April, 2021

• 21 April

  First glimpse of EU’s green rules shows fight over climate goal

  

  Bloomberg The European Union was poised to agree its first criteria for green investments on Wednesday, in a move that could set a benchmark for the world to follow. The stakes are high: the EU wants to raise up to 250 billion euros ($301 billion) using its first green bonds, and private funding is likely to follow into the approved ...

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• 21 April

  UK oil industry may reach CO2 neutrality

  Bloomberg Achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is one of the greatest challenges of our time. But apparently not the greatest challenge. On current trends, the UK will have mostly given up fossil fuels before its North Sea oil and gas industry achieves gender parity, according to the sector’s trade body. “It will be well into the 2050s before the ...

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• 21 April

  PM Modi owns India’s latest Covid disaster

  

  India’s healthcare system is buckling under the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic: The country registered more than 1,500 deaths and nearly 300,000 infections on April 19 alone. Videos of crowded mortuaries and funeral sites, and grief-stricken relatives outside packed hospitals, are circulating among middle-class Indians. The Lancet says India could suffer more than 2,300 deaths every day by June. As ...

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• 21 April

  Not everyone can copy P&G price hikes

  

  Get ready to pay more for some of the most utilitarian items on your shopping list. Consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble Co, maker of Pampers diapers and Tampax tampons, said that it would hike prices on items in its babycare, feminine-care and adult-incontinence divisions to cushion the blow of rising costs for raw materials such as pulp. The announcement comes ...

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• 21 April

  Bolsonaro puts Brazil’s democracy in danger

  Already suffering from the world’s worst surge in coronavirus deaths, Brazil is now verging on political meltdown. Since late March, six members of President Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet and the heads of all three armed services have left office, raising fears that Bolsonaro, facing re-election next year, will exploit the crisis to tighten his grip on power. The possible unraveling of ...

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• 21 April

  Rare corner of markets that Europe controls!

  In recent years, Wall Street banks have dominated their European counterparts in most areas of global finance. But there’s one hot corner of the capital markets where European firms are staying ahead of their US rivals: the soaring market for green bonds. Overall, Europe’s banks have been laggards, even in their own backyard. In European mergers and acquisitions, for example, ...

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• 21 April

  Putin warns of retaliation for crossing Russia’s red line

  

  Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin warned rival nations not to cross Russia’s “red line” in their actions or face a tough reaction. “Russia’s response will be asymmetric, quick and harsh,” Putin said in his annual state-of-the-nation speech on Wednesday. “They will regret it more than ever before.” Putin didn’t single out any rivals for criticism, saying Russia would decide where its ...

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• 21 April

  Joe Biden calls on lawmakers to honour Floyd with ‘reform bill’

  

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden said the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was “a giant step forward in the march towards justice in America,” and called on lawmakers to ensure the legacy of George Floyd wasn’t his murder, but lasting law-enforcement reform. “No one should be above the law and today’s verdict sends that message, but it’s not ...

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• 21 April

  Hungary agrees to tweak laws as EU frustration intensifies with Orban

  

  Bloomberg Hungary’s government submitted legislation to tweak laws that underpinned its attacks against foreign-funded universities and civil society groups that the European Union’s top court struck down for violating the bloc’s rules. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has waged campaigns against dissenting voices during a decade of consolidating power, including against academia and non-governmental organisations. EU leaders in December adopted tougher ...

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• 21 April

  German Greens get early edge to succeed Merkel

  Bloomberg Germany’s Greens are in position to make history, surging past Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc in the race to replace the four-term chancellor after September’s election. The party that’s vowing to increase spending and tighten controls on the finance industry — which finished a distant sixth in the last national vote in 2017 — held a seven percentage-point lead in ...

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