Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s top energy official said he’s confident that Russia won’t be able to complete the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea — and signalled that the US will press forward with its opposition to the project. Asked about Russian efforts to circumvent US sanctions on the pipeline by completing it on its own, US ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson’s regime change at the Treasury could herald yet more tweaks to the rules that keep Britain’s budgets in check. The shock resignation of Sajid Javid as chancellor of the exchequer last week robbed the new Conservative government of a fiscal hawk who moderated the big spending ambitions of the most powerful prime minister since Tony Blair. His ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s Google is in discussions with publishers about paying licensing fees to include excerpts of their articles in Google News search results. The early-stage talks are taking place primarily with French and other European publishers, and may not lead to any agreements, a person familiar with the matter said. A deal would apply only to news products like ...

Bloomberg A possible US-Kenya free-trade agreement could undermine an existing continent-wide commerce pact and limit Africa’s power to negotiate with the US. Washington announced on February 7 that it intended to start trade negotiations with Kenya. President Donald Trump’s administration doesn’t favour renewing the Africa Growth Opportunity Act, a trade deal under which 39 sub-Saharan African countries have duty-free access ...

Bloomberg China pledged to roll out more effective stimulus despite a widening fiscal gap as the novel coronavirus hits an already slowing economy, highlighting the challenges the epidemic is imposing as the death toll stacks up and thousands of new cases are reported each day. The nation will further perfect and implement measures this year to reduce corporate taxes and ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong is facing “tsunami-like” shocks, and may incur a record budget deficit in the next fiscal year as the city counts the costs of the coronavirus outbreak after months of social unrest, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said. The impact of the epidemic on the Hong Kong economy is being felt beyond retail, food and beverage and tourism-related industries, ...

Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp will partly resume operations at three plants in China this week, bringing back some of the capacity that had been on an extended halt in response to the coronavirus outbreak that’s killed more than 1,600 people and pitched Asia’s top economy into turmoil. The factories in Changchun and Guangzhou will restart on February 17, while operations ...

Bloomberg Malaysia said it won’t allow any more passengers who had traveled on the Westerdam luxury cruise ship to enter, after an American woman who flew into the country was diagnosed with the coronavirus. The 83-year-old woman and her husband were among 145 cruise passengers who flew from Cambodia on February 14 on a Malaysia Airlines flight chartered by the ...

Bloomberg Singapore is set to deliver a strong budget this week to offset the damage to the economy from the coronavirus, with analysts predicting the biggest deficit in almost two decades. The fiscal gap may widen to 1.5% of gross domestic product in the year beginning April 1, the highest since the 1.7% shortfall recorded in the 2001 financial year, ...

Bloomberg India’s trade deficit unexpectedly widened in January, as exports contracted for a sixth straight month while the decline in imports eased. The gap between exports and imports was at $15.2 billion last month, compared with $11.25 billion in December, data released by the Commerce Ministry showed. That’s the widest gap since June and compares with the median estimate of ...