International News

Bloomberg The Philippines identified additional measures to ensure sufficient food supply amid a month-long lockdown of the country’s main island of Luzon as it tries to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. The government plans to import 300,000 metric tons of rice, if necessary, through state deals with Southeast Asian partners, or through sources such as India and Pakistan, ...

Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp and other Japanese automakers reported steep drops in output in February as the coronavirus outbreak accelerated across the world, a sign that business conditions will get worse for them before any improvement. Japan’s biggest automaker reported that its global production fell 13.8% in February from a year earlier. Worldwide production for the Toyota Group, which includes ...

Bloomberg It’s the phone calls at all hours of the night he remembers. As swine flu ravaged northern India in 2015, a radiologist working at a hospital in a Delhi suburb said people would call begging for a bed. That outbreak ultimately infected more than 31,000 people and killed nearly 2,000, as many died waiting for treatment. With the far ...

Bloomberg Indonesia may soon quarantine almost 30 million people in its capital and surrounding areas to curb the spread of the coronavirus that’s killed more than 100 people in the world’s fourth-most populous nation. Police and transport officials conducted drills on limiting the movement of people from the Greater Jakarta area at the weekend, the Jakarta Post reported. The governor ...

Bloomberg The sale by the UK’s billionaire Barclay twins of London’s Ritz Hotel fetched less than 800 million pounds ($997 million), according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. Macfarlanes said in a statement that it advised one of its private investor clients on the acquisition of the hotel that opened in London’s Mayfair ...

Bloomberg The UK government is loosening its bankruptcy rules to allow struggling businesses to continue trading if they can’t pay their debts because of the impact of the coronavirus. In another sign of how the pandemic is forcing governments to upend policy, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said the changes would allow British companies being reorganised to access supplies and raw ...

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp.’s agreement to acquire 5G software maker Affirmed Networks Inc. valued the company at about $1.35 billion. Microsoft announced the deal without disclosing financial details. Microsoft already serves telecom customers and struck an agreement with AT&T Inc. last year with the aim of moving more the carrier’s network to its platform. Microsoft has been building its cloud computing ...

Bloomberg The North American International Auto Show said it’s canceling the industry’s biggest event scheduled in June and will resume the show in 2021. The venue, TCF Center, will be repurposed as a field hospital for Covid-19 cases, the organisers said. The Detroit Auto Show will resume on June 11, 2021, with the public show scheduled for June 19-26. “Although ...

Bloomberg WeWork continued to cut more staff as part of a months-long effort to lower expenses after its failed initial public offering last year, the company said. The New York-based co-working firm axed about 250 jobs in its development department, according to two people familiar with the matter. The reductions aren’t related to the impact of the coronavirus, one of ...

Bloomberg Getting the $350 billion in loans for small businesses in the record US stimulus package into business owners’ hands before a wave of closures will strain the nation’s network of lenders and regulators as never before. The magnitude of the plan is unprecedented for the Small Business Administration (SBA), an agency that distributed $28 billion in fiscal year 2019 ...