Category Archives: Business

UK urged to open up transatlantic corridors as ‘Covid-free’ flight arrives

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Airlines hope testing passengers pre-departure can remove need for quarantine

Airlines have piled more pressure on the UK government to open up transatlantic air corridors after the first confirmed “Covid-free flight” arrived at Heathrow and the launch of a pre-departure testing trial by British Airways.

A United Airlines flight from Newark arrived at London Heathrow on Tuesday morning having tested all of the passengers onboard to certify them free from coronavirus before departure.

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1% of people cause half of global aviation emissions – study

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Exclusive: Researchers say Covid-19 hiatus is moment to tackle elite ‘super emitters’

Frequent-flying “‘super emitters” who represent just 1% of the world’s population caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018, according to a study.

Airlines produced a billion tonnes of CO2 and benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, the researchers estimated. The analysis draws together data to give the clearest global picture of the impact of frequent fliers.

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EasyJet slumps to £1.3bn loss as Covid forces it to cut flights

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Airline to run 20% of flights for rest of 2020 but says vaccine news has boosted bookings

EasyJet has slumped to a £1.3bn full-year loss, the first in its 25-year history, but said bookings had been boosted by positive news on Covid-19 vaccines.

Johan Lundgren, the chief executive, said bookings had surged by 50% last week after the US drugmaker Pfizer and the German biotech firm BioNTech announced that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective. “Momentum has continued this week, as people have more confidence making travel plans going forward,” he said.

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EU faces crisis as Hungary and Poland veto seven-year budget

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Countries reject package over attempts to link funding to respect for rule of law

The EU is facing a crisis after Hungary and Poland vetoed the bloc’s historic €1.8tn (£1.6tn) budget and coronavirus recovery plan over attempts to link funding to respect for democratic norms.

The move unravels months of negotiations over the scale and terms of the EU’s spending and sets the stage for a stormy videoconference meeting of the bloc’s leaders on Thursday.

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Joker ‘a betrayal’ of mentally ill people, says David Fincher

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Mank director rails at the risk-averse production strategy of major Hollywood studios

Mank director David Fincher has described Todd Phillips’ Oscar-winning Joker as “a betrayal” of mentally ill people.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Fincher was reflecting on Joker’s surprise success at the box office in a wide-ranging attack on the risk-averse production strategy of the major Hollywood studios. Saying that studios “don’t want to make anything that can’t make them a billion dollars”, he also suggested that occasionally “challenging” material can get support, if there is solid previous evidence of commercial potential.

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Major breakthrough needed to avert no-deal Brexit, says Irish minister

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Simon Coveney warns talks may collapse amid fishing rights impasse

Brexit negotiations on a trade deal resume in a crucial week, as it emerged talks on the issue of EU access to British fishing waters have not progressed since the summer.

As the two sides re-engaged in the troubled discussions, with less than seven weeks to go before the end of the transition period, Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said the negotiations were “not in a good place” on fishing rights.

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EU vote on Brexit deal could be delayed until 28 December

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MEPs might not be able to seal any agreement until three days before transition period ends

A European parliament vote to seal a Brexit trade deal could be delayed until 28 December, three days before the end of the transition period, under an emergency EU plan.

With less than seven weeks to go before the UK leaves the single market and customs union, the negotiations remain troubled, with the talks on fishing rights in UK waters not progressing significantly since the summer.

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Foreign investors and actors not bound by ‘Australians first’ arrivals policy

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Decision sees international students go to the back of the queue while others are given special approval

Greg Hunt has clarified that foreign business people and actors will not be subjected to the “Australians first” approach to international arrivals as Australia struggles to clear a backlog of people seeking to come home.

The health minister suggested that “national interest” exemptions would continue to apply, clarifying that investors will not be barred by the rule that prevents large numbers of international students coming ahead of 36,500 Australians still seeking to return.

