Business Daily

Crypto-currency and cybercrime have together provided the DPRK with the hard currency it needed to continue with its nuclear weapons programme. Ed Butler speaks to sanctions specialist Nigel Kushner of W Legal about how Bitcoin and the like are used by sanctioned individuals to continue doing business outside the official banking system. In North Korea's case, much of the business involves outrigh...

As much of Italy goes into self-imposed quarantine, what can the authorities do to stop empty shops and restaurants going bust? It's an urgent question for Marco d'Arrigo, who runs the California Bakery chain in Milan, who has spent his day reassuring nervous staff at their eerily empty branches. Nations facing spiralling coronavirus cases and to need to lock down entire cities, do have macroecono...

How the spread of coronavirus is changing consumer behaviour. Elizabeth Hotson goes on the hunt for toilet paper and hand sanitizer on the streets of London. Ed Butler speaks to Charlene Chan, marketing researcher and consumer psychology researcher at Nanyang School of Business in Singapore about how feeling a loss of control influences our buying behaviour. Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist...

How to predict the future and beat the wisdom of the crowds. Manuela Saragosa speaks to Warren Hatch, chief executive of Good Judgement, a consultancy that specialises in superforecasters - individuals with a knack for predicting future events - and the techniques they use to make their guesses. We also hear from Andreas Katsouris from PredictIt, a political betting platform that harnesses the wis...

Tech start-up Clearview scraped billions of people's public photos off social media, and then sold their facial recognition service to police forces, private security firms and banks around the world. Were the company's actions an invasion of privacy? Were they even illegal? Is their technology as reliable as they claim? Or could it have resulted in multiple false arrests of misidentified suspects...

Central banks are rushing to provide liquidity as many fear that the disruption from the coronavirus outbreak could push the world into technical recession. We hear from a host of eminent economists trying to navigate the uncertainty: Sarah Bloom Raskin, deputy secretary to the Treasury under US President Barack Obama; former ECB chief economist Peter Praet; and Cornell University professor of tra...

Research suggests that they underperform robot traders, and most can't even beat the market, so are the days of the celebrity investors and stock market tipsters numbered? Ed Butler speaks to David Aferiat, whose computer-based trading system Holly has been picking the best performing stock picking algorithms since 2016. He claims that Holly consistently outperforms the market. So why rely on huma...

A new report brings together fresh evidence of the forced transportation of Uighur Muslims from Xinjiang province to provide labour in factories across China. Ed Butler speaks to one of the report authors, Nathan Ruser from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. In some cases the factories are linked to major brands like Nike, Apple and Volkswagen. Yuan Yang, Beijing correspondent for the Fina...

How fewer Latin Americans crossing the US border is affecting the economy. Alice Fordham reports from Juarez on the Mexican side of the border on the migrants forced to make Mexico their home while they await the outcome of their asylum cases in the US. Ed Butler speaks to Jessica Bolter from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC about the slowing rate of people trying to cross into the...

Rubber is Liberia's most important cash crop, and the Firestone Libera rubber plantation is the country's biggest employer. But the company faces accusations that it pollutes rivers and violates labour rights. US-based Bridgestone Corporation, Firestone Liberia's parent company, denies this. Tamasin Ford investigates the allegations. (Photo: A Firestone-branded tyre used at an IndyCar Series racin...

Misinformation about the coronavirus outbreak is undermining the efforts of health officials and medical researchers to contain it. Doctors find themselves under attack from conspiracy theorists who believe they are concealing the truth about the origin of the epidemic. Meanwhile bogus and sometimes highly dangerous advice is spreading on social media about how to protect yourself against the dise...

What can soap boxes, sweet wrappers and tin cans tell us about our shopping history? Manuela Saragosa visits Robert Opie at his Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in west London. He's been keeping discarded items and packaging since he was a school boy - well over 50 years. In the process he's created a collection that charts the retail revolution of the past century. It's one that showca...

Some West African countries already use a single currency - the CFA franc. Now there are plans to introduce a broader shared currency - the eco - across 15 states. But the region's economic powerhouse Nigeria has put those plans in doubt. Tamasin Ford speaks to business people in the region about what difference a new single currency would really make. (Photo: CFA franc banknotes, Credit: Getty Im...

