International News

Bloomberg Data on China’s industrial output, investment and retail sales due on Monday are forecast to show an across-the-board contraction for the first time on record, evidence of the extent to which the coronavirus has ravaged the economy. The data is released on a combined basis to account for the normal seasonal swings around the Lunar New Year holiday. The ...

Bloomberg All arrivals to Singapore from the Asean group of nations as well as Japan, Switzerland and UK will have to self-isolate for two weeks in the city-state’s latest measure to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. The only exception will be to Singapore’s land and sea border crossings with Malaysia due to the special relationship between the two nations, Minister for ...

Bloomberg Metro Manila, a region of 12 million people, entered a month-long lockdown on Sunday as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte considers a plan to impose a curfew on the area to try and contain the coronavirus outbreak. Hours after Metropolitan Manila Development Authority General Manager Jose Arturo Garcia Jr. said that a 8 pm to 5 am curfew will be ...

Bloomberg Italian unions and business representatives signed an accord to protect workers nationwide from the spread of the coronavirus in a bid to keep at least some production up and running. “It is a primary objective to combine the continuation of production activities with the guarantee of conditions of health and safety in the workplace and working methods,” according to ...

Bloomberg If Ford Motor Co.’s new Chief Operating Officer Jim Farley doesn’t rise to become the company’s top executive, it will be a soft landing. In an unusual move, Ford’s board of directors this week granted Farley $2.5 million in unrestricted company stock if he is not named the next chief executive officer, succeeding Jim Hackett, it said in a ...

Bloomberg Austria is setting aside 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) in liquidity and subsidies to support the economy against the impact of the coronavirus, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told journalists. The measures will offer liquidity by way of loans and loan guarantees as well as tax deferrals, a new model for labour subsidies for companies that have to reduce working hours, ...

Bloomberg The Swiss government may provide additional economic support on top of its $10 billion Covid-19 aid package if the crisis worsens, Switzerland’s President Simonetta Sommaruga said in an interview with SonntagsZeitung. “Switzerland is a rich country,” she told the newspaper. “We don’t let people down.” Sommaruga’s comments come two days after Swiss government unveiled an emergency economic package of ...

Bloomberg German chip maker Infineon Technologies AG agreed to national security concessions to resolve US concerns about its takeover of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. The $8.7 billion deal was facing resistance from a secretive government panel that reviews foreign investments in US companies, but was ultimately cleared with agreed-upon measures that are intended to protect national security. The work of the ...

Bloomberg It’s truly the end of the old Microsoft Corp. Co-founder and original Chief Executive Officer Bill Gates, the man most closely identified with the world’s largest software maker, said he will leave the company’s board to devote more time to his charitable foundation, which is playing a key role in global health initiatives and expanding into new areas like ...

Bloomberg New infections of the coronavirus in China dropped to single digits for the first time since the country began reporting daily numbers in mid-January. As of March 12, China has eight new cases and seven additional deaths, said the National Health Commission on on March 13. The dramatic plunge to a single-digit increase — from the height of nearly ...