Business and Finance News

Venture Capital investments in 3Q 2015 tracked by Dow Jones VentureSource, a sister company of The Wall Street Journal show that US firms raised $19bn, Chinese firms raised $14bn and European firms raised €3bn.

Within this century, parts of the Middle East, in particular the Persian Gulf region, could be hit with unprecedented events of deadly heat as a result of climate change, according to a study of high-resolution climate models, published Monday. Generally, Jeddah, the Red Sea port city in Western Saudi Arabia and Mecca in the mountains to the south, have more moderate temperatures than in the east coast but I was in Jeddah on 30 June 1995 for the hottest day in 20 years — 48°Celsius (118°Fahrenheit) and higher when humidity is accounted for. In more recent times Jeddah has been hit by extreme floodings and on 22 June 2010 the temperature rose to 52°C (126°F) — the record heat was accompanied by a sandstorm, which triggered power plant blackouts.

Well-fed Europeans are seen as generally pro-science on climate change but anti-science on genetically modified food and in recent days have been called the Coalition of the Ignorant. By October a total of 19 EU countries or regions within them, have “opted out” of growing genetically modified organism (GMOs)-based crops within all or part of their territories — Austria, Belgium for the Wallonia region, Britain for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia.

Kuala Lumpur: We reported last month that the El Niño weather pattern which originates in the Pacific Ocean may be the strongest since 1950. In Asia this past week, Luzon, the main Philippine island, was deluged with water but not too far distant, there has been little rain and over 100,000 peatland fires in Indonesia have been tracked this year and they continue to smoulder, releasing greenhouse gases equivalent to about 600m tons through September 22, a number that rivals annual carbon dioxide emissions from Germany, according to Guido van der Werf, a Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam scientist.

The Euro Area economic upturn regained some momentum at the start of the fourth quarter. The Markit Eurozone PMI (purchasing managers’ index) rose from September’s four month low of 53.6 to reach 54.0 in October, according to the flash estimate.

Japanese manufacturing activity expanded in October at its fastest pace since March 2014 as new domestic and export orders increased, a preliminary business survey showed on Friday.

Mario Draghi, ECB president, Thursday signalled following a meeting of the central bank’s governing council in Valletta, Malta, that the bank is ready to refuel its quantitative easing (QE) rocket with a ramp-up in bond purchases and a cut to the alrea…

Staid Switzerland has had to deal with many challenges in recent times. The once cherished bank secrecy system is set to end; the attraction of the Swiss Franc as a safe haven has made the main cities the most expensive in the world, and after last Sun…

ondon is the best city in Europe for digital entrepreneurs, according to a new index that measures what startups and scale-ups say is important to them. Dublin has got an 8th ranking.

Irish commercial property returns were at +25.9% in the 12 months to September 2015. The JLL Irish Property Index continued to perform strongly, with Overall Returns of +7.7% in the quarter. Overall Returns in the last 12 months total +25.9%. This is the 16th consecutive quarter of positive growth.