Energy prices: SSE Airtricity to reduce gas tariff by 8% from April

Jane ChambersBusiness reporter, Aguas Calientes, Peru AFP via Getty Images Machu Picchu attracts more than 1.6 million tourists per year, but getting there is not easy Machu Picchu, the remains of a 15th Century Inca city, is Peru’s most popular tourist destination, and a Unesco world heritage site. Yet a continuing dispute over the buses…

Plans for a groundbreaking rare earths refinery in East Yorkshire have been abandoned, after the company behind the project decided to seek investment in the United States instead. Pensana has spent the past seven years developing a rare earths mine in Angola. The $268m (£185m) project, one of the largest of its kind in the…

Becky MortonPolitical reporter BBC The government is looking at the possibility of cutting the rate of VAT on energy bills, Ed Miliband has suggested. The energy secretary said he would not speculate ahead of the chancellor’s Budget in November. But asked if the government would consider scrapping the 5% rate, he told the BBC the…

Emer MoreauBusiness reporter Getty Images Wage growth in the UK cooled slightly over the summer, as unemployment ticked up marginally. Average wage growth was 4.7% in the three months to August, down from 4.8% over the three months to July, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The national unemployment rate…

Suranjana TewariAsia Business Correspondent, Tokyo BBC Scientists at Waseda University in Tokyo are developing caregiving robots Last year, more than 18,000 older people living with dementia left their homes and went missing in Japan. Almost 500 were later found dead. Police say such cases have doubled since 2012. Elderly people aged 65 and over now…