The Big Sport Quiz of 2019: How much do you remember from a vintage year of sport? December 19, 2019 World Cups of cricket, rugby union, netball and women’s football. The end of Tiger Woods’s long wait for another Major. An epic men’s Wimbledon final. More success for Lewis Hamilton. Liverpool’s re-emergence as a football superpower. The return of Andy Murray. This has been a vintage sporting year all right. But how closely were you [...]
More than a quarter of Brits believe Facebook will launch a banking service by 2023 February 4, 2019 More than a quarter of Brits believe that Facebook will offer a banking service within the next five years. The research, published on the 15th anniversary of the social media giant’s launch, revealed that 29 per cent of UK consumers believe technology companies such as Facebook and Amazon will offer high street banking services by [...]
The bonus is on you: Santander’s recent saga highlights the problems with deferred rewards February 4, 2019 Star investment banker Andrea Orcel was about to take the top job at Santander. And then he wasn’t. It turns out that the bank hadn’t quite realised how expensive Orcel would be, resulting in an unprecedented U-turn, as the board announced that Santander wouldn’t be hiring him after all. While Jose Antonio Alvarez will continue [...]
The ‘Brics’ concept is a lazy and misguided tool for assessing emerging markets June 24, 2019 Seen in hindsight, the “Brics” concept was the perfect analytical tool for our lazy age, making one big point that required little thought while ignoring the nuance that is the basis of all good political risk analysis. Coined in 2001 by then Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill, the idea that the rising developing countries [...]
Roman J Israel Esq review: Denzel Washington shines but can’t quite save this messy law drama February 2, 2018 Roman J Israel Esq lines up its ducks – a star actor on blistering form, a timely dissection of racial bias in the US legal system, a distinctive visual style – yet manages to come home empty handed. It’s the second feature from Dan Gilroy, following 2014’s chillingly nihilistic Nightcrawler. And while that was [...]
No more denial, Hezbollah has always been a terrorist group February 28, 2019 It is not often that a self-styled “Party of God” makes political waves in the UK. After all, this is the country where Alastair Campbell famously told Tony Blair “we don’t do God” in response to the then Prime Minister’s attempts to discuss his faith in public. But that is what happened this week, with [...]
Japanese space probe Hayabusa 2 successfully lands on asteroid February 22, 2019 A Japanese space probe has touched down on an asteroid 186 miles from Earth to collect samples that scientists hope will shed clues about the origins of life. The spacecraft, Hayabusa 2, named after the Japanese word for falcon, landed on the 3,000ft asteroid Ryugu this morning, more than four years after it launched from [...]
What is the coronavirus and how dangerous is it? March 2, 2020 Since it emerged in China at the turn of the New Year, a deadly new strain of coronavirus has spread across the world and claimed hundreds of lives. The number of coronavirus cases globally is nearing 90,000, with fears of a possible pandemic. Read more: 14 Diamond Princess passengers evacuated to US test positive for [...]
Energean puts its foot on the gas with deal to supply Israeli company January 2, 2019 Energean Oil & Gas topped the mid-cap risers in London this morning as the company secured a $900m deal to supply gas to an Israeli provider. The London and Tel Aviv listed company rose as high as six per cent to 665.9p in the morning as it said IPM Beer Tuvia had agreed to buy [...]
Bitcoin set to match longest winning streak of 2018 February 20, 2019 Bitcoin is on course to match its longest winning streak of the past twelve months, gaining 10 per cent since last Wednesday. The cryptocurrency has had six consecutive days of gains – a rarity that it saw in July last year, a bright patch in a year when its value crashed by three-quarters. Prices are [...]