June, 2021

• 30 June

  Macron is down now, but he is far from out

  French presidential careers tend to begin euphorically, screech to a halt in the face of protests over promises becoming policy and end somewhere between indifference and contempt when voters bring out the ballot-box equivalent of the guillotine. The results of regional elections seemed to prove the pattern. President Emmanuel Macron’s party racked up a humiliating defeat less than a year ...

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• 30 June

  Biden needs to leave Afghanistan in right way

  As US troops prepare to leave Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of combat, the situation on the ground could hardly be more disheartening. Taliban insurgents are already racking up battlefield gains; deprived of US close air support and help maintaining its equipment, the Afghan military may well crumble against concerted onslaught. Al-Qaeda maintains ties to the Taliban and could pose ...

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• 30 June

  South African court jails former president Zuma for contempt

  

  Bloomberg Jacob Zuma, who’s been repeatedly implicated in aiding and abetting the plunder of state funds during the near decade he led South Africa, was sentenced to 15 months in jail for defying a court order to testify at a graft inquiry. The Constitutional Court ruled in January that Zuma had to respond to questions from a judicial commission headed ...

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• 30 June

  Ethiopia starts Tigray cease-fire after rebels retake state capital

  

  Bloomberg Ethiopia’s government began implementing a cease-fire in the war-ravaged Tigray after rebel fighters entered the state capital and celebrated retaking the city. The announcement came after widespread reports that Ethiopia’s national army incurred heavy losses in several locations across the region and were pushed back in multiple locations after the Tigrayan rebels changed strategy and began an offensive after ...

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• 30 June

  Japan’s defence official outlines threat from more assertive China

  

  Bloomberg Japan’s No 2 defense official laid out the increasing threats he sees from a more assertive China, including longer-range missiles and more frequent airspace incursions, as the US ally moves to boost defense spending to help counter Beijing. “It’s already possible for them to aim at the East Coast and the White House,” Yasuhide Nakayama, Japan’s state minister of ...

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• 30 June

  A $27bn pile of debt looms over India’s new bad bank

  

  Bloomberg A bad bank in India that’s expected to launch this month may help reduce one of the world’s worst bad-loan piles but market participants say it’s a long path ahead. The new institution, which is set to start operations by the end of June, is likely to handle stressed debt worth $27 billion over time, according to a BloombergQuint ...

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• 30 June

  HSBC loses four bond bankers as China spats hurt dealmaking

  

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc has lost about a third of its debt capital markets team covering Chinese state-owned enterprises, a sign the bank is still struggling to win back favor in Beijing three years after becoming embroiled in geopolitical spats between China and the West. The departures in recent weeks include two managing directors, John Hai and Jiang Song, who ...

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• 30 June

  New Zealand central bank may stop buying QE bonds

  

  Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank may end its quantitative easing bond purchases in coming months as it prepares to raise interest rates, according to the Bank of New Zealand. Financial markets are now pricing a better than 50% chance that the Reserve Bank will increase its official cash rate in November, BNZ strategist Nick Smyth wrote in a note to ...

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• 30 June

  UBS to let two-thirds of staff adopt permanent hybrid work

  

  Bloomberg UBS group will permanently allow as many as two-thirds of its employees to adopt a hybrid model of working from home and the office, according to a person familiar with the plans, as it seeks a competitive recruitment edge over some US banks taking a more hardline approach. The lender’s move is being led by CEO  Ralph Hamers. The ...

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• 29 June

  Korea’s Kakao Bank seeks $2.3bn in IPO

  Bloomberg Kakao Bank, the internet-only lender backed by South Korea’s Kakao Corp, plans to raise as much as $2.3 billion in an initial public offering, joining a rush by the nation’s companies to sell shares. The bank is selling 65.45 million new shares at between 33,000 won and 39,000 won apiece, according to a filing. At the top end of ...

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