How brands forge strong relationships with music, from Cognac brands like Hennessy and Courvoisier to Coca Cola's Sprite. Elizabeth Hotson speaks to cultural critic and music journalist Candace McDuffie about the history of Cognac in African-American culture, and to journalist Oris Aigbokhaevbolo about the efforts of Hennessy to associate with hip hop in Nigeria. Aaliyah Shafiq, group director for...

As the holiday lettings platform prepares for an IPO, what is Airbnb doing to clamp down on bogus, unregulated and unsafe property listings? Ed Butler speaks to Wired magazine journalist James Temperton, who uncovered one complex London-based scam involving fake listings, sham reviews and a block of grubby apartments that was in flagrant breach of the city's property rules. London councillor Heath...

Could the much-hyped technology of 3D printing have found a useful application - producing personalised prescription pills? Ed Butler visits the lab of Dr Mohamed Alhnan at King's College London, to see this cottage manufacturing process in action - in this case making caffeine tablets. Meanwhile entrepreneur Melissa Snover has launched the world’s first 3D-printed personalised and chewable vitami...

Should employers simply stop asking job applicants if they have a criminal record? Tamasin Ford speaks to one American bakery that did exactly that. Lucas Tanner of the Greyston Bakery in New York explains why his Buddhist founder opted for a policy of "open hiring" - no questions, no interview, no CV, no background checks. Today there is a campaign to "ban the box" that applicants must tick to in...

What will happen to our working lives when the robots take over? Daniel Susskind, an economist at Oxford University, discusses his new book A World Without Work. He talks to Ed Butler about the effects on employment, the link between automation and inequality, and whether something like a universal basic income could be a solution. (Photo: A humanoid robot on display at a trade fair in 2018, Credi...

Is the European farm subsidy system being left vulnerable to corruption? Each year the EU pays out billions of euros to landowners. But a New York Times investigation found that in parts of Eastern Europe, EU farm subsidies have created what it calls a "new kind of feudalism". We speak to the New York Times investigative reporter Matt Apuzzo, and we hear a response from the European Commission's a...

Does the backlash against globalisation ignore the huge benefits of world trade? And how realistic are post-Brexit Britain's ambitions to become a global trade powerhouse? Manuela Saragosa asks Cambridge economics professor Meredith Crowley how much access the UK can expect to retain to the European market, given that the country wants to diverge from EU regulations. It's an example of a problem t...

Virtual Reality is finding a surprising new application - training managers how to handle delicate situations such as dismissing employees or giving presentations. Manuela Saragosa looks at how the technology is being used to play out scenarios such as consoling a sobbing staff member, or responding to a heckler in the audience, all while in the safe space of VR. Plus producer Josh Thorpe tries ou...

Tesla's share price has tripled in the last six months - can anyone stop it, or even make sense of it? Ed Butler speaks to Craig Irwin, stock analyst at Roth Capital in New York, who is perplexed by the latest crazy surge in Tesla's valuation, even though he wouldn't particularly describe himself as a Tesla bear. David Bailey, professor of business economics at Birmingham Business School in the UK...

The business impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Ed Butler speaks to the BBC's Robin Brant in Shanghai about the partial return of Chinese workers in the city. Bloomberg economist Maeva Cousin discusses the economic impact on China and global supply chains. Mike Bowen, vice president of Prestige Amaritech in Texas, one of the few manufacturers of medical masks outside of China, explains why a shor...

How companies and staff deal with death at work. Manuela Saragosa hears from Carina, an employee at a global marketing company who saw the mistakes her employer made when a colleague died. Kirsty Minford, a psychotherapist, describes how organisations can do better at dealing with death. And how do you approach your job if there's a real everyday risk of death? Lisa Baranik, assistant professor of...

Unemployment in the US and UK is at near-historic lows. In such a tight labour market, many companies are seeking new pools of talent to recruit from. One relatively untapped source is people with criminal records, who often struggle to find work after completing their sentences. One person who knows that struggle is Ali Niaz, who has gone from convicted London drug dealer to international music e...