The three countries that helped Moscow to maintain crude exports in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine appear to be stepping back into the market for Russian barrels, with Turkey taking a lead role in the latest buying, Bloomberg News reported. A marked increase in the volume of crude on tankers that have yet to signal a final destination makes the task of monitoring Russia’s exports more complicated, but most of those vessels end up in India, with a smaller number heading further east to China.

Corporate insolvencies in the UK rose 16% in September compared to a year earlier as experts warn more firms will fold under the pressure of weak consumer demand and rising borrowing costs, Bloomberg News reported. The Insolvency Service said Friday that 1,679 companies registered for insolvency last month, up from 1,453 in September 2021. It was a reprieve from August when insolvencies shot up 43% on an annual basis. Still, companies face a tough winter amid Britain’s cost-of-living crisis and increasing interest rates.

Kwasi Kwarteng was thrown out as Chancellor of the Exchequer after just 38 days, but he spent more than a decade promoting his small-state, low-tax vision for the UK that proved his downfall -- and which may still cost Prime Minister Liz Truss her job as well, Bloomberg News reported. Neighbors in southeast London and allies in book-writing before rising through government to the two most powerful positions in British politics, Truss on Friday jettisoned Kwarteng, 47, in a desperate bid to save her premiership.

Britain's new finance minister Jeremy Hunt faces an early test of his attempt to stem the crisis of confidence in Prime Minister Liz Truss on Monday when the bond market delivers its verdict on his weekend overhaul of her economic programme, Reuters reported. Truss fired her friend Kwasi Kwarteng and named Hunt as her new chancellor of the exchequer on Friday in the hope of recovering some economic policy credibility and staying in Downing Street, little more than month after she moved in.

The shareholders of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on Friday selected Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko as the next rotating chair of the boards of governors of both institutions in 2023, Reuters reported. The decision, which was announced during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, means that Marchenko will also chair next year's annual meeting of the institutions, which is scheduled to be held in Morocco.

Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena said a new share sale to raise up to 2.5 billion euros ($2.4 billion) would cost it 132 million euros, mostly due to fees paid to financial institutions backstopping the issue, Reuters reported. Monte dei Paschi (MPS) said it was set to pay 125 million euros in fees to a group of eight banks led by global coordinators Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Mediobanca, plus London-based fund Algebris.

U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss’s administration is preparing to abandon a central part of its tax-cutting agenda following weeks of chaos in financial markets, Bloomberg News reported. Officials at 10 Downing Street and the Treasury are drafting options for Truss, but no final decision has been taken, according to a person familiar. The premier could scrap her pledge to keep corporation tax unchanged next year, and instead raise it as planned by her predecessor Boris Johnson.

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Ukraine needs between $3 billion and $4 billion a month in external aid to make sure its government doesn’t collapse as it fights an increasingly brutal war against Russia, The Hill reported. “Our preliminary estimate is that somewhere between three and four billion dollars are necessary on a monthly basis,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said at an annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Irish inflation moderated to 8.2 per cent in September from 8.7. per cent in August, the second consecutive monthly decline in the annual rate of consumer price increase, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Thursday, the Irish Times reported. Prices have been rising steadily since April last year, triggering the worst cost of living squeeze in decades with consumer price inflation topping five per cent for 12 months in a row. The headline inflation rate declined 9.1 per cent in August to 8.7 per cent in September, the first drop-off in seven months.

The Bank of England said Wednesday that its program of bond purchases to support U.K. pension funds would end Friday as planned, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The governor confirmed this position yesterday and it has been made absolutely clear in contact with the banks at senior levels,” the BOE said. The central bank began buying U.K. government bonds on Sept. 28 after an unpopular package of tax cuts sent jitters through the country’s markets. The volatility sparked margin calls for pension funds that use a strategy known as liability-driven investing, or LDIs.