As ties improve between Cuba and the United States, bilateral trade — perhaps the area of greatest interest to consumers — has yet to emerge from its Cold War torpor.
Category: Economy
PARIS — No country has yet decided to send anyone to Mars. But private-sector initiatives reported by the media — and the global film industry — suggest that things could change within the next decade. If nothing else, such efforts are proof of our collective impatience to see a new stage of space exploration and […]
It causes cancer, harms the planet and is cruel to animals, which is why meat consumption has steadily declined in the West. Some have become vegetarians or even vegans, but there is one much more modest alternative that is spreading.
A look inside Huawei’s HQ in Shenzen, the Silicon Valley of China, where plans are being laid to overtake Apple and Samsung.
In anticipation of international sanctions on Iran being lifted at the beginning of 2016, European executives are chomping at the bit to do business there. But how will a market economy play with the Islamic regime?
BEIJING — China can be proud of its achievements in both business innovation and in creating a technology-driven economy. In recent years Chinese enterprises have taken their place among the heavyweights in the technological sector and, in particular, in the information and communication industry: names such as Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, Tencent and Xiaomi are recognized […]
As boundaries between work and private life fall away, telecommuting has been a rising trend in recent years. But some now have begun to opt for living at work.
Which is the greater number: $105 or $100 plus 3%? You might think this a trivial question, but about 60% of adults can’t answer it correctly — and many of them still use financial services. It’s an alarming situation. After all, smokers understand they’re taking a risk, if only because they’ve seen the health warning on cigarette packs; but bank clients, especially in poorer countries, are often clueless about money matters. Standard & Poor’s Global Financial Literacy Survey goes further than any of the previous research in examining the phenomenon throughout the world. It’s based on 150,000 interviews in more […]
KRUGERSDORP — A group of men are running away on a wasteland adjoining the residential district of Mindalore, in Krugersdorp (25 miles west of Johannesburg). They probably came out of the “Old Jerusalem” mine, opened in 1886, two years after the first nugget was discovered in Johannesburg, the city that gave the world one third […]
PECS — When they first took the plunge two years ago, farmers around Pécs may have only seen it as a way to improve profit margins. Certainly nothing wrong with that. But as time went by, their foray into alternative energy production turned out to be much for this group of 50 pioneers, who live […]
-Editorial- SAO PAULO — We Brazilians have rarely faced an economic downturn of this magnitude. From April 2014 to September 2015, the country’s GDP contracted by 5.8%, and there are no signs that a turnaround is forthcoming. We haven’t seen anything like it since the “lost decade” that began in the early 1980s or, before […]
The supply crisis that has plagued supermarkets and consumers for months now has hit the health care sector, with medicines, doctors and even emergency care in short supply. Plummeting oil prices are a major factor, as is the legacy of Hugo Chavez.
Deutsche Bank’s new chief John Cryan believes end-of-year bonus demands harm the company. But bonus culture may be too deeply embedded throughout the financial sector.
NEW YORK — On a recent Sunday afternoon, David Bromwich paces his friend’s kitchen in Brooklyn barefoot, waiting for some tea to steep. As the alarm on his phone goes off, he’s already pouring. “It has a slight asparagus taste,” he says, slurping the hot green tea from a spoon. “There are so many chemicals in tea,” he explains, sticking a thermometer in another cup of water. “It’s the processing that unlocks all the different compounds.” Bromwich, a 36-year-old product manager at Thomson Reuters, has always loved tea, tasting every one he could as a kid and later mail-ordering the […]
ISIS has banned the use of newly pressed 500 and 1,000 Syrian pound notes. Some fear its the start of a currency switch, though others say it’s a way for some to profit on money exchanges.
Long after the days of Pablo Escobar and cocaine cartels, Colombia has regained the crown as world’s No. 1 producer of coca. It gives further urgency that FARC-government peace talks succeed.
An in-depth interview with the 45-year-old billionaire who has developed groundbreaking lens and smart-screen technology. Business, she says, is about distinguishing between rice pots and hotels.
After the attacks in Paris, Marc Simoncini, the founder of Meetic, asked French entrepreneurs living abroad, sometimes for fiscal reasons, to come back to France.
The power of “Big Tobacco” in a state-run industry in China is surprisingly similar to the hold that U.S. cigarette makers long enjoyed. Indeed, Chinese anti-smoking advocates are decades behind Western counterparts.
