Bloomberg Tens of thousands of Afghan families are fleeing to escape the Taliban’s rapid advance into the country’s northern region, part of a larger refugee crisis that is brewing as the US speeds up its troop withdrawal after two decades of war. The militants have burned down farmland and forced citizens to leave their towns and villages, Mohammad Amiri, a ...

Bloomberg A Hong Kong court sentenced a US lawyer to prison for a scuffle with a plainclothes police officer at the height of pro-democracy protests in 2019. Samuel Bickett, 37, was given a term of four months and two weeks on Tuesday on one charge of assaulting a police officer. The former Asia-Pacific compliance director at Bank of America Merrill ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s effort to reverse a free fall in US-Russia relations encounters an early test in Syria as an agreement over international aid corridors into the country is set to expire this week. Keeping aid flowing into Syria was a key request Biden made of President Vladimir Putin at their summit in Geneva last month, but that will ...

Bloomberg Japan and the US would have to defend Taiwan together in the event of a major problem, Kyodo News reported Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso as saying, marking some of the highest-level remarks from Tokyo on the sensitive subject. In comments at a political fundraising party in Tokyo, Aso said an invasion of Taiwan by China could be seen ...

Bloomberg China’s President Xi Jinping warned against politicising the pandemic in a speech to a summit of political organisations from around the world that sought to show the ruling communist party’s broad foreign support. “The achievements of the Chinese Communist Party cannot be separated from the support of people around the world,” Xi told the online gathering of representatives from ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s ruling African National Congress distanced itself from former President Jacob Zuma’s attempt to discredit the Constitutional Court after it found him guilty of contempt, and slated threats by his supporters to block the authorities from arresting him. All South Africans have a responsibility to respect and observe the law, and the judiciary and law-enforcement agencies need to ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG said it’s planning to introduce a work model that gives the bank employees in Switzerland “maximum flexibility,” joining global peers in making remote working arrangements more permanent. The approximately 13,000 employees of the universal bank in Switzerland will, depending on their role, be able to decide with their teams and line managers how much of ...

Bloomberg Nomura Holdings Inc has suspended coverage of dozens of companies following the departure of two highly ranked stock analysts in Tokyo, at a time when Japan’s biggest brokerage is seeking to reinforce research as part of its broader growth plans. Junko Yamamura and Yoshitaka Nagao, who covered leisure and amusement sector, and broadcasting and advertising industry, respectively, are no ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) may cut the amount of miles staff can travel by air to hit increasingly stringent environmental targets. Sarah Breeden, the central bank’s executive sponsor for climate change, said that policy makers could be encouraged to swap overseas trips for virtual meetings even when pandemic restrictions ease. The UK central bank hit its climate target ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s currency and short-dated bond yields surged after an upbeat business survey drove traders to bring forward rate-hike expectations, with markets now pricing a total unwind of pandemic-fuelled rate cuts by the end of 2022. The kiwi jumped 1.1%, while the benchmark 2024 bond yields gained as much as nine basis points on Tuesday to hit the highest ...