December, 2020

• 21 December

  Parents’ ‘Covid guilt’ spurs toy sales boom

  

  Bloomberg Celebrating the holidays might be pretty ho-hum, but one area that’s booming is toys. After a terrible year of remote school, cancelled birthday parties and little vacationing, parents and grandparents ridden with so-called “Covid guilt” are spending a lot more on puzzles, crafts and games. And this is setting up the US industry for its best Christmas in years—and ...

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• 21 December

  Mandatory Covid-19 vaccines for travel may ‘kill the sector’

  

  Bloomberg The rollout of vaccines against Covid-19 has intensified debate about whether they should be made mandatory, with the head of a major tourism lobby saying that doing so would cause irreparable harm to the struggling sector. “I don’t think governments will require vaccination next year” for travel, Gloria Guevara, head of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said at ...

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• 21 December

  Canada takes first step in allowing 737 Max to fly again

  

  Bloomberg Canadian transportation authorities validated changes to Boeing Co’s 737 Max ordered by US regulators, putting the jetliner a step closer to flying again in the northern nation. In a statement, Transport Canada said it has completed its review of design fixes mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration in November — calling it “an important first step” towards re-certification. The ...

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• 21 December

  Cathay still mired in Covid trouble

  Bloomberg Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd carried just 37,815 passengers in November, down 98.6% from a year earlier, and warned that its second-half losses will be significantly worse than the HK$9.9 billion ($1.3 billion) hemorrhage in the first six months. Average passenger capacity in the second half is only likely to be 8.4% of pre-pandemic levels, compared with 34.3% in the ...

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• 21 December

  Trump downplays huge hack tied to Russia, suggests China

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump downplayed the severity of a massive cyber-attack on the US government and suggested China may have been responsible — even as other US officials are convinced Russia was the perpetrator. In doing so on Twitter, the president contradicted assessments from senior officials within his own administration who’ve blamed Moscow for the intrusion of at least half ...

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• 21 December

  Biden calls climate change ‘existential threat of our time’

  

  Bloomberg President-elect Joe Biden introduced key members of the team he is assembling to fulfill his pledge to combat climate change, calling them brilliant and qualified. Climate change is “the existential threat of our time,” Biden said, and the people he was nominating to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and departments of Energy, ...

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• 21 December

  Maersk ship secured after hijacking off West Africa

  Bloomberg A container ship owned by AP Moller-Maersk was attacked off the coast of West Africa, prompting the company to warn of a rising risk from piracy in the area. The Maersk Cadiz was boarded by “criminals” on Saturday at about 2:30 pm Nigeria time while traveling from Tema in Ghana to Kribi in Cameroon, Maersk said. Nigerian naval ships ...

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• 21 December

  Somalia accuses Kenya of arming local militia

  

  Bloomberg Somalia’s government accused Kenya of arming local militia to attack its forces on the border, just days after severing diplomatic ties with its East African neighbour. The alleged steps can “undermine general security of the Horn of Africa region,” Somalia’s Ministry of Information said in a statement posted to its Twitter account. Calls and text messages to the spokeswoman ...

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• 21 December

  Johnson’s lockdown adds to pressure on Brexit talks

  

  Bloomberg Boris Johnson’s emergency virus lockdown is heaping last-minute pressure on negotiators as they race to reach a post-Brexit trade deal. Officials said the announcement has focused minds on bringing the talks to a conclusion within days. As the British prime minister was detailing the new restrictions for London and southeast England on Saturday, negotiators in Brussels were inching closer ...

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• 21 December

  Mexico president holds call with Biden on migration

  

  Bloomberg Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called President-elect Joe Biden to congratulate him on winning the election, one of the last major world leaders to recognise the future US head of state. Obrador, who struck up a close relationship with President Donald Trump, said last month that he didn’t want to be “imprudent” and held off his congratulatory message. ...

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