Politics

Bloomberg Boris Johnson is resisting pressure to ease the UK’s coronavirus lockdown too soon, fearing a second wave of the pandemic could hit the country, a person familiar with the matter said. The prime minister, who is yet to return to work after being struck by the virus himself, spoke with colleagues including his deputy, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, to ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump raised the prospect that China deliberately caused the Covid-19 outbreak that’s killed over 39,000 Americans and said there should be consequences if the country is found to be “knowingly responsible.” Dr Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Sunday that the first country exposed to a pandemic has a “moral ...

Bloomberg Singapore overtook Indonesia in coronavirus infections and now has the most cases in Southeast Asia after the city-state detected hundreds more victims among low-wage foreign workers. Authorities said an additional 596 cases were confirmed as of noon on Sunday, bringing the total to 6,588 in the country. Of the 596, only 25 are Singaporeans or permanent residents, the health ...

Bloomberg Malians voted in parliamentary elections on Sunday despite a partial lockdown to contain the coronavirus and with the main opposition leader being held hostage by suspected extremists. Voters in the capital Bamako were hesitant to venture out, heeding calls from authorities and NGOs to stay indoors as much as possible. “I believe voter turnout will be very low,” Kalilou ...

Bloomberg For the second straight Sunday, tornadoes, thunderstorms, floods and hail hit the South with the worst sweeping across from Louisiana to Georgia, the same swath that bore the brunt of last week’s carnage. In all, almost 12.3 million people from eastern Texas to North Carolina’s southern Atlantic shore are in harm’s way. The deadly storms could strike from Shreveport ...

Bloomberg Since his 2018 election, Jair Bolsonaro has pushed for opening up the Amazon to mining and making Brazil’s indigenous population less like “animals in a zoo.” Now the government is helping those same communities seal themselves off from the outside world in a bid to hinder the coronavirus. As the vast state of Amazonas becomes one of Brazil’s virus ...

Bloomberg Foreign workers in Singapore know they are currently safer in the city-state than elsewhere including their own countries, a minister said, even as a massive coronavirus outbreak among that community shines a spotlight on cramped and oft-unsanitary lodging provided for the low-wage employees. The workers from overseas are “appreciative” of efforts that range from relieving overcrowding in current facilities, ...

Bloomberg Days after insisting he had absolute authority to steer the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump instead handed over the keys to governors and businesses. Trump issued guidelines for states to consider as they decide whether to relax stay-at-home orders and other social-distancing measures enacted to curb the spread of the virus. The brief document ...

Bloomberg Russia recorded its largest daily increase in coronavirus infections, with the new cases rising by almost 5,000 in a single day. New infections jumped by 4,785 to 36,793, the official Russian coronavirus information center reported on its website. Forty people died in the past day, including 21 in Moscow, bringing the number of fatalities to 313. The pace of ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong police arrested 14 people on Saturday on suspicion of organising and participating in an unauthorised assembly in 2019, when months of pro-democracy protests upended life in the city. The police action was connected to unauthorised assemblies on August 18, October 1 and 20 in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon last year, Superintendent Lam Wing-ho said at a ...