Bloomberg Thailand’s new army chief said there was “zero chance” for a military coup now and urged all parties to avoid creating conditions that would lead to violence amid growing anti-government protests. “We should make the possibility for such action to go below zero. All parties must help,” Narongpan Jittkaewtae, who took over as the army chief last week, said ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo called on three other Indo-Pacific democracies to band together against coercion from China, in a bid to keep pressure on Beijing amid the coronavirus crisis rocking Washington. The so-called Quad — also including Australia, India and Japan — began its second ministerial-level meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday, in an event expected to help ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defended disciplining teachers for promoting anti-China views, after the Asian financial center for the first time revoked an educator’s registration over the content of their lessons. Lam told reporters she was obliged to protect students from being drawn into the political disputes that have fuelled a historic wave of unrest in the former British ...

Bloomberg Europe’s drugs regulator started an early review of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, potentially speeding the shot’s assessment and reducing its time to market. Called a “rolling review,” the process will allow the European Medicines Agency to look at how the vaccine is performing in real time as data emerges from trials, instead of ...

Bloomberg Germany said European allies will weigh action against Russia — including possible sanctions — after an international chemical-weapons watchdog confirmed that a nerve agent from the banned Novichok group had been used in the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. “Any use of chemical weapons is a grave act and cannot go without consequences,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert ...

Bloomberg Singapore banks will extend debt relief for individuals and small-to-midsized businesses beyond the end of the year to support borrowers hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The measures, set to expire on December 31, will now progressively end over 2021, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement. The extended program will be tiered so those businesses ...

Bloomberg India’s third-largest private lender is joining its larger rivals in offering pay hikes to staff even as the economic fall out of the coronavirus pandemic threatens profit growth. Axis Bank Ltd. will increase staff salaries between 4% and 12% based on performance, according to people with knowledge of the plans. The Mumbai-based lender, which has about 76,000 employees, also ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank (RBA) kept monetary policy unchanged on Tuesday, clearing the field for the government to unveil a fiscal blueprint designed to drive the economy’s recovery from a Covid-induced recession. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe kept both key interest rate and three-year yield target unchanged at 0.25%, as expected. The labour market is a key focus for the bank, ...

Bloomberg The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will hold its delayed policy meeting this week after the government belatedly appointed new members to the interest rate-setting committee. The Monetary Policy Committee will meet October 7-9, the RBI said in a statement on Tuesday, more than a week later than originally planned. The RBI’s statement came after the Finance Ministry’s announcement ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG said its fixed-income traders are on track to match or beat the performance of their Wall Street peers, racking up a fourth straight quarter of revenue gains as a market rally that started late last year continues. Third-quarter trading revenue is “in line with or better” than the guidance for 12% growth that Wall Street peers ...