International News

Bloomberg The German government has brought in SAP SE and Deutsche Telekom AG to help develop an app to trace Covid-19 infections as European governments look to national champions to help build solutions to the pandemic. “Deutsche Telekom and SAP will play their part in Germany and throughout Europe to ensure that European digital technologies are a central component in ...

Bloomberg Singapore — which has one of Asia’s smallest populations — is emerging with the region’s highest number of coronavirus cases after the world’s two most populous countries. The island-nation reported 931 new cases on April 26, with the total number of infections exceeding 13,000, overtaking Japan. Only China and India have more cases in Asia. The majority of infections ...

Bloomberg A Chinese drugmaker has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to start clinical trials in the US for a breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug as it seeks global validation for the controversial therapy. Shanghai Green Valley Pharmaceutical Co got clearance on April 8 for the US part of a global trial that seeks to enroll more than 2,000 ...

Bloomberg Australia launched mobile-phone software to help trace people infected with the coronavirus as parts of the country start to loosen restrictions on movement. The COVIDSafe app records digital handshakes between smartphones via Bluetooth, and if someone catches the virus, health authorities can track who has been within 1.5 metres of the person for 15 minutes or more. Some 1.1 ...

Bloomberg A vaccine for the novel coronavirus is needed to help reverse a plunge in Thailand’s critical tourism sector, according to the agency that promotes the industry. Visitor numbers are set to tumble 60% to 16 million this year, almost halving foreign tourism income, but those numbers could go even lower as the world waits for an inoculation or if ...

Bloomberg Bill Heinecke thought he’d seen it all in a decades-long career running hotels: the Asian and global financial crises, Sars, and military coups in his adopted home, Thailand. But the current pandemic tops all that, he says. Minor International Pcl, the hospitality group the tycoon founded in Bangkok, has furloughed thousands of workers and temporarily closed a majority of ...

Bloomberg Argentina and the province of Buenos Aires will start setting up virtual meetings this week with institutional investors as they continue the process of restructuring more than $76 billion in debt, according to people familiar with the plan. The national government will call on about 20 institutions and funds — including BlackRock, Ashmore and Fintech’s David Martinez — to ...

Bloomberg For the first time in a decade, the world risks being cut off from Russian wheat at a time when some key buyers are rushing to import it. The top shipper last month limited sales through June to protect its own supply as the coronavirus crisis sparks food-security concerns around the world. Although the curbs were seen loose enough ...

Bloomberg Bayer AG raised the specter of “considerable liquidity challenges” as it engages in high-stakes negotiations over Roundup litigation in the US and grapples with the pandemic. The number of plaintiffs claiming that the weedkiller caused their cancers rose to 52,500 from 48,600 in February, Bayer said in its first-quarter. It’s still too early to know how Covid-19 will impact ...

Bloomberg Nearly one-third of US business economists expect operations at their companies will return to normal within five to eight weeks, though almost as many say it’s likely to be three to six months before coronavirus-mitigation efforts wind down in earnest. A survey by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) showed respondents in the construction and manufacturing industries were ...