Politics

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating surged in March, even though doubts about the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis grew in recent days, two opinion polls show. Macron’s rating rose 11 percentage points from February to a nearly two-year high of 43% this month, according an Ifop poll published in Le Journal du Dimanche on March 29. The ...

Bloomberg Italy’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 and Spain posted record fatalities, signalling that lockdowns in Europe won’t be lifted anytime soon while its leaders split along economic fault lines. Deaths in Italy slowed to 889 from a record 969 on March 27 and the 5,974 new infections were similar to the previous day’s level. Spain suffered another 832 deaths. ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump backed away from imposing a quarantine for New York and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut to stop the spread of Covid-19, after floating the idea on isolating those hard-hit areas earlier in the day. In an announcement on Twitter, Trump followed up on a suggestion he first raised on March 28 at the White House, ...

Bloomberg North Korea fired what appeared to be an unidentified missile into its eastern sea, the South Korean military said, raising regional security concerns as world leaders battle the spread of the coronavirus. The launch was at least its fourth this month, which Japan’s coast guards said likely fell outside its exclusive economic zone. The projectile likely flew as far ...

Bloomberg Russia, the largest country by area, will temporarily shut all its borders starting from Monday after the number of coronavirus infections increased sharply over the last week. Health officials on March 28 reported 228 new cases of coronavirus overnight, bringing the total to 1,264, with four deaths attributed to the illness. The order, posted on the government website, followed ...

Bloomberg Africa is two to three weeks away from the worst of the coronavirus storm and needs an emergency economic stimulus of $100 billion to bolster preventative measures and support its fragile healthcare systems, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa ( UNECA). Almost half of the funds could come from waiving interest payments to multilateral institutions. That ...

Bloomberg A Trump administration effort to blame China for spawning the coronavirus has stalled for now at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), with other countries focused exclusively on urging joint global action to fight the pandemic. UN members Indonesia, Ghana, Singapore, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are proposing that the 193-member General Assembly adopt a text calling for “international cooperation ...

Bloomberg Dozens of people clashed on the Hubei border after the Chinese government lifted a two-month quarantine on the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, highlighting the challenges of undoing the unprecedented measures taken to contain the disease. The conflict began on March 27 on a bridge connecting Hubei and neighbouring Jiangxi province as policemen from both sides argued over ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel said it’s premature to consider easing Germany’s lockdown measures as coronavirus infections can take as long as 14 days to incubate. “We’re not even close to where we can see if the measures are working,” Merkel said via audio conference from Berlin in her first public comments since entering precautionary quarantine on Sunday. The German leader ...

Bloomberg Singapore is facing a grave economic challenge posed by the coronavirus pandemic that may affect the timing of the nation’s election, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. In a meeting with reporters on March 28, Lee said the tide “had not turned” with the outbreak. As more residents come home to Singapore, more virus enters the country, he said. ...