Bloomberg For the authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, a deadly global pandemic is no reason to cancel the country’s military parade marking victory in World War II. Defying warnings about the risks of letting the coronavirus spread, Lukashenko has summoned troops to the capital, Minsk, for the parade that’s expected to attract thousands of spectators, even after neighbouring states ...

Bloomberg North Korea has constructed several new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), according to South Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo. US authorities have detected the assembly and completion of ICBMs at an automobile plant in South Pyongan province, where North Korea launched ballistic missiles in 2017, the newspaper reported, citing an unidentified US government official. They also observed the presence of “transporter ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump declared he’s in no hurry for Congress to pass more stimulus measures to help the economy, hours after the Labor Department announced an unprecedented 20 million jobs were lost in April. “We’re in no rush,” Trump said while meeting with about two dozen House Republicans, who spent an hour taking turns complimenting and congratulating the president ...

Bloomberg Venezuelan lawmakers close to opposition leader Juan Guaido are calling on him to fire some of his aides following a botched raid on the country earlier this week. Lawmakers from the main opposition parties want him to dismiss Juan Jose Rendon, the commissioner for general strategy, and Sergio Vergara, the commissioner for crisis management, six people familiar with the ...

Bloomberg The drugmaker behind one of China’s most promising coronavirus vaccine candidates is in talks to conduct late-stage trials globally as the race for immunisation against Covid-19 intensifies. Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech Ltd is in discussion with regulators in other countries, and the World Health Organization (WHO), to launch phase III clinical trials in regions where the novel coronavirus is still ...

Bloomberg The US government tightened visa rules for Chinese journalists in the latest retaliatory measure in an ongoing spat between the two countries over media access. The regulation will limit visas for Chinese journalists to a 90-day period, while allowing them to apply for extensions, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. Previously, the reporters were permitted ...

Bloomberg Euro-area finance ministers agreed to allow the region’s bailout fund to extend credit lines to each of the bloc’s governments on concessionary terms, paving the way for countries including Italy to draw cheap liquidity amid an unprecedented spending spree. The deal struck at a video conference on Friday forms a key part of the bloc’s response to the crisis ...

Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that the global economic outlook has worsened since its latest forecast three weeks ago and the world can expect more waves of financial-market turbulence. Developing nations’ external financing needs probably will be far above the $2.5 trillion that the IMF has previously projected, Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said in a webcast hosted by ...

Bloomberg Mobile phone applications that trace the new coronavirus could help decide whether business travellers and vacation-goers get to meet clients or visit their favourite beaches this summer. But politics and disagreement over what system to use threatens to thwart that solution. Governments in Europe and elsewhere are turning to voluntary mobile apps to help trace possible infections of the ...

Bloomberg The UK’s contact-tracing mobile phone app includes code that could allow authorities access to a user’s detailed location data and to send information to Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, according to an initial technical analysis carried out by Privacy International. Like governments around the world, the UK is developing a voluntary mobile app that uses Bluetooth technology to ...