Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he would resume his briefings to the public on the coronavirus pandemic, as infections surge around the country. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he would probably hold a briefing on Tuesday at 5 pm in Washington. “We have had this big flare up in Florida, Texas, a couple of ...

Bloomberg Kim Jong-un’s latest appearance, in which he dressed down officials building a showcase hospital, illustrates why the North Korean leader can’t afford to languish under sanctions forever if he wants to fix his economy. In a visit to the Pyongyang General Hospital, Kim lashed out at the building committee over “serious problems in economic organisation for the construction,” the ...

Bloomberg European Union efforts to agree on a 750 billion-euro ($856 billion) stimulus package ran into trouble as leaders were unable to reconcile differences over how much of the recovery fund should be distributed through grants versus low-interest loans. European Council President Charles Michel floated a new proposal that would reduce the size of handouts to 400 billion euros, down ...

Bloomberg Scores of Russia’s business and political elite have been given early access to an experimental vaccine against Covid-19, according to people familiar with the effort, as the country races to be among the first to develop an inoculation. Top executives at companies including aluminum giant United Co Rusal, as well as billionaire tycoons and government officials began getting shots ...

Bloomberg Global banks including Citigroup Inc. and UBS Group AG are suspending their return-to-office plans in Hong Kong after the city reported a daily record of more than 100 new coronavirus cases. Citigroup, which had already asked as many as 70% of staff to work from home last week, is now asking most people to do so starting Monday, according ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc plans to add more than 1,600 staff over the next three years at a new center in southern China as the nation aims to transform the coastal region near Hong Kong into a high-tech hub to rival California’s Silicon Valley. The London-based bank is investing $40 million in the Standard Chartered Greater Bay Area Centre in ...

Bloomberg China’s cash-strapped small lenders are expanding their pile of the riskiest kind of bank debt to shore up their capital levels, bracing against an economic slowdown, rising loan defaults. A total of 19 banks have sold 339.6 billion yuan ($48.5 billion) perpetual bonds, high-yielding subordinated bonds with no maturity dates this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Smaller ...

Bloomberg Currency intervention is an “essential” policy tool for Switzerland, its central bank chief said, in a riposte to the US which has the country on a watchlist for allegedly manipulating its exchange rate. “Even though we still have scope for further interest-rate cuts, the fact remains that one cannot lower interest rates indefinitely,” Swiss National Bank (SNB) President Thomas ...

Bloomberg After aggressive interest-rate reductions to shore up their economies against the havoc wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, central bankers in most sub-Saharan African countries will ask themselves whether the cutting cycle is over when they meet over the next nine days. South Africa’s monetary policy committee (MPC) may take advantage of the scope to lower its benchmark rate even ...

Bloomberg Intesa Sanpaolo SpA sweetened its takeover offer for UBI Banca SpA by adding 652 million euros ($746 million) in cash as it tries to win approval of Italian investors hit by the pandemic. The Italian bank will pay additional 57 euro cents for each UBI share tendered in the offer in addition to the share swap it announced in ...