US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin challenged Greta Thunberg to study economics, knowing it is incompatible with rebalancing the environment, says Yanis Varoufakis

The US and Europe looked set for a renewed clash over everything from car tariffs to digital taxes in a sign that a new American focus was emerging following president Donald Trump’s trade truce with China.

German chancellor Angela Merkel says she’s worried about the growing conflict between young campaigners for a cleaner planet and those who reject global warming.

As the great and the good congregate in Davos this week, the mood is somewhat more sombre than we have seen for some time.

Sammy Wilson sought to draw attention to “hypocritical behaviour” as he urged Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom not to heed any of the calls for policies which would “cost jobs in our energy-intensive industries”.

This year’s World Economic Forum, in Davos, kicks off against a backdrop of growing pessimism — with the IMF saying global growth appears to have bottomed out with no rebound in sight; and CEO confidence in the world’s economy hitting a record low.

Ireland has 17 billionaires, a number Oxfam describes as "disproportionately high" - behind only Hong Kong, Cyprus, Switzerland and Singapore in terms of the number of billionaires relative to the population.

European shares touched a record high after Phil Hogan, the EU trade commissioner, struck a positive tone on talks with Washington, soothing some concerns over a possible escalation in trade tensions between the cross-Atlantic allies.

The world’s powerful and ambitious meet in Switzerland this month to advance common interests.

Is next month’s annual billionaire’s gala also known as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in the Taoiseach’s diary? If it is, should he ask himself if his journey is really necessary?

For over a year, children and young people from around the world have been striking for the climate.

Life is all about change — at least that’s the standard counsel, increasingly received as the years roll by.

Suzanne harrington To the fizzing excitement of millions of tweens everywhere, the Disney movie Frozen II is almost upon us. This time Elsa and Anna will take off somewhere even more frozen, accompanied by a freezer full of songs and Olaf the snowman. Cue merchandising tsunami. As before, it’s the sisters who are the stars of the show; there is no male lead. No prince, no hero, no rescuer. The heroines are self-rescuing.

As we say in Ireland, Meghan is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t, partly because she’s a woman and partly because she’s a human of colour, writes Joyce Fegan

Ms Burke is among 15 women featured on the cover of the iconic magazine as "trailblazing changemakers".

And so the softening up process has begun - there will be checks on goods crossing the border, the only matter to clarify is where exactly, writes Juno McEnroe

If the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Tánaiste Simon Coveney have about their persons an unassailable case for having directly-elected executive mayors of Cork City, Limerick, and Waterford, it has yet to be heard.

Coming into 2019, apart from the obvious issue of Brexit, which remains unresolved, the biggest challenge to the small, open Irish economy was undoubtedly the grey clouds that were gathering over the global economy.

“I don’t know how to want less,” is one of the more arresting lines from the excellent play, The Children, written by Lucy Kirkwood and currently playing at The Gate theatre in Dublin.

Enda Kenny and Fine Gael have refused to comment on reports that the former Taoiseach told Facebook he would use Ireland's presidency of the EU to lobby member states over data privacy laws.

Nestle chairman Paul Bulcke says he would not pursue short-term efforts at the expense of long-term success, in the face of scrutiny from shareholder activists who know how to “pressure-point you and tease.”

Impatient with a lack of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules to cover the explosive growth of e-commerce, 76 countries and regions including the EU, US, and Japan have agreed to start negotiating a set of open and predictable regulations.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has denied claims Ireland’s corporate tax regime is giving it “a free ride” as he reiterated opposition to any new attempt to usher in an EU-wide digital tax.

I was a bit astonished this week at the amazed reaction of some to the comments made by an EU official that a hard Brexit would require a hard border on the island of Ireland, writes Jim Power.

China's slowing growth, Brexit woes and US-China trade disputes pose risks to the world economy, Japan's prime minister has said.

A generation or two ago, when the threat of purgatory or limbo carried more weight, the renewing process of self-restraint, abstention, and repentance was recognised and celebrated.

The agencies employed by the government in Saudi Arabia to keep a lookout for people who might be the kingdom’s new best friends in the West will have been delighted this week to see this name popping up on their screens: Britain’s Prince Andrew, also known as the duke of York and un-affectionately as Air Miles Andy, given his taste for global air travel funded by taxpayers.

As political zeal trumps economic interest, there may be full rupture between England and the EU, writes Denis MacShane

Reece Smyth, Chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy in Dublin, sees plenty of cause for optimism on the future of US-Irish relations

AN aspect of the European Union’s future that neither German chancellor Angela Merkel nor French president Emmanuel Macron mentioned in their Davos homilies was its budget.

A shift to self-driving cars will mean rather than depending on other drivers to compensate for our mistakes, we'll depend on engineers to make fewer of them, writes Stephen M Zoepf

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has issued a strong “hands off” message to Europe over moves to force Ireland to increase its corporate tax rate.

US stocks powered to their biggest gain in almost nine months as drugmakers and technology companies surged.

Addressing world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the US president said: "The world is witnessing the resurgence of a strong and prosperous America."

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe yesterday faced a barrage of criticism over Ireland’s tax regime from a prestigious panel at Davos, amid claims the country was facilitating the “stealing of jobs and tax revenues” from fellow Europeans and the world’s hard-working poor.

IN the 1949 film adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Third Man, Harry Lime points out that 500 years of peace, brotherly love and democracy in Switzerland had produced nothing more exciting than the cuckoo clock.

BRITAIN’S prime minister used part of her Davos time yesterday to put pressure on Facebook, Twitter and others which have been lamentably slow in stopping the cancer of terrorist propaganda, while Pope Francis highlighted

Given what is happening in his country’s economy and financial markets, Donald Trump will undoubtedly have a greater swagger than usual, writes Jim Power.

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has questioned whether British Tory MP David Davis actually understands Brexit issues and has warned that the deal to prevent a hard border in the North is a “fudge”.j

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says Ireland will begin collecting more than €13bn in taxes from Apple "within months."

Is it just us or has January felt 365 days long this time around?

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says that the border agreement reached between Ireland and the UK in December must be translated into a legal document.

Ireland has received good marks from the IMF over the ways it redistributed taxes to prevent a potential social disaster during the financial crisis, but the country misses out on top marks on the ways it tackled youth unemployment.