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Even with hope of a vaccine in the air, life isn’t simple for easyJet

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The worst parts of this week’s annual results have already been trailed – but what a terrible year it’s been

No flights, no planes, no crew, no fares – November! Late autumn is, even on easyJet’s standard aviation calendar, quite the worst time of any year, but 2020 has been something else.

On Tuesday, the airline unveils its annual results from what it can only hope are the depths of the Covid-19 abyss. A trading update last month warned on much of the misery – losses of up to £845m, not counting “non-headline items” such as a £145m bad bet on fuel hedging, and the immediate £120m cost of laying off about a third of its staff. The cash burn of around £50m a week over summer “compared favourably” with the previous three months, it said.

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Super-rich buying up ‘Downton Abbey estates’ to escape pandemic

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Sales of £15m-plus English country homes breaking records as wealthy families ‘recalibrate their priorities’

The world’s super-rich are seeking to escape from coronavirus lockdowns in cities by buying multimillion-pound English country estates to create Downton Abbey lifestyles, complete with butlers, cooks, housekeepers and armies of gardeners.

Estate agents are reporting a surge in sales of vast country estates and former castle properties, which until Covid-19 struck had become increasingly hard to shift as the richest of the rich instead opted to live in luxurious skyscraper penthouses, on tropical islands or superyachts.

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Billionaire Trump donors contract Covid-19 after downplaying risks

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Liz and Richard Uihlein, owners of the Uline packaging company, made the announcement in a message to employees

Two of Donald Trump’s billionaire donors have contracted Covid-19 months after downplaying the risk of the disease to their employees.

Richard and Liz Uihlein, conservative megadonors who own the Uline packaging company based in Wisconsin and are two of the Republican party’s most significant financial backers, told employees on Wednesday that they had contracted the disease after being “around people with Covid”.

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Banks around world in joint pledge on ‘green recovery’ after Covid

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Climate finance goals declared but campaigners highlight omissions over fossil fuels and poor nations’ support

The world’s publicly financed development banks have pledged to tie together their efforts to rescue the global economy from the Covid-19 crisis and the climate emergency, using their financial muscle to assist a green recovery for poor countries.

But the banks stopped short of pledging an end to fossil fuel finance, and did not set out firm targets for how much funding they would devote to a green recovery in a declaration signed on Thursday by 450 development banks worldwide.

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China’s biggest tech firms dive in value as firms fear Beijing crackdown plan

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Frantic stock sell-offs across sector anticipating ‘monopoly’ rules, with Alibaba shopping site shares falling 9.8%

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wiped off the value of China’s biggest internet companies following two days of frenetic selling with investors fearing Beijing plans to curb the power of homegrown tech firms.

Shares in Alibaba, a Chinese version of Amazon, dropped by 9.8% on Wednesday, while its rivals, Tencent, and JD.com, fell by 7.4% and 9.2% respectively.

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Xbox’s Phil Spencer: ‘We’re not driven by how many consoles we sell’

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As the Xbox Series X and Series S are released, Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer says the next games generation is all about how many players you have, not how many consoles you shift

The launch of the Xbox Series X this week marked the start of a new video game console generation – historically a super-exciting time for players, as better technology unlocks new dimensions for games. But despite the usual competitive crowing about teraflops, frame rates and resolutions, there’s a different dimension to the console wars this time around. The looming Netflix-ification of video games threatens to upend the whole idea of video game consoles. Amazon and Google are both working on game streaming services that let people play cutting-edge games without paying for a box that sits under the TV. And Microsoft has spent the past five years spending billions on game developers to shore up its star service: Xbox Game Pass, a monthly subscription that lets you play hundreds of games for a monthly fee.

It’s been clear for a while that Microsoft sees the future of gaming in subscriptions, streaming and services. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox since 2014, is known to players as the guy who shows up on stage at press conferences in video-game T-shirts. Under his leadership, Microsoft has massively broadened its stable of game developers, started selling Xbox games on PC, and engineered its own streaming service to let people play on any screen, known in prototype as Project xCloud. Subs and streaming have already transformed other creative industries, with varying effects on artists – Spotify has been a disaster for musicians, where Netflix has arguably been good news for TV producers. With Microsoft already clearly committed to this direction of travel, what will its effect be on the games industry?

