Bloomberg Santiago’s central square looks a little like India this week, with police and army units enforcing a tight lockdown — no one moves without a permit. Down the street, it feels more like Sweden with its soft approach to the pandemic — the produce market there is thronged with shoppers and many stores are open. Chile, South America’s richest ...

Bloomberg Ethiopia, already battling Covid-19, is at high risk of a second scourge after yellow fever was reported in the south of the nation, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The first two cases were reported on March 3 in the SNNP Region and had risen to six by April 6, the WHO said in an emailed statement. “The high ...

On Thursday, the European Union’s leaders will gather to decide on a joint response to the economic crisis caused by Covid-19. The central question will be whether the euro zone is ready to issue some form of mutualised debt to relieve pressure on the bloc’s most fragile member states. The chances of anything resembling so-called “euro bonds” are extremely slim. ...

When naming his telecom foray in 2016, Mukesh Ambani chose the mirror image of OIL, the commodity that has made him India’s richest man. In hindsight, Jio was a good choice. The week that oil prices turned negative, the refining tycoon won a $5.7 billion investment from Facebook Inc for his digital assets, Jio Platforms Ltd. Like his wordplay, the ...

After decades of bitter fights, environmentalists seemed to be winning the war against single-use plastics in recent years, with cities around the world banning or taxing them. Then the coronavirus arrived, raising fears that reusable goods might lead to infections. The impact has been swift. From Maine to Hawaii, plastic-bag bans have been suspended or postponed. In San Francisco, reusable ...

So a deal was reached on the bill to supplement the money for small business and other new pandemic relief. Congressional Republicans had wanted $250 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program for small-business loans. The final bill added up to a $480 billion package, with Democrats winning aid for hospitals and increased coronavirus testing, plus provisions for smaller banks to ...

Aviation has always carried a whiff of the pirate ship about it. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, likes to describe himself as an “adventurer and troublemaker,” and once claimed to have found buried treasure on his private Caribbean island as a prank. Right now, the buccaneering executives who have driven the airline industry since the 1980s, when ...

China’s high-end consumers aren’t going on a “revenge spending” spree. They’re just bringing their love affair with luxury brands home. A surge in China sales for stores operated by the likes of LVMH and Hermes International has spurred optimism that consumer demand will snap back as the lockdowns lift. The reports offered a glimmer of light amid data showing that ...

For most of the nation’s history, the idea that people over the age of 65 would voluntarily herd themselves into special communities built around their needs would have seemed absurd, even dystopian. Yet a largely voluntary movement towards segregating people by age has reached extreme levels in recent years — and without receiving much attention at all. The coronavirus outbreak ...

Bloomberg Stocks rose on Wednesday with US equity futures as investors monitored continued volatility in energy markets and earnings reports that haven’t been uniformly negative. Oil prices renewed their slide. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index opened higher, with gains in tech and telecom shares countering declines in energy companies. Stocks slipped in Japan but climbed in most other major Asia ...