Bloomberg Britain has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to technology, and that’s hurting productivity and pay. UK businesses are almost a decade behind Denmark in the adoption of new technologies such as cloud, e-purchasing and cyber security, the Confederation of British Industry said in a report. By being more open to employing “tried and tested” ...

BAGHDAD / ANKARA / Reuters More than 400 people were killed in Iran when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted the country on Sunday, state media said, and rescuers were searching for dozens trapped under rubble in the mountainous area. At least six have died in Iraq as well. State television said more than 407 people were killed in Iran and ...

Bloomberg The UK Labour Party accused Theresa May of lacking the support within her Conservative Party to deliver a Brexit that will protect jobs, offering her a cross-party deal that will only add to pressure on the embattled prime minister. Keir Starmer, the party’s Brexit spokesman, wrote to May on Monday telling her there was a “sensible majority” in Parliament ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel is entering the final stretch of preliminary talks to form a new government as factions in the complex multi-party negotiations remain far apart on issues including migration, climate and European policy. Entering a fifth week of negotiations between Merkel’s Christian Democrats, her Bavarian CSU sister party, the pro-market Free Democrats and the environmental Greens, the ...

Bloomberg North Korea, a country in a “time warp” that feeds paranoia at home with propaganda about a hostile world, could secure its future by laying the groundwork for talks on its nuclear weapons program, according to South Korea’s foreign minister. While Kang Kyung-wha welcomed a two month hiatus in North Korean provocations after a rapid-fire series of missile tests ...

Bloomberg Political turmoil in Australia risks undermining fragile economic confidence as the loss of another lawmaker in the dual-citizenship fiasco left Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull leading a minority government. John Alexander, 66, became the second government member in the lower house to resign, when he acknowledged he likely inherited British citizenship through his father. While the government will survive with ...

If you want to understand why the tax code is so hard to overhaul, consider the case of the mortgage interest deduction. The issue is so sensitive that the House and Senate are dealing with it in completely opposite ways. To its many defenders and beneficiaries, the mortgage interest deduction symbolizes and subsidizes the American Dream. It promotes homeownership, which ...

On the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s election win, markets in Asia are behaving like the US president’s rhetoric is just background noise. At first, there were knee-jerk reactions. Japan’s Topix Index slumped 4.6 percent on Nov. 9 as investors digested the news while credit-default swaps protecting Indonesian government debt against default rose 26 basis points that week, the most ...

If soon-to-be CEO Michelle Gass needed any reminder of what a tough job she is stepping into at Kohl’s Corp., the department-store chain’s latest earnings report surely provided one. Kohl’s said its same-store sales rose a meager 0.1 percent compared to a year earlier. The company said its traffic trends continued to improve — but just because footfall is better ...

Ever since the financial crisis we’ve become accustomed to the idea that whatever governments fail to do, central banks can always come to the rescue. If you need a reminder of why this statement is wrong, look no further than the Bank of England (BOE). Much like other monetary authorities in the rich world, the BOE has been the main ...