How private equity won while other Dick Smith investors got burnt

Jan 06, 2016 01:15 am UTC| Insights & Views Business

The recent somewhat rapid demise of Dick Smith Holdings, resulting in its entry into voluntary receivership, is a stark reminder of the risks of investing in companies listed by private equity firms without doing careful...

China Crisis Series

Just another bad day in the office for China's lonely stock traders

Jan 05, 2016 23:19 pm UTC| Insights & Views

Assume youre a trader and your job involves buying and selling on the Shanghai/ Shenzhen stock exchanges. Youve just returned to work from your 1 January New Year break. Youre feeling bearish for a number of...

Plastics of the future may be made from sulfur, not oil, putting waste to good use

Jan 05, 2016 15:02 pm UTC| Insights & Views Science

What has chemistry ever done for me, you might ask? Just as Dustin Hoffman was told by one of his would-be mentors in The Graduate, one answer is plastics one of the greatest chemical innovations of the 20th...

New ways your smartwatch (and phone) may be spying on you. How worried should you be?

Jan 05, 2016 13:47 pm UTC| Insights & Views Technology

A computer science Masters student Tony Beltramelli at the IT University of Copenhagen has demonstrated that software running on a smartwatch could be used to record a users passwords and PINs. He managed this by using the...

Saudi Arabia is paying a heavy price for Iran's global rehabilitation

Jan 05, 2016 12:11 pm UTC| Insights & Views

As 2015 drew to a close, you could have been forgiven for cautious optimism as far as Saudi-Iranian relations were concerned. With the years-in-the-making nuclear deal finally sealed, Iran had finally been brought in from...

As El Niño rains arrive, Los Angeles shunts precious water to sea

Jan 05, 2016 11:45 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

If ever a city was built to be resilient to heavy rains, it is Los Angeles. And yet, El Niño is about to test just how resilient the city is in the short term to flooding, and even more importantly, how resilient it...

Migrant Crisis Series

More Mexicans are leaving the US than coming

Jan 05, 2016 11:36 am UTC| Insights & Views

During the most recent Republican debate, Donald Trump declared people are pouring across the southern border. Trump is right that the United States has been a major immigrant destination since the 1960s, but if he is...