Bloomberg Hong Kong’s retail sales grew at the slowest pace since July, with the government warning of further pressure ahead amid a surge in Covid cases. The value of retail sales grew 4.1% in January from a year earlier, compared with the median estimate of 0.4% in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The volume of sales rose 1.7%. The Lunar ...

  Bloomberg Russia will halt some international flights to keep billions of dollars’ worth of aircraft from being taken back by their foreign owners, deepening a rupture in the global aviation industry triggered by the invasion of Ukraine. The government’s move will give Aeroflot and other Russian carriers cover to hold on to hundreds of Airbus SE and Boeing Co ...

  Bloomberg Spanish fashion retailer Inditex SA is temporarily closing all its shops in Russia and halting online sales in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The retailer “cannot guarantee the continuity of operations and trading conditions” in Russia, it said in a statement. Inditex has 502 stores in the country, of which 86 are its Zara brand. While ...

  Bloomberg US airlines counting on rejuvenated demand for spring and summer travel as the coronavirus wanes now face a new setback as Russia’s attack on Ukraine pushes jet fuel prices to multiyear highs. Carriers could reveal reductions in planned flying as they update financial guidance at industry conferences in the coming weeks, Conor Cunningham, an MKM Partners analyst, said ...

Bloomberg Efforts failed for a second day to halt Russia’s siege of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol to allow the evacuation of tens of thousands as President Vladimir Putin pressed ahead with the invasion and demand for the country’s “demilitarization.” Russian troops violated a temporary ceasefire agreement, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his ...

Bloomberg Finnish President Sauli Niinisto met with President Joe Biden in the White House, signaling that he’s looking for a closer relationship with the superpower after Finland’s neighbor Russia invaded Ukraine. They agreed to start a “clear process” to enhance security and defense cooperation, also involving Nordic partners, Niinisto, 73, told reporters after their talks in Washington, DC. Asked whether ...

Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin was denounced for his “recklessness” after Ukraine said that Russian forces attacked a nuclear power plant, raising the stakes in the war and prompting calls for an even more robust response to the Kremlin’s aggression. Nato foreign ministers and European leaders condemned what Kyiv described as an assault on the Zaporizhzhia facility in southeast Ukraine, Europe’s ...

  Bloomberg Former Vice President Mike Pence plans to tell Republican donors that there’s no place in the GOP for “apologists” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his latest shot at Donald Trump ahead of a possible 2024 presidential election bid. Pence is expected to make the comments about Putin and defend the expansion of Nato in Eastern Europe during a ...

  Bloomberg Australia expects to soon announce more specifics of a plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under a security partnership with the US and UK, Defense Minister Peter Dutton said. Prime Minister Scott Morrison in September announced the new defense alliance and moved to scrap a deal struck in 2016 with French shipbuilder Naval Group to build as many as ...

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s administration will soon start a review of the first group of tariffs on more than $300 billion in Chinese imports needed to prevent their expiration, a process likely to bring new scrutiny of their effectiveness as inflation runs at a four-decade high. The evaluation, officially known as a “review of necessity,” so far has attracted ...