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Five post-Trump obstacles to a global green recovery

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Joe Biden’s win gives the globe a better chance of averting climate catastrophe, but major obstacles remain

Environmentalists have been heartened by Joe Biden’s victory as, if the US rejoins the Paris agreement as expected, it will give the world a much better chance of averting climate catastrophe. However, there are still hurdles to overcome to rein in emissions and keep warming to within 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

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Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine poses global logistics challenge

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Europe and US create vast facilities for Covid-19 vaccine but poorer nations lack infrastructure, say experts

Two vast football-pitch-sized facilities equipped with hundreds of large freezers in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Puurs, Belgium, will be the centres of the huge effort to ship the coronavirus vaccine, developed by US drug giant Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech, around the world.

Governments are scrambling to prepare for the rollout of the vaccine, which must be stored at -70C (-94F), after the announcement from the two companies that it was more than 90% effective and had no serious side-effects. The news sparked hopes of a return to normal life and a stock market rally, but now minds are turning to the practicalities of getting the vaccine quickly to populations across the world, in particular to the vulnerable people who need it most.

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Amazon charged with abusing EU competition rules

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US tech firm accused by Brussels of using data it collects on retailers

Amazon has been charged by the European commission with using the sales data of independent retailers selling through its site to illegally gain an advantage in the European market place.

The US tech firm and online retailer was accused by Brussels of using the information it collects on retailers to focus its own efforts on the bestselling products with the biggest profit margins.

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UK trade department faces race to get £80bn of trade agreements ratified

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Deals to ensure UK can go on trading with non-EU countries after Brexit transition must be laid before MPs by Wednesday

Liz Truss’s Department for International Trade (DIT) is scrambling to meet a Wednesday deadline for tabling £80bn of trade agreements before parliament, in time for them to come into force in January under standard procedures.

Truss’s department has signed a string of “continuity agreements” to ensure the UK can go on trading with non-EU countries on similar terms, when the Brexit transition period comes to an end on 31 December.

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Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine announcement is cause for cautious celebration

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Interim trial results are encouraging as scientists welcome news

It is not yet the end of the pandemic, but the announcement by Pfizer/BioNTech that their vaccine has been 90% successful in the vital large-scale trials has got even the soberest of scientists excited.

These are interim results and the trial will continue into December to collect more data. The two companies – a tiny German biotech with the big idea and the giant pharma company Pfizer with the means to develop it – have not yet published their detailed data, so it is all on trust. And yet, nobody is suggesting the results have been over-egged. It looks as though the vaccine not only works, but works better than anyone hoped.

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‘It’s the screams of the damned!’ The eerie AI world of deepfake music

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Artificial intelligence is being used to create new songs seemingly performed by Frank Sinatra and other dead stars. ‘Deepfakes’ are cute tricks – but they could change pop for ever

‘It’s Christmas time! It’s hot tub time!” sings Frank Sinatra. At least, it sounds like him. With an easy swing, cheery bonhomie, and understated brass and string flourishes, this could just about pass as some long lost Sinatra demo. Even the voice – that rich tone once described as “all legato and regrets” – is eerily familiar, even if it does lurch between keys and, at times, sounds as if it was recorded at the bottom of a swimming pool.

The song in question not a genuine track, but a convincing fake created by “research and deployment company” OpenAI, whose Jukebox project uses artificial intelligence to generate music, complete with lyrics, in a variety of genres and artist styles. Along with Sinatra, they’ve done what are known as “deepfakes” of Katy Perry, Elvis, Simon and Garfunkel, 2Pac, Céline Dion and more. Having trained the model using 1.2m songs scraped from the web, complete with the corresponding lyrics and metadata, it can output raw audio several minutes long based on whatever you feed it. Input, say, Queen or Dolly Parton or Mozart, and you’ll get an approximation out the other end.

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