May, 2019

• 14 May

  Trump praises Orban, ignoring Hungary’s ‘illiberal’ moves

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Oval Office, disregarding bipartisan objections from Congress that the nationalist leader has taken steps to limit freedoms in his central European nation. “People have a lot of respect for this prime minister,” Trump said. “He’s a respected man. I know he’s a tough man, but he’s a respected ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  May seeks support for Brexit as ‘talks’ stall

  

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to meet with her cabinet on Tuesday as she comes under increasing pressure to pull out of Brexit talks with the opposition Labour Party and set a date for her departure. The latest in a series of cross-party meetings aimed at ending the parliamentary deadlock over leaving the European Union (EU) broke up ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  ‘N Korea missile tests broke UN resolutions’

  

  Bloomberg Japanese PM Shinzo Abe said North Korea violated UN resolutions with its missile launches this month, putting pressure on the US to raise the issue with the Security Council. Abe, who has long favoured a harder line against Kim Jong-un’s weapon programme, told a meeting of ruling coalition UN resolutions must be better enforced. That contrasted with US President ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  Economists’ ignorance gap looks pretty huge

  

  The most intriguing and indisputable thing we have learned about economists in recent decades is that they don’t know nearly as much as they thought they knew. We see evidence of this all the time. Just recently, the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that the economy had created 263,000 payroll jobs in April. This was almost 40% more than the ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  Thomas Cook should book a solution

  

  Thomas Cook Plc is on a trip it would rather forget. The company is battling a crisis of investor confidence. A rough 2018 for bookings hammered the share price and leverage has soared. At the latest seasonal peak, net debt of 1.6 billion pounds dwarfed its market capitalisation of 330 million pounds. Sentiment worsened after reports on May 2 that ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  Power plants cannot escape the eyes in sky

  The technology nonprofit WattTime announced that, thanks to a $1.7 million grant from Google.org, it will use satellite technology to measure air pollution from every large power plant in the world. This effort, which will combine data “from a variety of sensors operating at different wavelengths,” will also use artificial intelligence to analyse and calculate carbon emissions, according to David ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  America should be smart about Venezuela’s future

  Democracy’s return to Venezuela has once again been deferred. Juan Guaido, the leader of the National Assembly recognised as interim president by more than 50 countries, failed last week to persuade the military to unseat Nicolas Maduro. Few officers rallied to Guaido’s side, and the regime beat back his followers’ street protests. Whatever the reason — overconfidence on Guaido’s part, ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  Can Europe go on managing Trump’s war on trade?

  

  As US President Donald Trump imposes punitive tariffs on China, the European Union could be next in line. The EU has been performing a complex balancing act to keep Trump from pouncing. So far it has succeeded – but that may become increasingly difficult. The US leader is due to decide later this month whether to impose levies on car ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  When digitisation isn’t answer to your prayers

  

  For all the promise that digitisation offers, sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves that it requires the right conditions. Telefonica SA is illustrating why. The former Spanish national carrier is midway through a digital transformation program, and has succeeded in realising almost two thirds of the 1 billion euros in savings it’s targeting by the end of next year. That’s clearly ...

  Read More »
• 14 May

  Boeing’s 737 Max defense is a textbook mess

  

  For decades, business schools have taught Johnson & Johnson’s handling of its 1982 Tylenol scandal as a textbook example of good crisis management. In the future, we can expect Boeing Co.’s treatment of its two 737 Max crashes to join the syllabus — as an example of what not to do. Engineers at the planemaker discovered problems with the aircraft’s ...

  Read More »