Headlines

Until recently, a cargo ship called Blade Runner Two would frequently carry 279-foot-long wind turbine blades from a factory on the Isle of Wight to the nearby English mainland. The island, about a mile off Britain’s south coast, cannot be reached by rail or road, but the voyage of the huge blades showed that the Isle of Wight’s isolation had not stopped it from contributing to the country’s economy, the New York Times reported. In recent months, though, Blade Runner Two has made few voyages.

Ireland recorded 618 corporate insolvency appointments in the first nine months of 2025, a 5% decrease on the same period last year, according to new figures from Deloitte Ireland, BusinessPlus.ie reported. Quarterly activity remained steady, with 206 cases in Q1, 201 in Q2 and 211 in Q3. James Anderson, Turnaround & Restructuring Partner at Deloitte, said the overall decline masked a shift in underlying trends. “The decrease in insolvency activity levels in the first 9 months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 highlights interesting trends.

New Zealand’s Institute of IT Professionals has discovered it is insolvent and advised members it has no alternative but to enter liquidation, TheRegister.com reported. The Institute (ITP) wrote to members on Thursday and posted a document titled “Important Update on ITP’s Future” that reveals it has “reached a point where the organization cannot continue. After a full review of our finances, the Board has confirmed that ITP is insolvent.” Insolvency seems to have come as something of a surprise. “These debts are historic. They go back over many years.

South Korea’s headline inflation rebounded in September, lifted by higher services and food costs, but remained close to the central bank’s 2% target, the Wall Street Journal reported. The slightly stronger-than-expected but still subdued inflation is unlikely to prompt any material change in the central bank’s easing policy stance. The benchmark consumer-price index rose 2.1% from a year earlier, accelerating from August’s 1.7% increase, the statistics office said Thursday. On a month-over-month basis, CPI rose 0.5% in September, versus the poll’s forecast of a 0.4% rise.

The number of people out of work in Germany rose more than expected in September, labour office figures showed on Tuesday, as the job market struggles to recover in a continually weak economy, Reuters reported. In seasonally adjusted terms, the jobless figure rose by 14,000 to 2.98 million. The non-adjusted number of unemployed people in Germany last month passed the 3 million mark for the first time in a decade but fell by about 70,000 to 2.95 million again in September.

Inflation in Switzerland remained close to zero last month, according to figures released a week after the Swiss National Bank paused a series of rate cuts, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 0.2% higher in September than the same month of last year, matching the rate of inflation in August, Switzerland’s statistics agency said Thursday. The Swiss central bank left its key interest rate at zero at its latest meeting at the end of last month, ending a sequence of six straight cuts.

Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry has asked the federal government for a capital injection into Eletronuclear to prevent the company's imminent insolvency, adding to the long-running financial strain of the unfinished Angra 3 nuclear plant in Rio de Janeiro. In a letter dated Monday and seen by Reuters, Minister Alexandre Silveira told the Finance, Planning and Management ministries that planned investments to maintain Angra 3 equipment and facilities were entirely cut from the 2026 budget.

The European Union's financial risk watchdog called on Thursday for urgent safeguards on stablecoins only partly issued in the bloc, echoing a warning from the European Central Bank, which is worried that their failure could induce a run on reserves, Reuters reported. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value by being pegged to a reserve asset such as a currency or basket of assets.

The International Monetary Fund sees a mixed inflation picture globally as companies in the U.S. and other tariff-raising countries have so far absorbed much of the higher duties, while demand remains suppressed in major exporting countries like China, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Kozack told a regular press briefing that the global economy has shown resilience in the face of uncertainty over tariffs as the IMF and World Bank Group prepare for their annual meetings in Washington later this month.