Bloomberg North Korean troops fired at their South Korean counterparts on Sunday in the demilitarised zone that divides the two countries, a move that comes as its leader Kim Jong-un reappeared in public following an unexplained three-week absence. North Korea fired “several times” at a South Korean military guard post at about 7:41 am, and was met with retaliatory shots ...

Bloomberg Afghan Taliban insurgents killed 17 civilians and wounded 49 during the first week of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, further chipping away at their pledge to reduce violence following a peace deal with the US. The fatalities occurred from April 24, Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the National Security Council of Afghanistan, said on Twitter. Most of the ...

Bloomberg China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong accused protesters of jeopardizing the future of the city, calling demonstrations “illegal activities,” in the latest signal that China’s top agency in the semi-autonomous territory intends to take a more hands-on role. In a statement published on its website, the Liaison Office said “extremist radicals” were involved in illegal gatherings, harassment of shops ...

Bloomberg Only 20% of the French see far-right leader Marine Le Pen handling the coronavirus crisis better than the current government led by President Emmanuel Macron, according to an Ifop poll for Journal du Dimanche. Le Pen, who lost to Macron in the second round of presidential elections in 2017, has been one of the staunchest opponents of the government’s ...

Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to extend the national state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak until May 31. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike confirmed in a live-streamed video on Sunday that Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told her the government will extend the emergency status until the end of the month. Abe signalled it would be difficult to lift ...

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome “Jay” Powell calls it the “announcement effect.” When financial markets were buckling in March because of terror about the emerging pandemic, the Fed’s simple pledge that it would use its “full range of authorities” to maintain the flow of credit was enough to restore order. The Fed’s success is a lesson in how the credibility and ...

It’s what we all needed to hear: “Nothing can stop America” — Warren Buffett’s way of saying, “We will get through this.” Saturday evenings aren’t normally the ideal time for tuning into a multi-hour investor conference, especially after being cooped up all week working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But mere minutes into the live-streamed Berkshire Hathaway Inc ...

Almost every scam is a little bit funny, even when linked to the deadly serious coronavirus. Consider BuzzFeed’s latest installment in the genre: The site reported that Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley, managed to make millions of dollars selling ventilators he apparently never had and never could supply. Three days — three days! — after he tweeted ...

Who knows what the new normal for oil demand will be once Covid-19 is firmly in the rear view mirror? It is likely to be lower than it was in 2019, and it could be that way for many years. That’s going to create overcapacity throughout the oil supply chain and weigh on prices. While signs are emerging that we ...

The US government has spent $2.6 trillion to support the economy as the coronavirus pandemic spreads, and the Federal Reserve has about matched that amount in asset purchases. We’re not finished fighting Covid-19, so protecting the economy in 2020 may be the most expensive thing the US has ever attempted. Consider that the US spent about $4 trillion in today’s ...