Bloomberg At the first meeting of the World Health Organization’s governing body since Covid-19 stormed the globe, China is set to be challenged on two of its most sensitive issues: The Communist Party’s initial handling of the virus and the status of Taiwan’s participation. While the US has launched a daily barrage of attacks on China, including suggesting the virus ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson said Britain may not be free of the coronavirus “for some time to come,” an admission that highlights the difficult task he has of persuading people to return to work and schools as the nation’s death toll from Covid-19 remains the highest in Europe. In an opinion piece for the Mail on Sunday, Johnson acknowledged people’s frustration ...

Bloomberg Barack Obama told this year’s graduates at historically black colleges and universities that the coronavirus pandemic has “torn back the curtain” on the idea that those in charge of the country know what they’re doing. “A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge,” the former US president said during the first of two virtual commencement speeches. ...

Bloomberg A new study on the behaviour of Hong Kong’s police force during pro-democracy protests will be published by June, according to one of the foreign experts hired by the city’s police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC). Clifford Stott, member of the Independent Expert Panel brought in to advise the watchdog, tweeted on Sunday that he would be ...

Bloomberg Two months after most African nations closed their borders and imposed lockdowns to contain the spread of the coronavirus, they’re deciding it’s not worth the economic cost. Countries began shutting their economies soon after the first case was detected in Nigeria in February and before the disease started to take hold on the continent. That helped keep Africa’s reported ...

Bloomberg Banks in Asia’s financial hubs such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Citigroup Inc. are finding that the disruption from the coronavirus outbreak is helping them push back on a threat from a new breed of virtual upstarts. With branches shut, customers social distancing and fearful of tainted cash, the brick-and-mortar giants are seeing a surge in demand for digital ...

Bloomberg Don’t let anyone tell you regulators haven’t punished Wells Fargo & Co. — or at least its shareholders. The scandal-ridden bank has lost $220 billion in stock-market value since the Federal Reserve imposed an unprecedented cap on the firm’s assets in early 2018, crimping its ability to add customers and loans. The constraints are biting harder this year as ...

Bloomberg Japan’s top banks forecast the biggest bad-loan costs since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, joining other global lenders in bracing for the fallout from coronavirus pandemic. Total credit costs at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. will almost double to $10.3 billion in the year ending March 2021, ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) is examining unconventional monetary policy measures more urgently amid the economic slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to its Chief Economist Andrew Haldane. The central bank is reviewing a number of policies — including negative interest rates and expanding the scope of the bank’s asset-purchase plan to include riskier securities — as it ...

Bloomberg A crisis was supposed to be Bitcoin’s time to shine, when the need for an international currency outside the reach of central banks would prove invaluable. That hasn’t been the case. No matter to crypto die-hards. The future is brighter than ever, especially as central banks around the world pump cash into listing economies, threatening a wave of inflation ...