News aggregator

Plans to tackle use of plastic bags are a diversion from the real environmental issues, a government adviser says.

As the ultimate expression of the American Dream, it is fitting that Las Vegas should lie at the centre of the US housing nightmare.

A takeover battle for control of British Energy was gathering momentum as it emerged yesterday that the company had received two more preliminary proposals, one of which valued it at almost £11 billion.

Fresh evidence emerged yesterday that the credit crisis is hitting companies' technology budgets and jobs as a leading IT services firm said it was bracing itself for far tougher times.

After months in the doldrums, the buyout market is staging a modest recovery with Carlyle, the private equity group, agreeing to buy part of Booz Allen Hamilton for $2.9 billion.$

Regent Inns, the pub company, said that it is considering a number of bids after sales fell 11 per cent this year.

More people were looking for jobs last month in London’s financial services industry than at any time in the past three and a half years, according to research released yesterday.

Economics

The UK is to offer the Indian film industry tax breaks and grants in an effort to entice more Bollywood projects to British locations.

On the surface, the Las Vegas economy looks dangerously like a busted flush.

A nailbiting finish to the football season in England has helped Ladbrokes to weather the storm blowing through the rest of the economy.

The board of British Airways has been forced to assess the impact of a possible £900 million reduction in profits this year caused by the rising price of oil.

A squeeze on government spending is starting to hit the real economy, with the construction industry feeling the first chill from tightened state budgets.

Qualcomm, the American wireless technology developer, has entered the battle to set the standard for mobile television in the UK by buying spectrum from Ofcom, the communications regulator.

What's the best way of responding to a cold call? I ask because we get loads here in The Times Business department - PRs offering thrilling opportunities to attend telecoms conferences in Harrogate and so forth - and have noticed we each have different ways of handling them.

The United States and Japan are poised to strike a deal that will remove one of the most widely reviled distortions in global rice markets and could send prices plummeting in the coming weeks.

One of Britain's largest estate agents has fallen victim to the slowdown in the housing market, prompting fears for thousands of jobs around the country. Shares trading was suspended in Humberts, which has 80 branches from Central London to Hampshire, amid doubts about its viability.

Saudi Arabia has disclosed, during a visit to the Kingdom by George Bush, that it has lifted oil production to its highest in two years.

Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), the pub operator, is expected to tell shareholders next week that talks about the sale of a stake of up to 29.9 per cent to private equity have been put on the back burner.

It is a sad fact for investors and tipsters alike that, just as no siren sounds when stock markets peak, no bell rings at the bottom, either.