Portrait of the week: Drought in Europe, property crisis in China and barristers and binmen strike

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Inflation would reach 18.6 per cent by January and the energy price cap £5,816 in April, according to a forecast by Citi, the investment bank. An annual National Grid exercise simulating a gas supply emergency has been extended from two days to four in September. Workers at Felixstowe, Suffolk, Britain’s biggest container port, handling 48 per cent of traffic, went on strike for eight days. Strikes by Scottish dustmen spread from Edinburgh. Barristers belonging to the Criminal Bar Association voted to go on an indefinite strike in England and Wales after their demand for a 25 per cent increase in pay for legal aid work was denied. A man was charged with the murder of Rico Burton (a cousin of the boxer Tyson Fury), who was stabbed to death in Altrincham at 3 a.m. on Sunday. A man was charged with the murder of Thomas O’Halloran, 87, who was stabbed as he rode his mobility scooter at Greenford, Middlesex.