February, 2022

• 12 February

  Biden to tap frozen Afghan funds for 9/11 victims, aid

  

    Bloomberg President Joe Biden was to issue an executive order to transfer shift the $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets frozen in the US so it can be used to compensate victims of the Sepember 11 terrorist attacks and support aid efforts in Afghanistan, a person familiar with the matter said. The order will direct US financial institutions ...

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• 12 February

  Antony Blinken presses Quad nations to counter ‘more aggressive’ China

  

    Bloomberg US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “China has been acting more aggressively,” although he didn’t consider a conflict in the Indo-Pacific inevitable. Blinken spoke as a meeting of the Quad, a regional partnership that also includes Japan, India and Australia, got underway in Melbourne. “Nothing is inevitable,” Blinken said in response to a reporter’s question about ...

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• 12 February

  Taliban to press UN for recognition as economic woes fester

  

    Bloomberg The Taliban-appointed permanent representative to the United Nations says the new Afghan government is pressing the international body for recognition and a member’s seat as the lack of legitimacy hurts the country’s economy and diplomacy. “Why the world is not recognizing us when we have met their conditions,” Suhail Shaheen said in an interview from Doha, Qatar. He ...

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• 12 February

  Europe aims to build space-threat defense pact

  

    Bloomberg The European Union wants to establish a new crisis response system to defend against threats in space as well boost its capabilities to ward off hybrid and cyber attacks. By the end of the year, the EU will explore the possibility of activating “solidarity, mutual assistance, and crisis response mechanisms in case of attacks originating from space or ...

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• 12 February

  French ‘freedom convoys’ head to Paris to protest vaccine rules

    Bloomberg Protesters against France’s Covid-19 vaccine passes began driving toward Paris on Friday to attempt to block the capital, inspired by “freedom convoys” that began in Canada. On Facebook and Telegram, people shared videos of cars setting off from across the country, including Strasbourg, in the east, Brittany, in the west, the region around Lille, in the north, and ...

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• 12 February

  UK economy sees best annual growth since World War II

  

    Bloomberg The UK economy expanded at the fastest pace since World War II last year after suffering a milder hit than expected in December. The 7.5% expansion was the largest since 1941 and made Britain the fastest-growing advanced economy in 2021. The economy nonetheless remained smaller in the fourth quarter than at the end of 2019, before the pandemic ...

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• 12 February

  GM grabs $2 billion windfall as used-car prices hit record

  

    Bloomberg There’s a big upside to record used-car prices: Auto lenders like GM Financial are cashing in. General Motors Co.’s lending unit booked a $2 billion gain last year reselling the vehicles that came back from expired leases and anything the company repossessed, according to a regulatory filing. That helped GM Financial to nearly double its annual profit to ...

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• 12 February

  Germany looks to ease pandemic curbs as Covid peak approaches

  

    Bloomberg Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany could loosen some pandemic restrictions next week as the country’s outbreak shows signs of peaking. While contagion rates are continuing to post records on a daily basis, the pace of the increases have slowed. Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases in intensive-care facilities are less than half the level in early December. That’s prompted calls for ...

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• 12 February

  US braces for possible trucker protest

    Bloomberg Federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies across the US are bracing for the possibility of a protest by truckers that could begin this weekend and carry into March, potentially including a cross-country caravan and disruptions to cities and major transportation routes. Although it’s still not clear how serious the threat is, the US Department of Homeland Security warned ...

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• 12 February

  Hungarian inflation surges to almost 15-year high

  

    Bloomberg Hungarian inflation surged to an almost 15-year high as government-imposed price caps on goods ranging from sugar to gasoline failed to rein in price growth. Consumer prices grew an annual 7.9% in January, the fastest pace since August 2007 and exceeding the 7.4% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey, the Budapest-based statistics office said in a statement. The ...

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