Category Archives: Business

Brexit: EU official doubts backstop assurances will persuade MPs – Politics live

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

Turning back to Marin Selmayr for a moment, Mina Andreeva, the European commission’s deputy chief spokeswoman has posted a tweet that seems intended to mollify Brexiters upset by the tone of his intervention earlier. She was responding to Fraser Nelson, editor of the pro-Brexit Spectator.

For the sake of completeness:
1/ @MartinSelmayr made clear that @MichelBarnier is @EU_Commission’s chief negotiator. https://t.co/AILUEJwCit
2/ @EU_Commission always open to listen - in full respect of national parliaments. Our position is expressed here: https://t.co/GKRKYR7pfM

Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist party leader who won a Nobel peace prize for his role in the Good Friday agreement, has announced that he and others “are planning to take the government to court over the protocol on Northern Ireland - which includes the so-called “backstop” - as it breaches the terms of the Good Friday agreement.”

The announcement came in a three sentence press statement from Global Britain, a pro-Brexit thinktank. It said:

The Nobel peace prize winner and architect of the Good Friday agreement plans to initiate judicial review proceedings to ensure that the protocol is removed from the withdrawal agreement.

Lord Trimble says that alternative arrangements - as outlined in A Better Deal And A Better Future - should be put in place instead.

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‘This is about saving capitalism’: the Dutch historian who savaged Davos elite

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Rutger Bregman never intended to take billionaires to task over tax at World Economic Forum

Rutger Bregman had not really intended to stick it to the global elite. He never meant to have a pop at the idea that inequality could be solved by philanthropy or inviting Bono to Davos. But when the Dutch historian decided to go off-piste at the World Economic Forum and tell the assembled billionaires they should stop avoiding paying tax, he became an overnight social media sensation.

“It’s been a crazy week and just for stating the obvious,” said Bregman, when asked about a panel discussion at the WEF last month in which he said the issue was “taxes, taxes, taxes, and all the rest is bullshit in my opinion”.

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‘Like a Big Mac But Juicier’: Burger King renames sandwiches to troll McDonald’s

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Burger King’s Swedish operation revamps its menus to feature sandwiches categorized as ‘Not Big Mac’s’, with such names as ‘Anything but a Big Mac’ and ‘Burger Big Mac Wished It Was’

After McDonald’s lost its Big Mac trademark in the EU earlier this month, competitor Burger King wasted no time taking a big, juicy bite out of the world’s biggest burger chain.

Burger King’s Swedish operation recently revamped its menus to poke fun at McDonald’s loss. Under the header Not Big Mac’s (sic), the sign listed meal options like “Burger Big Mac Wished It Was,” “Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big” and “Big Mac-ish But Flame-Grilled of Course”.

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‘Alexa was very busy’: Amazon reports record profits and strong holiday season

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Company had profit of $3.03bn, up from $1.86bn the previous year, as Bezos says Alexa devices helped performance

Amazon, the world’s largest company by market capitalisation, reported improved earnings and profits late on Thursday.

Related: From books to bullets: inside Amazon's push to 'defend' America

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Historian berates billionaires at Davos over tax avoidance

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Rutger Bregman tells panel that the real issue is the rich not paying their fair share

A discussion panel at the Davos World Economic Forum has become a sensation after a Dutch historian took billionaires to task for not paying taxes.

In a video shared tens of thousands of times, Rutger Bregman, author of the book Utopia for Realists, bemoans the failure of attendees at the recent gathering in Switzerland to address the key issue in the battle for greater equality: the failure of rich people to pay their fair share of taxes.

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Libya’s oil chief calls for national force to guard petroleum installations

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Mustafa Sanalla says specialist unit needed to end repeated seizures of oil assets by militias

The head of Libya’s national oil company has said he wants to set up a national force armed with surveillance to protect the country’s petroleum assets after repeated seizures of oil installations by militias.

Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), said the force would require an annual budget of $10m (£7.6m) and be under the control of the UN-recognised government. But the force could include members of the Libyan National Army (LNA) headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the dominant figure in Libya’s east, he added.

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Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid facing possible subpoenas over Fyre Festival

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Subpoenas for financial information likely include Jenner and firms representing 25 models who starred in promotional video

Supermodels including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Elsa Hosk and Emily Ratajkowski, are potentially steps away from facing demands to return sizeable payments they received for helping to promote the ill-fated Fyre Festival.

On Monday, a New York bankruptcy judge signed off on subpoenas submitted by the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of the Bahamas music festival, which collapsed in chaos and discord before it had even got under way last April, requesting “information regarding the [Fyre Media’s] financial affairs from third parties”.

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UK firms plan mass exodus if May allows no-deal Brexit

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Business group warns that companies are getting ready to shift operations abroad

Thousands of British companies have already triggered emergency plans to cope with a no-deal Brexit, with many gearing up to move operations abroad if the UK crashes out of the EU, according to the British Chambers of Commerce.

Before a crucial week in parliament, in which MPs will try to wrest control from Theresa May’s government in order to delay Brexit and avoid a no-deal outcome, the BCC said it believed companies that had already gone ahead with their plans represented the “tip of the iceberg” and that many of its 75,000 members were already spending vital funds to prepare for a disorderly exit.

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Brazil dam collapse: seven bodies found and scores still missing

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Burst of tailings dam at iron ore mine releases wave of red sludge, with chance of finding survivors ‘minimal’

Seven bodies have been found and more than a hundred people remain missing after a dam operated by the mining giant Vale collapsed in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, releasing a wave of red iron ore waste and raising fears of widespread contamination.

Fire chief Col Edgar Estevão said there were seven dead, nine wounded and 100 people had been rescued from the sea of mud released by the dam, according to the G1 news site. The fire brigade believe around 150 are missing, he said.

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Orkney rated Britain’s best place to live in terms of quality of life

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Scotland and north of England dominate top five as measured by housing, crime and schools

Orkney is the best place to live in the UK, with cheap houses, low crime, good schools and a population who are among the happiest and healthiest in the country, according to the annual Halifax quality of life survey.

The survey found that all the top five best places to live in the UK were in Scotland or the north of England. Richmondshire in the north of the Yorkshire Dales came second, while the appropriately named Eden district in Cumbria was third.

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Facebook let children run up huge bills, court papers show

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Staff discussed what to do with high-spending children before deciding to refuse refunds

Facebook has settled a class action lawsuit that had accused it of allowing children to run up huge bills on their parents’ credit cards as part of a concerted effort to maximise revenues.

Court documents obtained by the US-based Center for Investigative Reporting, initially sealed as part of a lawsuit filed in 2012, revealed Facebook staff discussed what to do with the “whales”, as they referred to the high-spending children, before deciding to refuse refunds.

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UN executions expert to visit Turkey to lead Khashoggi inquiry

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Investigation comes as Saudi efforts to normalise relations with west move on to Davos

A UN expert on executions is to travel to Turkey next week to lead an “independent international inquiry” into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she would evaluate the circumstances of the crime and “the nature and the extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”. She will report on the findings from her five-day visit to the UN human rights council in June.

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Philip Hammond urges business leaders to accept Brexit result

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Speaking in Davos, chancellor says changes such as end to free movement are on the way

Philip Hammond has told business leaders they need to accept the result of Britain’s EU referendum and warned that a failure to implement it would damage the country’s political stability.

The chancellor told increasingly restless business leaders that he was working for a deal that safeguarded the economy, and said he understood their frustration but companies had to accept that changes were coming – such as an end to the free movement of people and business models built on a supply of cheap labour.

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No-deal Brexit ‘poses threat to global stability’ – CBI head

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Carolyn Fairbairn warns bosses at Davos that damage caused by disorderly exit could spread far beyond the UK

Fears are growing internationally that a no-deal Brexit poses a threat to the stability of the global economy, the head of Britain’s leading business body has warned.

Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, said the failure to sort out Britain’s departure from the European Union was damaging Britain’s brand abroad and had joined a list of systemic risks to the world economy.

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Davos 2019: Mental health in focus; Abe, Merkel and Qishan speak – live

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Rolling coverage of the second day of the World Economic Forum, as Shinzo Abe, Angela Merkel and Wang Qishan all speak, and Prince William discusses mental health

At the Sustainable Development panel, Bono says capitalism has lifted people out of poverty, but warns:

“It is a wild beast. If it is not tamed it can chew up a lot of people along the way.”

@Lagarde says to close the development gap and achieve the SDGs, we need growth first. Secondly, domestic revenue mobilisation needs to increase, and thirdly there can be no white elephants and no corruption, which put off investors. #wef19

Just in: UK chancellor Philip Hammond has dropped off a Davos panel scheduled for Friday morning, on the state of the global economy, we hear.

He’s no longer listed as a speaker for the “Global Economy in Transition: Shaping a New Architecture” session, alongside the World Bank’s Kristalina Georgieva, South African central bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, economics professor Mariana Mazzucato, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Haruhiko Kuroda of the Bank of Japan.

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Celebrity social media influencers pledge to change way they post

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Clampdown on stars being paid for endorsing products without disclosing firm rewards them

More than a dozen celebrities, including Alexa Chung and Ellie Goulding, have pledged to change the way they label social media posts after Britain’s competition watchdog clamped down on the practice of stars being paid for endorsing products without disclosing they were being rewarded by the company.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had secured formal commitments from 16 celebrities to state clearly if they have been paid or received any gifts or loans of products which they endorse.

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Davos 2019: Prince William interviews Sir David Attenborough – live

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Rolling coverage of the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, including appearances from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Prince William, Sir David Attenborough and New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern

I’m delighted to report that Prince William has cracked a joke.

We’re being shown a dramatic clip from Our Planet, of a glacier ‘calving’ -- a massive skyscraper-sized piece of ice, surging upwards and away from the rest of the sheet (making the most almighty din)

Attenborough is now plugging his new TV venture, Our Planet, created with the World Wildlife Fund.

It’ll be shown on Netflix, Attenborough says excitedly, saying that this will give a new audience for his work.

Now, with Netflix, it is possible for a show to be seen by 150 million people overnight.

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Factory that supplied Tesco compensated abused worker

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The woman was robbed and told if she protested she would be ‘killed and put in box’

A Bangladeshi factory that produces clothes for Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Mothercare was forced to compensate an “outspoken” female worker after she was beaten up on the orders of management and threatened with being murdered, the Guardian has learned.

The woman claimed to have been “severely beaten up” by security guards and the HR and compliance management at the factory, which is used by the brand Stanley/Stella. She said she was robbed of her severance pay and told that if she protested she would be “killed and her body put in a cardboard box”, an industry watchdog report that endorses her account states.

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May claims EU second referendum would threaten ‘social cohesion’

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PM faces a looming revolt over a no-deal Brexit as Corbyn criticises her talks as ‘PR sham’

Theresa May doubled down on her opposition to a second Brexit referendum on Monday night, claiming it would threaten Britain’s “social cohesion” and insisting the centrepiece of her strategy remained negotiating changes to the Irish backstop.

With just 67 days to go until Britain is due by law to leave the European Union, May exasperated MPs and business groups by offering scant evidence that she was willing to change course.

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China’s economic growth slowest since 1990 amid trade war with US

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Fears China may not be able to help shore up weakening global growth as GDP figures are slowest nation has reported in 28 years

China’s economy grew 6.6% in 2018, its slowest pace in almost 30 years, confirming a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy that could threaten global growth.

After years of breakneck expansion, the world’s second largest economy is losing steam, official data on Monday confirmed. China’s growth in 2018 was the country’s slowest reported rate since 1990 and down from 6.8% growth in 2017.

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