Bloomberg Italy’s Giuseppe Conte is insisting that he’ll serve out his full term as premier as tensions within his ruling coalition build up amid a struggle to restart the crippled economy. The current government is certain to reach the end of its term in 2023, Conte told newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano in an interview published on Wednesday. “The forces of ...

Bloomberg Hungary should no longer be considered a democracy after an unprecedented consolidation of power by the European Union member’s leader, according to an annual survey of countries that once lay behind the Iron Curtain. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s dismantling of checks and balances over the past decade, including a decision to indefinitely rule by decree triggered by the coronavirus ...

Bloomberg Taiwan urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to allow it to rejoin a key global health assembly later this month despite objections from China, as Taipei pushes for more inclusion in international bodies. Taiwan needs a seat at the WHO’s annual decision-making meeting, the World Health Assembly (WHA), on May 18 to allow it access to firsthand information about ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he will lay out the next steps in his UK government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, and some changes to the nationwide lockdown are likely to take effect the following day. As part of its plans to exit the lockdown, the government has already said it will roll out a mass program ...

The most important trait of any Covid-19 contact-tracing app is that people actually use it. Without widespread adoption, we may all be locked down for a lot longer. Just how widespread? In the UK, at least 80% of smartphone users, covering 56% of the total population, will need to use the app to be effective in tracing contacts with those ...

Whether working from home has been a productivity and wellness-enhancing revelation or a burden to be shouldered with stoic resolve depends on your job, your home setup and your personality. It may even depend on the day. But just as air travel changed beyond recognition after 9/11, traditional offices appear set to become safer, cleaner and less pleasing environments too. ...

If IMF estimates are accurate, this will be the first time since the Great Depression that both advanced and emerging economies could be in recession. The potential of unemployment rising to double digits is also reminiscent of the depression of the 1930s. Some of the great economic ideas of our time were forged in the experience of that previous economic ...

So orderly, so nit-picking, so German. This week, Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe finally delivered its verdict on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) most prominent bond-buying program. Weighing in at 110 pages, this ruling was historic. For the first time, a national court in effect overruled the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Well spaced out because of the new ...

Asia has a new public emergency: breathing life into moribund economies. Months after severely curtailing social and commercial activity in a bid to contain Covid-19, governments are scrambling to reboot activity. They confront a coronavirus that isn’t out of business but economies that very nearly are. The policy priority is shifting from suppressing infections at almost any cost to combating ...

President Donald Trump is a liar — hardly the first but certainly the worst among US presidents. By one count, he has made about 18,000 false or misleading claims, an unmistakable sign of his willingness to deceive. His supporters do not seem especially bothered. They focus on what Trump does, not on whether he tells the truth. Which raises a ...