokers signing up to the corporate register with names such as “Darth Vader” and “Santa Claus”.Measures include new identity verification checks for directors, after the agency admitted that up to 20% of the 4.9m companies on its database may have submitted false information.Since last autumn, the agency has also had powers to impose financial penalties for failure to comply with its rules, such as the requirement to file ownership information on time

‘Polyworking’: why do so many millennials have more than one job?

Americans are barely staying ahead of inflation. So how are they dealing with this issue? By working more.That’s one of the biggest takeaways from a new study by Academized, an outsourcing platform that connects writers and students. According to the report, more than half of millennials – who make up the largest percentage of workers in this country – are working more than one job to make extra money. What’s even more eye-raising is that nearly a quarter (24%) of those workers have three jobs and a third (33%) have four or more income-earning opportunities outside their full-time work

Trump’s tariffs may be perilous for small, heavily indebted countries in global south

“This is very messed up. If Trump wants Cambodia to import more American goods: look, we are just a very small country!”Khun Tharo works to promote human rights in the Cambodian garment sector, which employs about 1 million people – many of them women.“I think they are very concerned about their jobs, and I think they are very concerned about their monthly pay cheque. And that has significant effects on the livelihoods of their dependent family,” says Tharo, programme manager at the Centre for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL), a Cambodian workers’ rights organisation.One of the most wilfully destructive aspects of Donald Trump’s shock and awe trade policy is the imposition of punitive tariffs on developing countries across Asia, including rates of 49% for Cambodia, 37% for Bangladesh, 48% for Laos

China, America and pay inject drama into AstraZeneca’s AGM

The boss’s bonus is an annual debating point at Britain’s biggest company. But that’s not the only issue this yearAstraZeneca is used to facing protests over pay at its annual general meetings, given the position of its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, as the best-paid FTSE 100 chief executive for most of the past five years. But pay is not the only issue overshadowing this year’s virtual gathering on Friday.Britain’s biggest listed company, valued at about £170bn, faces investigations in China over import and data breaches, while it ran into controversy when it ditched the planned £450m expansion of its vaccine site in Speke, near Liverpool, in late January, after failing to hammer out a state support package with the UK government.On top of these problems comes the prospect – so far unrealised – of Donald Trump slapping tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry as part of his continuing attack on global trade practices

‘Fundamentally wrong, brutal and paranoid’: how will the world respond to Donald Trump’s tariffs?

On Thursday evening, towards the end of a long week at a textiles factory on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Thi Dieu and her husband were watching the news. More than 8,700 miles away, US president Donald Trump was announcing sweeping, unprecedented tariffs on every country around the world. Nowhere was safe, even the uninhabited Heard Island and McDonald Islands off the western coast of Australia that, for some unexplained reason, were hit with a 10% tariff.His announcement launched a fierce global trade war and triggered a global market meltdown, including on Trump’s own cherished Wall Street, where hundreds of billions of dollars of stock values evaporated.And for Dieu and her husband, it could mean they lose their jobs

China needs friends in Trump’s trade war. But Xi may have to go it alone

Beijing has launched a charm offensive with other countries as US tariffs tighten. If they can’t be won over, it may have no choice but to stimulate its vast domestic marketChina’s leader, Xi Jinping, says he is prepared to dance if it means sidestepping some of the worst of Donald Trump’s trade tariffs. Last week he sent a letter to India’s president, Droupadi Murmu, urging her to join him in a tango to celebrate 75 years of ­bilateral trade.Xi said it was “the right choice” for the two countries to be “partners of mutual achievement and realise the ‘Dragon-Elephant Tango’”, which, he added, “fully serves the fundamental interests of both countries and their peoples.”Beijing is on a wide-ranging charm offensive, aimed at redirecting its exports away from the US to other willing destinations as Washington erects trade barriers