HANOI / AP Vietnam and Ireland agreed on Monday to increase their cooperation in education, renewable energy, information technology and health care, during a visit to the Southeast Asian country by Irish President Michael Higgins. Higgins said he and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang discussed how the two countries can serve as a bridge for developing relations with the …

  Bloomberg McDonald’s Corp., which replaced its CEO last year with the hope of turning around sales, plans to significantly increase its investment in digital endeavors, inclu- ding self-serve kiosks and a mobile-ordering application. The investment marks a “very significant acceleration” from current levels, Jim Sappington, executive vice president of operations and technology systems, said in an interview. He declined …

  Wiesbaden / AFP Industrial firms in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, saw an unexpected fall in new orders in September, official data showed on Monday, pointing to weaker performance in the months ahead. Companies saw order books shrink by 0.6 percent compared with August, correcting for price, seasonal and calendar effects, the federal statistics office Destatis said in preliminary figures. …