Bloomberg US President Joe Biden said the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany would be stopped if President Vladimir Putin orders an invasion of Ukraine. “We will bring an end to it,” Biden said at a joint news conference at the White House with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a short answer to a ...

  Bloomberg The UK government ruled out the prospect of an early election in Northern Ireland, saying it will be held on May 5 as planned. “It’s right” to allow lawmakers “time and space to pass legislation,” Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told reporters in London. “I’ll be working to support the parties to do that and then we can ...

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment that opposition parties were responsible for a migrant worker exodus from India’s cities during a stringent Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 has led to a Twitter spat between two state chief ministers ahead of a slew of local elections. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, blamed the ...

  Bloomberg A Hong Kong court upheld the conviction of an American lawyer handed a jail term over a scuffle with a plainclothes cop, in a case that fueled international debate over police tactics in the city. High Court Judge Esther Toh said she found “no merit at all in any of the grounds of appeal against conviction,” in a ...

  Bloomberg A convoy of cars and campervans blocked streets around New Zealand’s parliament in Wellington on Tuesday to protest Covid-19 restrictions, attempting to mimic the truckers who have gridlocked the Canadian city of Ottawa. About 2,000 protesters descended on downtown Wellington from around the country, parking their vehicles in streets around parliament buildings, disrupting traffic and holding speeches on ...

  Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA’s joined European peers in pledging higher profitability and bigger shareholder returns, while struggling to contain a surge in costs that’s plaguing the industry. The Paris-based bank on Tuesday set a target for a return on tangible equity — a key measure of profitability — of more than 11% in four years’ time and vowed to ...

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG will refer its private banking clients to Barclays Plc in nine African markets as the Swiss lender exits most of the sub-Saharan region. “Credit Suisse has signed a private banking client referral agreement with Barclays as part of the plan to exit nine non-core wealth management markets primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa,” ...

  Bloomberg US lenders issued more credit cards than ever last year, with a growing share of them going to consumers with lower credit scores. A record 196 million Americans held cards at the end of 2021, according to a report by credit-data agency TransUnion. In the third quarter, the latest for which detailed numbers are available, the number of ...

  Bloomberg Banco Santander SA is planning to simplify the structure of its US operations by discontinuing businesses such as home loans and focusing on consumer lending. Spain’s biggest bank may also review some of its commercial and industrial business lending, it said in a presentation. Santander has been pivoting towards areas with scope for more profitable growth in the ...

  Bloomberg State Bank of India’s (SBI) profit rose 62% in the third quarter helped by strong lending as the pandemic eased. Net income at the state lender was 84.3 billion rupees ($1.1 billion) in the three months through December, compared with 51.96 billion rupees a year ago, it said in a statement. That beat the average estimate of 82.59 ...