WALK down the streets of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, and at first sight the passers-by look rather uniform. The women are in tidy skirt suits and medium-high heels. The men sport variations on the theme of the jacket and wide trousers preferred by Kim Jong Un, the country’s leader. Government-mandated lapel pins with portraits of […]
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When they are not fretting about the American dollar or Chinese debt, policymakers in emerging economies keep a close eye on the oil market. The price of Brent crude has risen by nearly 50% in the past year to around $80 a barrel. It ranks as the 11th-biggest spike in the past 70 years (adjusted […]
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EVEN as rich countries seek to rid workplaces of subtle gender bias, in many developing ones discrimination remains overt. According to the World Bank, women are barred from certain jobs in 104 countries (see map). Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor’s Picks. Donald Trump cancels his meeting […]
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IN THE early 1970s, leftist guerrillas in Argentina discovered a lucrative new way to make money: kidnap millionaires. Panicking firms would agree to huge ransoms, more concerned with freeing their executives than driving down the fee. That was not just bad for businesses. It also became a textbook case of how poor negotiating can send […]
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A RECENT tweet from Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, an electric-car firm, shows footage of a Model X undergoing rollover testing. The SUV is propelled rapidly sideways on a trolley before encountering a sand trap that stops it suddenly, tipping the car. The Tesla teeters between ending up on its roof or settling back […]
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AUDITS get noticed only when things go wrong. Last week British MPs issued a scathing attack on KPMG, an auditor, for failing to avert the collapse of Carillion, a contracting company. South African authorities are looking into Deloitte’s audit of Steinhoff, a retailer. PwC, another auditor, could face a court-damages verdict for hundreds of millions […]
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[The stream is slated to start at 10.30 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.] Chuck Robbins, the chief executive of Cisco, is speaking with CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Viva Technology conference. Cybersecurity is likely to be high on the agenda after the company […]
Read moreU.S. home sales dropped more than expected in April as a shortage of properties for sale continued to weigh on the market. The National Association of Realtors said on Thursday that existing home sales fell 2.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.46 million units last month. March’s sales pace was unrevised. The […]
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The European Union‘s digital policy chief has urged Facebook to stick to its promise and abide by the region’s more stringent data protection rules. In an effort to give consumers greater control over how their personal details are used, Europe is set to impose sweeping changes to data laws on Friday. The introduction of General […]
Read moreProsecutors investigating the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 said on Thursday they had identified the missile used to shoot down the plane as coming from a Russian military unit. The airliner was hit by a Russian-made missile on July 17, 2014, with 298 people on board, two-thirds of them […]
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