Opinion

As rich countries welcome autonomous cars, trucks and boats onto their roads and waterways, the developing world is grappling with a humbler revolution: automated farming. What was once the world’s most labour-intensive profession may be soon run by smartphones. And that could change agriculture as profoundly as mechanisation did last century. This shift will affect how food is grown and ...

Facebook Inc. keeps finding new and potentially annoying places to sell advertisements in its digital hangouts. That’s good news for the company’s bottom line, but it also may signal weakness. Along with Facebook’s controversies of late have been a steady drip of disclosures about fresh spots for Facebook’s paid commercial messages. The company recently started testing different types of ads ...

China’s plans to create a pipeline giant to aid development of its natural gas market are overdue, and welcome. Unfortunately, they don’t go far enough. The state-owned champion, provisionally dubbed China Pipelines Corp., will combine the pipeline divisions of state-owned PetroChina Co., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. or Sinopec, and Cnooc Ltd. A mooted market capitalization of as much as ...

Just when the excitement about a potential takeover of Norwegian Air Shuttle AS was beginning to flag, here comes another pocket of air to keep it aloft. British Airways owner IAG SA has sounded more circumspect lately about its stated interest in the transatlantic budget airline. So shareholders in the target will have been delighted by comments from Lufthansa AG’s ...

During the next couple of weeks, the Federal Reserve will generate a data point of great interest to investors: After subjecting the nation’s biggest banks to so-called stress tests, it will decide how much money they can pay out to their shareholders. Fed officials should keep in mind that if the number gets much bigger, it could start chipping away ...

As if Italy and Brexit weren’t challenging enough, the European Union will soon have to deal once more with Greece and its debts. The country is due to leave its third economic adjustment program this summer. After nearly a decade of support from its euro-zone partners and the International Monetary Fund, Greece and its creditors are hoping that it will ...

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is reviewing how the finance industry is implementing Europe Union rules on how research gets paid for. It’s evidence that even with Brexit looming, the UK regulator will seek to maintain the highest governance standards. But that hardline stance risks leaving a blot on FCA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Bailey’s resume if he applies for ...

The Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements – often described as “the bank for central banks” – likes order, technocracy and not rocking the boat. Given Bitcoin’s tumbling price and evaporating trading volumes, its 24-page report on the digital currency was always going to be withering. But amid all the righteous indignation, there was something missing: What exactly does BIS suggest ...

Last month, a group of 10 families filed an action against the European Union (EU) at the European General Court, the EU’s second highest court. All claim to have suffered loss from climate change. Specifically, they argue that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the EU have violated their fundamental rights to health, occupation, property and equal treatment. The plaintiffs want ...

This week was billed as the most important of the year in terms of the global economy, with the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BoJ) all meeting to set monetary policy, high level economic data out of the US ranging from inflation to retail sales, the fallout from the disastrous Group of Seven (G-7) meeting, ...