March, 2021

• 28 March

  Biden invites Putin, Xi to virtual climate summit in April

  

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden included Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping among 40 world leaders he invited to a White House climate summit next month, showing he plans to include friends and foes in his administration’s first major international gathering. The virtual summit will bring together 17 countries responsible for 80% of global emissions and gross domestic product, the ...

  Read More »
• 28 March

  US lawmakers ask Biden to make travel easier from Taiwan

  

  Bloomberg A group of nine lawmakers asked the Biden administration to establish a facility to expedite travel to the US from Taiwan’s main international airport, a show of support for the island amid fear it could be targeted by an increasingly aggressive China. The group of seven Republicans and two Democrats said in a letter that a pre-clearance facility at ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  US civil rights groups sue Georgia poll officials over new voting rules

  

  Bloomberg Georgia’s elections chief was sued by a group of non-profit civic organisations that claim a new voting law signed by the state’s Republican governor will make it harder for minorities to cast ballots. The lawsuit, against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, is one of the first challenges to a wave of voting restrictions taking shape in state legislatures ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Kenya’s move to close refugee camps politically motivated, says Somalia

  

  Bloomberg Somalia said Kenya is politicising refugee camps, which have sheltered hundreds of thousands of Somali nationals for three decades, by moving to have them closed. Kenya upped pressure on the United Nations this week to come up with a plan to shut down the country’s Kakuma and Dadaab camps, saying their continued existence posed a security threat to East ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  UK, EU reach first deal on financial rules post-Brexit

  

  Bloomberg Britain and the European Union (EU) took their first step since Brexit to cooperate on financial services, agreeing on a new forum to discuss market regulation. The move could help finance firms in the City of London to eventually win back some access to the single market they lost when the UK left the EU. The two sides have ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  US consumer sentiment climbs to one-year high

  

  Bloomberg US consumer sentiment continued to improve in late March to a one-year high as more Americans got coronavirus vaccinations and business restrictions eased in many states. The University of Michigan’s final sentiment index increased to 84.9 from a preliminary March reading of 83, according to data. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 83.6. A ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Microsoft in talks to buy Discord for $10b

  Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. is in talks to acquire Discord Inc., a video-game chat community, for more than $10 billion. Discord has been talking to potential buyers and software giant Microsoft is in the running, but no deal is imminent, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Discord is more likely to go public ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Murdoch plans to shake up UK news with ‘aggressive’ TV service

  

  Bloomberg Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has chosen a former Fox News executive to unleash his controversial brand of journalism on British screens. But David Rhodes insists he’s not bringing the US network’s brash playbook to London. “It wouldn’t work in this market,” the News UK TV president said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “If you look at News Corp.’s ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Italy’s population falls most in 100 years

  Bloomberg Italy’s population shrank in 2020 by the most in over 100 years, as measured by the number of births minus deaths, with the coronavirus pandemic amplifying a trend that’s been underway since 2007, according to a report released by Istat. The number of deaths outnumbered births by 342 thousand, the most since 1918. The overall population fell by 384 ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  German ministry backed strategy shielding Wirecard

  

  Bloomberg Germany’s Finance Ministry gave explicit backing in 2019 to financial regulator BaFin’s controversial approach to fraud accusations at Wirecard AG, raising questions about its role in one of the biggest corporate scandals in recent history. In a March 2019 phone call, Deputy Finance Minister Joerg Kukies gave the head of BaFin, Felix Hufeld, broad support for his efforts to ...

  Read More »