Opinion

China is poised to let some of its biggest state-owned entities help develop a giant West African iron-ore deposit that’s been tantalizingly promising and painfully problematic for two decades. Whatever happens next, this watershed moment for the steelmaking commodity is bad news for big producers, particularly Rio Tinto Group. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission is actively pushing forward ...

When it comes to infectious disease outbreaks, we just haven’t learned. It’s not as if we weren’t warned. Last year, a report by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, a body put together by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank Group, said that there was “a very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a ...

A good deal becomes a great deal in a market that has suddenly turned. The Agnelli family’s agreement to sell PartnerRe Ltd. to French insurer Covea for $9 billion may fall short of what investors were hoping for last month. But to ink an all-cash disposal at this price is some achievement — even if the buyer is rich and ...

If you’re raining cash on people and want them to spend it, you have to convince them that the benevolence is being financed by printing money. Nobody wants to worry about being taxed more in the future. These things are going to be problematic for Hong Kong Financial Secretary (HJFS) Paul Chan. He plans to give away HK$10,000 to every ...

Doctors have been preparing for 15 years for “the big one,” a pandemic that will rock the global public health system like an earthquake. Now, with the rapid spread of coronavirus, it may be happening. This viral outbreak probably won’t look like anything that most of us have seen. Some schools may be closed; sports schedules will be modified; travel ...

In Finland’s epic national poem, the Kalevala, a hero is tasked with retrieving the mythical sampo, a mill capable of producing salt, meal and gold that is a talisman of happiness and prosperity. It’s a task that now befalls Pekka Lundmark, the executive appointed as chief of Nokia Oyj with a mandate to return the troubled Finnish network-equipment maker to ...

The Federal Reserve finally succumbed to rising pressure from financial markets that have been roiled by the widening coronavirus crisis with its pledge to “act as appropriate to sustain the expansion.” Despite repeated denials that it was too early to consider a policy shift, the Fed eventually recognised that they couldn’t let markets slide day after day without a firm ...

The biggest coronavirus risk to retailers on both sides of the Atlantic may turn out to be empty stores, rather than empty shelves. As the outbreak has spread from Asia to Europe and the US, concern has shifted from the impact on supply chains because of closed Chinese factories to the potential of the deadly disease to put a sudden ...

If the quantum of public spending alone decided the seriousness with which small, open Asian economies are fighting the coronavirus, then Hong Kong’s HK$120 billion ($15.4 billion) package ought to be three times punchier than rival Singapore’s. When it comes to the quality of expenditure and the financing, though, Hong Kong’s plan seems to be less about protecting lives and ...

The Italian government has announced a 3.6-billion euro ($4 billion) stimulus package to help the economy cope with the coronavirus outbreak. The response appears timely and proportionate. Rome can always add to the stimulus later — provided the financial markets allow it. Roberto Gualtieri, minister of finance, said in an interview that he was looking at a three-step plan to ...