As Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations continue to rise in the US and other parts of the world, Oxford University scientists provided a much-needed piece of good news: A large, randomised trial in the UK that compared dexamethasone — a generic steroid — to standard treatment found that the drug cut the risk of death in severely ill patients. The result ...

Bloomberg South African Airways’ (SAA) administrators proposed the government put up at least $1.5 billion to rescue the carrier after years of losses and the grounding of commercial passenger flights to contain the spread of coronavirus. The state-owned airline was placed in a local form of bankruptcy protection in December, and the rescue team led by Siviwe Dongwana and Les ...

Bloomberg Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA jumped after an easing of travel restrictions allowed it to reopen dozens of European routes. Norwegian rose as much as 18% in early trading, the most in three weeks, after saying it would restart 76 routes from July 1. The low-cost carrier’s plans, which follow moves from other airlines to boost capacity for the summer ...

Bloomberg Asia’s biggest budget airline AirAsia Group Bhd is mulling flying thorny, pungent durians around the region as part of a plan to use its trucks and planes to send food straight from farms to restaurants. The Malaysia-based airline’s agriculture e-commerce platform Ourfarm has a network of 7,000 trucks for pickups and deliveries in the Kuala Lumpur area, and is ...

Bloomberg European airlines are offering some attractive discounts to people itching for an escape from months of coronavirus lockdown. But fares could rise quickly as demand picks up. Following months of idled flights, carriers are touting promotional summer prices as they return to the skies, with Ryanair Holdings Plc advertising return trips from London Stansted to Seville, Spain, in mid-July ...

Bloomberg Ikea is in talks about returning aid granted by nine countries to subsidise furloughs triggered by the coronavirus pandemic because its business is recovering faster than expected, the Financial Times reported. The global furniture retailer is negotiating with Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain and the US, retail operations manager Tolga Oncu at Ingka Group, ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG issued a plea to investors to turn up and vote for a $10 billion bailout package or risk tipping Europe’s largest airline into insolvency. The carrier said it expects attendance at its June 25 shareholder meeting to fall below 50% of votes, meaning two-thirds of stockholders would need to vote in favor if the bailout package. ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed India will defend its sovereignty in his first public statement since deadly clashes along its contested border with China resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian troops and an unknown number of Chinese casualties. “India wants peace,” Modi said in a televised address on Wednesday. “But when provoked India will and is capable ...

Bloomberg South Korea warned North Korea against further provocations, after Kim Jong-un’s regime pledged to dismantle the last remnants of President Moon Jae-in’s legacy of rapprochement and move troops into disarmed border areas. Moon’s office urged North Korea to tread carefully after the country reduced to rubble a $15 million liaison office set up north of the border in 2018 ...

Bloomberg European Union diplomats are furious that President Donald Trump shut them out of talks between Serbia and Kosovo, fearing not only that EU interests will be sidelined but that the two countries’ long-term interests will suffer. Three officials familiar with the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Balkans said the transatlantic snub ignores years of EU efforts at reconciliation between the ...