Bloomberg India’s move to restrict wheat exports is set to reverberate through global agricultural markets, exposing just how tight global supplies are after the war in Ukraine and threatening to drive up food prices even more. The government said in a notification it will suspend overseas sales to manage its food security. This drew criticism from the agriculture ministers of ...

Bloomberg India’s monsoon will arrive early this year, providing much-needed relief after a record-breaking heat wave damaged crops and threatened the health of millions of people across the region. The mercury surged as high as about 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts this month, after the average temperature soared in March to the highest ever for the ...

  Bloomberg Singaporeans are flocking to apply for passports after travel restrictions eased, unlocking pent-up wanderlust after two years of Covid-19 restrictions. The number of passport applications has spiked to more than 7,000 a day, peaking at 14,000, according to the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, which described the surge as “overwhelming.” That compares with about 2,000 a day before the ...

  Bloomberg The Malaysian state of Sarawak is in talks with Norway about setting up a sovereign wealth fund, Premier Abang Johari Tun Openg said in a statement. Sarawak, home to some of the biggest aluminum smelters and hydroelectric dams in Southeast Asia, would try to achieve the same standard and success of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the premier said ...

  Bloomberg Hiro Mizuno, former chief investment officer of Japan’s GPIF, the world’s largest pension fund, has recounted how Kofi Annan once said to him that Asian nations were a “desert” of responsible financing. Mizuno told the story in 2019, two years after he began to champion investing based on environmental, social and governance metrics. Things have changed since then. ...

Bloomberg Finland announced it will apply to join Nato, and Sweden is likely to follow. Turkey doesn’t plan to block the Nordic countries’ membership bids, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said after meetings in Berlin. The military alliance in June is expected to highlight Russian behavior as a direct threat in an updated strategic document. The UK defense ministry estimated that ...

Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the growing outbreak of a fever “the big upheaval since the nation’s founding” as state media reported more new cases. There were about 296,000 cases of fever with 15 deaths, the Korean Central News Agency said, adding to the more than 170,000 cases reported the previous day. The total death toll stands at ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces another tricky electoral test, with polls suggesting his Social Democratic Party (SPD) could suffer a second setback in a week in a regional ballot. Some 13.2 million people are eligible to vote in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a heavily industrialised western region that was once an SPD stronghold but has been ...

Bloomberg Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said after a visit to Kyiv that he expects the chamber to pass a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine with broad bipartisan backing on Wednesday. McConnell, speaking to reporters on a call from Sweden, made the pledge after leading a group of Republican senators to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who called for ...

  Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison made an impassioned pitch for his center-right government to be re-elected for a fourth term less than one week from a national election, with polls pointing to an opposition victory. The Liberal National Coalition government held its official campaign launch in Brisbane, Queensland, a state that is crucial for Morrison’s party for any ...