Bloomberg Taiwan’s attempts to purchase five million doses of BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine fell apart at the last minute, Taiwan’s health minister said on Wednesday, voicing concern that political pressure from Beijing may have scuppered the deal. Taiwan’s government was making final preparations to sign a deal with Germany-based BioNTech in January but then “things changed,” minister Chen Shih-chung said ...

Bloomberg Gunmen kidnapped students and staff from a school in Nigeria, the second attack of its kind in recent months, a presidential spokesman said. The criminals abducted a “yet to be ascertained” number of people from a boys’ school in Kagara in Nigeria’s central Niger state, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, said in an emailed statement. Hundreds of students ...

Bloomberg The wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made her first public appearance in a year, ending an unusual absence that stoked speculation about her condition. Ri Sol Ju joined her husband at a musical performance for the anniversary of the birth of former leader Kim Jong Il, which is known as the Day of the Shining Star ...

Bloomberg World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala urged the European Union and all other WTO members to end export restrictions on vaccines and other medical goods needed to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. “This is the only way we can get a freer flow of goods and get them to countries that don’t have access,” Okonjo-Iweala told Bloomberg in a ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) clients with $614 billion combined are in the throes of an unprecedented frenzy of risk-taking, as more Wall Street banks sound the alarm on greed across markets. After a week which recorded the strongest-ever inflow into stocks, a record net 25% of investors surveyed by the investment bank this month are taking higher-than-normal risks. ...

Bloomberg The billionaire Hinduja family paid a premium to boost its stake in IndusInd Bank Ltd., a sign of confidence in the Indian private-sector lender as concerns over its asset quality ease. IndusInd International Holdings Ltd., which represents the bank’s founding Hinduja clan, completed a rights issue to fund the conversion of warrants to shares in the Mumbai-based bank, it ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. is working with about 10 stressed or distressed borrowers in Europe hoping to lower cost of government bailout loans in debt market, according to senior bankers. Most of the companies are trying to offload loans made last year to help them survive the pandemic and lock in lower rates, Daniel Rudnicki Schlumberger, the bank’s co-head ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it would commit $25 million to a five-year program aiding historically black colleges and universities. In its first year, the initiative will include 125 students who will get training in fundamental finance skills, the New York-based company said in an emailed statement. “Diversity is an imperative for our organisation,” Chief Executive Officer David Solomon ...

Bloomberg Ex-UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier plans to raise funds for a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), the latest former top banker to take advantage of the trend for blank check vehicles. Mustier, who left UniCredit last week after a boardroom power struggle, plans to work on the SPAC with former Bank of America Corp. executive Diego ...

Bloomberg A three-decade high for Japan’s soaring stocks is adding to pressure on the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to tweak its buying of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to the former head of its financial markets department. “Shares could be rising on a bubble and the BOJ could be helping inflate that bubble,” Hiromi Yamaoka said in an interview, the same ...