February, 2021

• 28 February

  Belk to cut $450m of debt with record-breaking speed

  

  Bloomberg Belk Inc, the department store chain owned by Sycamore Partners, won court approval of its plan to slash $450 million of debt less than one day after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. US Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur said in a hearing he would approve the retailer’s bankruptcy plan, paving the way for Belk to emerge from Chapter 11. If ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  Myanmar crackdown leaves at least 5 dead in violent weekend

  

  Bloomberg At least five people died as Myanmar’s military government cracked down on protests over the weekend, and escalated non-tolerance for dissent with the ouster of the country’s representative to the United Nations along with the arrests of journalists and hundreds of demonstrators. Police in the city of Dawei in southern Myanmar opened fire into a crowd on Sunday, killing ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  Biden justifies US strike on Syria to his Democratic critics

  

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden provided an official explanation of the airstrike that targeted Iranian-backed fighters in eastern Syria, saying he was using his authority to deter attacks on US and allied personnel in Iraq. Biden’s letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Patrick Leahy, president pro tempore of the Senate, follows criticism by some Democrats of the circumstances of his ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  China-India demilitarised zone upsets defense officials in Delhi

  

  Bloomberg After the deadliest fighting in decades, India and China are setting up demilitarised areas along their Himalayan border — a move that has rankled some members of India’s security establishment. Soldiers from both countries for now will no longer patrol a nine-kilometer (six-mile) stretch on the north bank of Pangong Tso, a glacial lake some 14,000 feet above sea ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  Hong Kong police charge dozens of opposition activists

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong police charged dozens of opposition activists including Joshua Wong with violating the city’s national security law, taking formal action against them less than a week before China’s highest-profile annual political meeting. Of the 55 opposition figures initially arrested in January, 47 were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion on Sunday. They had previously been facing allegations of ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  Abductions shutter Nigeria’s schools

  Bloomberg A string of mass abductions is disrupting education in Africa’s most populous country, which already ranks among places with one of the highest number of out-of-school children globally. In the most recent incident, armed men on motorbikes seized 317 girls at a school in the northern state of Zamfara. The students were taken into a forest, where they are ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  US goods trade deficit widens as imports surge to a record

  

  Bloomberg The US merchandise-trade deficit widened in January as imports climbed to a record high, signalling a continuing recovery in demand from American consumers. The deficit grew to $83.7 billion from $83.2 billion in December, according to Commerce Department data. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had called for an $83 billion shortfall in January. Imports rise 1.1% to $218.9 billion, ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  UK to pledge $7b in grants to help struggling firms

  

  Bloomberg The UK is set to create a 5 billion-pound ($7 billion) grant program to help businesses that have been hard hit by the pandemic. The ‘Restart’ program will mostly apply to retail, hospitality and leisure — the industries that have been impacted most by the series of lockdowns imposed in the last year. The plan will be announced on ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  Norway’s $1.3tn fund may be facing a major ESG handicap

  

  Bloomberg Norway’s $1.3 trillion wealth fund, the world’s biggest, is handicapped in chasing its environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment goals by the political process, according to Global SWF. The lengthy decision-making that determines which asset classes Norway’s investing behemoth can buy puts it at a disadvantage compared with smaller money managers, “in particular” regarding ESG, according to Diego Lopez, ...

  Read More »
• 28 February

  JLR to shed its production capacity by 25%

  Bloomberg Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will slash its manufacturing capacity by 25% over five years and write off investment in products it’s decided to scrap under new Chief Executive Officer Thierry Bollore. The British carmaker will take a non-cash charge of about 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) in the quarter ending in March related to higher previous spending and projects ...

  Read More »