Bitcoin and other digital currencies are not “a fraud,” the chief executive of app-based bank Revolut told CNBC, ahead of the start-up’s plans to launch a range of services for cryptocurrencies. The firm’s CEO gave an alternative view to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has called the phenomenon a “fraud” that will “blow up.” “They […]
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Saudi Arabia reportedly agrees to buy $7 billion in precision munitions from US firms
Saudi Arabia has agreed to buy about $7 billion worth of precision-guided munitions from U.S. defense contractors, sources familiar with the matter said, a deal that some lawmakers may object to over American weapons having contributed to civilian deaths in the Saudi campaign in Yemen. Raytheon Co and Boeing Co are the companies selected, the […]
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European markets seen higher ahead of data; political uncertainty returns
European equities are seen slightly higher on Friday morning amid lower liquidity levels due to the Thanksgiving holiday. The FTSE 100 is seen up by 0.2 points at 7,412; the DAX is expected to start up by 13 points at 12,009 and the CAC 40 is set to open up by 1.3 points at 5,376, […]
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How Islamic State’s defeat could result in ‘ISIS 2.0 or Al Qaeda 3.0’
Islamic State (ISIS) is looking a shadow of its former self, having lost almost all trace of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq. But experts are predicting that the militant organization will regroup and return should the political and physical reconstruction of those two countries be unsuccessful. Fearful of a resurgence of ISIS and […]
Read moreThe Irish government was on the verge of collapse on Thursday after the party whose votes Prime Minister Leo Varadkar depends on to pass legislation said it would move to remove the deputy prime minister in a breach of their cooperation agreement. The crisis comes weeks ahead of a European Union summit in which the […]
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“WE USED to be so dismissed,” says Jeremy Stoppelman, the boss of Yelp, an online-review site which has waged a six-year-long battle against Google over how the online giant ranks its search results. Now American regulators are taking concerns about Google more seriously. On November 13th, Josh Hawley, Missouri’s attorney-general, launched an investigation into the […]
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FORGET the “resource curse”. Australia is blessed with the stuff. For more than a quarter of a century it has not had a recession, thanks largely to Chinese demand for its raw materials. It is only a few years since the end of one such China-led boom, in base metals such as iron ore. A […]
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ITALY seems an unlikely place to be enjoying a boom in new listings on the stockmarket. It is full of family-run small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that mostly rely for their finance on banks; and Italy’s banks are notorious for the bad debts still lingering on their balance-sheets. But Borsa Italiana, Milan’s stock exchange, has […]
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WHAT does France’s corporate establishment make of the change in fortunes of Patrick Drahi, a telecoms billionaire who achieved brief greatness before crashing to earth? In August he was reported to be planning a $185bn bid for Charter Communications, America’s second-largest cable operator, which is part-owned by John Malone, a famous cable investor. This month […]
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AT SHINTOMI nursing home in Tokyo, men and women sit in a circle following exercise instructions before singing along to a famous children’s song, “Yuyake Koyake” (“The Glowing Sunset”). They shout out and clap enthusiastically even though the activities are being led, not by a human fitness guru, but by Pepper, a big-eyed humanoid robot […]
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