Categories
Barbados, An “Ethical” Tax Haven?
The Caribbean island says its financial system is all aboveboard, yet it remains a gateway to less scrupulous offshore havens like the Cayman Islands.
Startups are shaking up the dry cleaning industry by offering more convenient options for customers. The industry, which has shrunk by half in the last few decades, is also coping with gradual limits placed on using a common cleaning substance.
Thousands of Chinese are moving to Laos to benefit from an expatriation bonus. But their mass use of pesticides on banana plantations has created a serious health issue, and displacement of locals has fomented anti-Chinese sentiment.
The U.S. was once vulnerable to the geopolitics of energy reserves. Now American shale gas exploration offers foreign policy muscle in the face of the Saudis, Russians and Iranians.
Doing business at home is always different than doing business abroad. Here are some lessons for Chinese firms from the German company’s problems in the United States.
Patients versus doctors, electors versus parties and disappointed refugee aid response. The Internet may actually widen the gap between citizens and modern democratic institutions.
The extreme economic condition that is now practically extinct across the globe could return in Venezuela if a range of corrective measures that are anathema to the socialist government aren’t swiftly instituted.
The top leaders of China’s Communist Party are gathering this week to develop the latest roadmap for the country, which could supercede the U.S. in economic and military might as soon as five years from now.
Are new technologies making the wage system obsolete, turning employees into independents? No, workers aren’t so much freelancing as moonlighting.
TEL AVIV— The recent wave of violence and Mahmoud Abbas’ threats to dismantle the Palestinian Authority could represent not just a security emergency for Israel, but also an economic nightmare. More than 1,000 factories in the West Bank rely solely on the manpower of Palestinian workers. And they’re just a small part of the financial […]
This week we shine the spotlight on Malaysia: CURRENCY AND CARS While other emerging-market currencies in Asia are halting their slide, the Malaysian ringgit is continuing its precipitous fall, Malaysian financial newspaper the Edge reports. The Malaysian currency has experienced a steady depreciation for months against the U.S. dollar. Despite a minor rally recently, it’s […]
What if everything were free? Well, it is at Debora Fischkandl’s little Paris shop, no strings attached. And hers isn’t the only one. A look at the radical side of the sharing economy.
By announcing the end of its exploration campaign in the north of Alaska, Shell delighted environmental NGOs. But the self-imposed moratorium, to the degree it even exists, will not last.
VANCOUVER — James Hankle, a software engineer in his 50s sporting bluejeans and a Green Party T-shirt, is explaining his fix for Vancouver’s runaway property prices when he’s interrupted by an eavesdropping passer-by: “Stop allowing people from China to buy our houses and leave them vacant,” she says and walks away. Despite British Columbia’s aversion to pipelines and affection for pot, housing affordability has pushed both aside as the No. 1 issue raised by area residents in the run-up to Canada’s election this month. It’s not completely surprising given that Vancouver has become North America’s most expensive city. Surging purchase […]
Pursuit of free trade may be at an all-time high as Washington seals the TPP deal and Beijing pursues its New Silk Road. Here’s how it all looks from Bogota.
Salty-snack junkies, the lactose-intolerant and lovers of Asian food are providing an economic boost for farmers in the war-torn northern provinces of Ivory Coast.
While Japan’s overall alcohol consumption is in decline due to an aging population and low birthrate, Sake is showing a revival at home and abroad. There’s even a new variety with Champagne-like bubbles.
TEL AVIV — Israeli Defense Forces are turning their attention to a new front: the war raging in cyberspace. And in an attempt to coordinate what up to now have been disjointed, sometimes overlapping operations, the Israeli military’s chief of staff recently announced the creation of a special cyber unit. The unit will be similar […]
The sinking cost of crude has disrupted the Scandanavian country’s national economy. Norwegians now start to ask how wide the hardship will spread.
-Analysis- MUNICH — As the Volkswagen scandal continues to unfold, you can either look behind or look ahead. How has this historic German auto giant with 12 brands and 600,000 employees worldwide found itself spiraling downward in a bottomless pit since revelations that it manipulated emission measurements from its diesel models? How was it possible […]
-Analysis- BUENOS AIRES — We’re now very much in the “hangover” stage, the proverbial “morning after,” as countries all over the world face painful adjustments now that the party years — when China’s booming economy fed a seemingly insatiable appetite for outside products — are finally over. While the pain may not be as intense […]