July, 2021

• 25 July

  It’s back to the 1990s along southern US border

  

  Things aren’t exactly settling down along the US border with Mexico, with the US Border Patrol reporting 178,416 apprehensions in the Southwest in June, its highest monthly total since early 2000. Emergency rules adopted early in the Covid-19 pandemic that allow for the immediate expulsion of most unauthorised border crossers and people who arrive at the border seeking asylum have ...

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• 25 July

  Covid is salt in South Africa’s wounds

  

  Pandemics don’t cause riots. They do, though, create the perfect conditions for turmoil in fragile societies that are already powder kegs of inequality and sky-high unemployment, and where coronavirus has inevitably hit the poor hardest. South Africa’s days of unrest this month, the worst violence since apartheid, were triggered by the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma on contempt-of-court charges. ...

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• 25 July

  Zoom’s new deal muscle sets up cloud showdown

  Salesforce.com Inc helped Zoom Video Communications Inc get off to a good start when it invested in the startup’s IPO roughly two years ago. But with the videoconferencing company now looming as a serious threat in cloud software, Salesforce may regret its initial support. Zoom announced an agreement to acquire cloud call-center software maker Five9 Inc for $14.7 billion in ...

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• 25 July

  Dems are focusing on wrong part of medicare

  It’s good to see that some US politicians are still working on fixing the country’s broken healthcare system. Proposals from Senator Bernie Sanders had some very promising elements, though also some less helpful ones. Unfortunately, it seems that the only piece of his plan likely to make it into the final spending bill is the least helpful part: the expansion ...

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• 25 July

  Dreamliner deliveries to be 7 months late: Vistara

  

  Bloomberg Singapore Airlines Ltd’s Indian joint venture expects the last four Dreamliners from its Boeing order to arrive by October 2022, a delay of up to seven months as the US planemaker addresses flaws with the jet and the pandemic weighs on air travel. Vistara, which Singapore Airlines jointly owns with conglomerate Tata Group, has received two Boeing 787 Dreamliners ...

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• 25 July

  UK retail sales surged unexpectedly in June

  

  Bloomberg UK retail sales surged unexpectedly in June as consumers spent more in grocery stores to celebrate European championship soccer, adding momentum to the economic recovery. The volume of goods sold in shops and online rose 0.5% from the month before, the Office for National Statistics said. Economists had expected a 0.1% drop. The figures followed an unprecedented jump in ...

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• 25 July

  HK to delay plan for antibody test at airport to cut quarantine

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong will postpone for at least two weeks a plan to start antibody testing at the airport for fully vaccinated people arriving from some areas, people familiar with the matter said, a setback in easing one of the strictest quarantine restrictions in the world. The delay in the second phase of its antibody-testing plan was a result of ...

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• 25 July

  Athens’ old airport is rivaling New York in property prices

  

  Bloomberg The redevelopment of Athens’ old airport offered a unique chance to secure pristine sea-side homes close to a major city, and even before bulldozers start to roll, it may already be too late to buy one. Demand has been so strong that all of the apartments in the project’s 45-floor marina tower as well as the 27 beach-front villas ...

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• 25 July

  United sees profit on horizon despite renewed virus fear

  Bloomberg United Airlines Holdings Inc. is confident that a domestic travel resurgence will continue despite rising coronavirus infections, leading the carrier to forecast profits for the rest of this year “We don’t just see the light at the end of the tunnel, we’re exiting the tunnel,” Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby said on an earnings call, citing robust demand. “It’s ...

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• 25 July

  Uber ramps up on-demand grocery in US 

  Bloomberg Uber Technologies, Inc is accelerating its on-demand grocery delivery service in the US, more than doubling the cities where it’s available and partnering with a major grocer as the pandemic-fueled delivery competition heats up. After launching its grocery delivery service last July, Uber said on Monday that it can now be used in more than 400 locations in the ...

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