Opinion

In light of the recent stark warning from the United Nations that the world is on course to reach the limit of tolerable warming in a scant 21 years, nuclear power is getting some overdue attention and enthusiasm. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming around to the view that nuclear power has a crucial role in climate ...

With Brexit negotiations paralysed, and fewer than 100 days till the clock runs out, it’s worth remembering that the UK government — despite its assurances — remains entirely unready for a no-deal exit from the European Union. Pretending otherwise helps no one. In recent weeks, the government has started making some frantic preparations. It has directed 2 billion pounds to ...

A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy arsenal in 2019 is encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending. Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium ...

Investors like targets – even ambitious ones – as long as they’re grounded in reality. South Korea’s flailing automakers, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., are targeting combined sales of 7.6 million vehicles in 2019, slightly more than their 2018 target, the companies said in regulatory filings. That’s bold considering the global auto market is forecast to shrink at ...

In the annals of General Electric Co.’s storied 126-year-history, 2018 will go down as a year almost everyone with ties to the company would like to forget. GE lost nearly $90 billion of its market value, its A-level credit rating, its place in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and any pretensions it still had of being a breeding ground for ...

Here’s one New Year’s resolution that should be easy: The United States and North Korea should resume the diplomatic progress they began in 2018 towards peace and denuclearisation. It’s a measure of this year’s turbulent pace that the Singapore summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un just six months ago now seems a distant memory. The promise of ...

Donald Trump’s reported musings about whether he could fire the Federal Reserve chairman eclipsed an important signal from the central bank last week. Those who perused December’s interest-rate documents were focused on why the ‘dot plots’ projected two hikes next year and why the Fed didn’t abandon forward guidance. A stock-market swoon and press conference from Chairman Jerome Powell added ...

Global equity investors have reason to be concerned: The economic outlook is worsening, interest rates are rising and tensions in the US-China relationship could further harm growth. But all is not bleak. Japan provides a measure of certainty and promise, with a stable government, expanding economy, improving return on equity and booming tourism. Japanese stocks aren’t reflecting these positive factors. ...

As 2018 ends, retailers say goodbye to a relatively good year for the industry. Upbeat consumers, coupled with the long-awaited payoff from some slow-burn investments in e-commerce and supply-chain capabilities, finally helped them demonstrate they aren’t doomed. So what will shape retailers’ fates in 2019? Here are four focus points to keep an eye on: Tariffs: The industry may have ...

It’s been another year of relentless artificial-intelligence (AI) hype and incremental AI achievement. Machines still beat humans only in carefully constructed environments or at narrow tasks. The good news is that, as technology progresses, the race for leadership is still wide open, and even Europe, where politicians fret that continent is lagging behind China and the US, is still quite ...