Bloomberg Finland’s lockdown will cause gross domestic product (GDP) to shrink between 1.5% and 2.0% for each month that it is in place, the Finance Ministry said Thursday. The longer the restriction measures last, the slower the recovery will be, Mikko Spolander, director general of the Economics Department, told reporters in Helsinki. “The danger is that the longer the economy ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration would like to make purchases of milk and meat products as part of a $15.5 billion initial aid package to farmers rattled by the coronavirus, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. “We want to purchase as much of this milk, or other protein products, mutton and other products, and move them into where they can be utilised ...

Bloomberg Google parent Alphabet Inc. is slowing hiring for the remainder of the year, the most drastic action by the web search giant since the Covid-19 pandemic began battering its advertising business several weeks ago. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told staff about the decision in an email. He also highlighted other areas of cost cutting, saying the company will ...

Bloomberg Profits and dividends at Britain’s publicly traded companies are set to halve this year due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Citigroup Inc. predicts. The bank warned clients that the pandemic’s economic impact will be greater in the UK due to the country’s dependency on its services industry, which is deeply affected by social distancing efforts. While consensus is for a ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration is preparing to attack the legal basis of requirements to capture mercury and other heavy metal pollution from power plants, setting the stage for a court to potentially toss out the mandates altogether. The move will come in the form of a final Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule concluding those mercury pollution controls are too costly ...

Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s ruling coalition scored the largest parliamentary election victory since the end of military-backed rule more than three decades ago, signalling to global leaders that a strong pandemic response can win votes. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and its satellite group won 180 places in the 300-seat National Assembly, according to data from South ...

Bloomberg One of the highest-ranking North Koreans ever to defect made history by winning a parliamentary election in South Korea, running on a conservative platform where he lambasted both Kim Jong-un and the president of the country he now calls home. Thae Yong-ho, who once was a top diplomat representing what North Korea calls its “unique socialist political mode,” pulled ...

Bloomberg China rebuffed a US accusation that it had maintained activity at a nuclear weapons test site, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying the country was upholding its commitment to the international testing ban. In a summary of an annual report assessing global arms-control agreements, the US State Department said that China “maintained a high level of activity” at its ...

Bloomberg Security personnel in Nigeria have killed at least 18 people enforcing restrictions introduced to slow the spread of coronavirus, ThisDay reported, citing a report by the National Human Rights Commission. “Whereas Covid-19 has led to the death of about 11 patients to date, law-enforcement agents have extra-judicially executed 18 persons to enforce the regulations,” the Lagos-based newspaper said, citing ...

Bloomberg Brazil is negotiating with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to airlift diplomatic and military staff who are stranded after his government denied permission for a Brazilian Air Force cargo jet to land in Caracas, two people familiar with the matter said. The plane was scheduled to land in the Venezuelan capital on Friday to pick up diplomatic officials and their ...