International News

Bloomberg Prime Minister Boris Johnson was accused of being slow to act in sanctioning Russian billionaires after the UK lagged the US and European Union in targeting individuals with links to Vladimir Putin. In Parliament, opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer questioned why Igor Shuvalov, Putin’s former deputy prime minister, is not on the UK sanctions list despite being on ...

  Bloomberg Italy will invest over 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) to develop the domestic semiconductor industry, as it seeks to support companies transitioning to greener technologies. Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government approved a new fund which will allocate 150 million euros in 2022 and 500 million euros each of the following years until 2030 as part of a new ...

  Bloomberg A group of the world’s richest nations that pledged $8.5 billion in climate finance to South Africa wants the money to be used to retire coal-fired power plants, according to a senior U.S. official involved in the talks, damping suggestions some could be channeled to producing electric vehicles and green hydrogen. The funds pledged by the US, UK, ...

Bloomberg From Chelsea penthouses to Highgate mansions, Russia’s long-standing infatuation with UK real estate is evident from a cursory glance at some of the country’s priciest property transactions. The past decade has seen that trend explode. The number of UK properties whose owners’ principal correspondence address is in Russia reached 1,127 in August 2021, according to data released by the ...

  Bloomberg Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund’s chief executive, Nicolai Tangen, is resisting pressure to sell Russian stocks now, saying doing so would be akin to a “gift” to the country’s oligarchs. The Oslo-based fund is the world’s biggest owner of publicly traded companies with a portfolio of about 9,000 stocks, and has about 0.2% of its assets invested ...

  Bloomberg Russia still has about $300 billion of foreign currency held offshore — enough to disrupt money markets if it’s frozen by sanctions or moved suddenly to avoid them. That’s according to Credit Suisse Group AG strategist Zoltan Pozsar, who parsed data from the Bank of Russia and financial markets to calculate that a much larger share is held ...

  Bloomberg Italy’s new plan to break its dependence on Russian gas may rely partly on an old source of energy: coal. Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Friday that the country could reopen some shuttered coal plants to help bridge its looming energy supply gap and cut its dependence on Russia, which currently accounts for 45% of Italian gas supplies. ...

  Bloomberg Polish residents queued to withdraw cash from banks amid concerns over the fallout from Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, triggering a statement from the central bank that the country has sufficient reserves despite some ATMs running out of zloty. “All bank orders are carried out without value limits, in the full nominal value, throughout the country,” the National ...

Bloomberg US inflation-adjusted consumer spending advanced by more than expected in January, highlighting the resilience of American demand despite a surge in Covid-19 cases and prices rising by triple the Federal Reserve’s target. Purchases of goods and services, adjusted for changes in prices, increased 1.5% from December, the most in 10 months, according to Commerce Department figures Friday. The personal ...

Bloomberg Europe is bracing for what could be an exodus of more than a million refugees after Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine, as officials say any initial strain will be borne by member states on the bloc’s eastern frontier. The order of a full-scale invasion from President Vladimir Putin, triggering one of the worst security crises in Europe ...