International News

Bloomberg The US government is paying less as it borrows more, one reason investors appear more comfortable than Congress about funding another leg of stimulus. Interest payments in the federal budget declined about 10% in the first 11 months of this fiscal year, when America was running up its biggest deficit since World War II. Over the next few years, ...

Bloomberg Rishi Sunak should extend wage support for UK workers in the hardest-hit sectors, lawmakers said amid warnings from economists, labour unions and opposition parties about a looming wave of job cuts. The chancellor of the exchequer must also devise a plan to help companies that plunged into debt as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, or risk prolonging the ...

Bloomberg Spain will seek to tax all companies that operate telecommunications services, such as calls and instant messaging, according to Telecommunications Secretary Roberto Sanchez. Under a new law proposed by the government, “all operators who provide telecommunication services without having to provide phone numbers, such as WhatsApp” and Telegram would have to register as telecommunications operators and would be taxed ...

Bloomberg Canadian household indebtedness improved in the first half of 2020 as government support kept incomes afloat amid the pandemic. Household credit market debt dropped to 158.2% of disposable income in the second quarter, from 175.4% previously, Statistics Canada said in Ottawa. That’s due to an 11% increase in household disposable income, while stock of credit market debt remained relatively ...

Bloomberg Insurers battered by coronavirus are about to find out how much worse the damage could get. A London court is set to rule on Tuesday in a case involving about 370,000 policyholders, companies including Zurich Insurance Group AG and Hiscox Ltd. and potentially billions of pounds of claims. The UK markets watchdog brought the case after small businesses struggled ...

Bloomberg Vodafone Group Plc’s India unit said it plans to raise as much as 250 billion rupees ($3.4 billion) selling shares, debt to shore up its finances as it takes on bigger rivals Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd, which have been luring subscribers from the struggling No. 3 wireless carrier. The board of Vodafone Idea Ltd approved ...

Bloomberg China will require passengers arriving on direct flights from the US to provide negative Covid-19 nucleic-acid test results taken within 72 hours of the flight. Passengers travelling from the US to China, and those transiting in any country that the Chinese government has listed as requiring the screening, must have negative Covid-19 results from a test done within three ...

Bloomberg Indian pharmaceutical companies will be among the largest producers of a coronavirus vaccine once it is available and will ensure supplies to friendly nations in the neighbourhood, said Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla. India’s relations with Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have never been better “contrary to impressions,” Shringla said at a foreign policy seminar. The South Asian nation, ...

Bloomberg Germany will prioritise strengthening its public-health service and hire more workers, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her weekly podcast. Under the plan, the federal government will spend $4.7 billion by 2026 to allow for an additional 5,000 public health-care workers and the improvement of the digitalisation of health departments. The so-called ‘pact for the public health service’ was announced ...

Bloomberg Argentina must reduce its bond yields before returning to international capital markets in a process that will likely take some time, Economy Minister Martin Guzman said on the day the country concludes a $65 billion debt swap. In the shorter term, it will continue to work with the 1% of bondholders who did not accept the government’s debt restructuring ...