May, 2020

• 20 May

  Pompeo has poisoned US state department

  At one level, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s decision to fire the department’s inspector general tells us nothing we didn’t already know. Even before Pompeo enabled the smearing and sidelining of US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch last year, he had made it clear that he would tolerate political attacks and even retaliation against members of the US foreign service. ...

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• 20 May

  Rolls-Royce plans 9,000 job cuts on collapse in air travel

  

  Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Warren East’s five-year bid to revive earnings has been shattered by the coronavirus as the UK engineering giant moves to scrap 9,000 jobs and considers closing sites. The jet-engine maker will cut 17% of its workforce and boost savings goals to contend with a travel slump that’s drastically shrunk the aviation market, according ...

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• 20 May

  Norwegian Air drops 60% as reality sinks in

  

  Bloomberg Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA dropped as much as 60% after completing a recapitalisation that hands control of the company to aircraft lessors and bondholders. Investors had in recent days stubbornly traded Norwegian’s shares far above the price of a discounted equity issue that came on top of a $830 million debt conversion. On Wednesday, the stock collapsed after the ...

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• 20 May

  Marks & Spencer outperforms worst-case coronavirus fears

  

  Bloomberg Marks & Spencer Group Plc said it’s outperforming its worst-case coronavirus scenario in a positive sign for a UK retailer that’s going through the latest of a series of turnaround programmes. When the outbreak spread to the UK, M&S said it anticipated that clothing and home sales would fall by 70% in the four months through July, with its ...

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• 20 May

  Walmart sales rise on stockpiling amid virus

  

  Bloomberg Walmart Inc jumped after reporting coronavirus-related stockpiling led to a surge in quarterly sales, underscoring the company’s strong position amid widespread carnage in the US retail sector. Comparable-store sales, a key retail metric, increased 10% for US Walmart stores in the period, compared with the 8.6% estimate compiled by Consensus Metrix. That’s the fastest pace of growth in almost ...

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• 20 May

  Lufthansa warns of urgent need for bailout as talks drag on

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s management said the need for a multibillion-euro coronavirus bailout was becoming urgent as talks with the government in Berlin drag on. In a letter to employees, the airline warned cash reserves continued to shrink while it negotiates the 9 billion-euro ($9.9 billion) rescue package. Lufthansa’s board said it hoped the government would find the “political will” ...

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• 20 May

  Trump ratchets up wooing base with WHO threat, ‘virus drug’

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump delivered a pair of personal and political gestures this week that seized on his core voters’ mistrust of international institutions and skepticism of science, heightened amid the coronavirus pandemic. The president threatened to withdraw from the World Health Organization, escalating his accusation it’s beholden to China. The move came hours after he revealed he was taking ...

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• 20 May

  Joe Biden wins Oregon primary

  

  Bloomberg Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the presidential primary in Oregon on May 19, according to the Associated Press. Biden is the only candidate actively seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, but Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as well as Representative Tulsi Gabbard were also on the ballot. Sanders, who won Oregon in 2016, endorsed Biden but is still ...

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• 20 May

  China vows retaliation over Pompeo’s message to Tsai

  

  Bloomberg China denounced a rare message from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to Taiwan’s president as “wrong and very dangerous,” as tensions between the two sides flared anew over US overtures toward the democratically ruled island. The Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on Wednesday that the military would “take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard” China’s sovereignty, ...

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• 20 May

  Mozambique seeks help to fight ‘insurgency’

  

  Bloomberg Mozambique called for regional help in fighting an emboldened group of insurgents in the country’s gas-rich north who’ve aligned with the IS. The appeal by President Filipe Nyusi is the government’s strongest admission yet that it’s struggling to contain an insurgency that began in 2017 and has grown rapidly in both sophistication and confidence in recent months. It’s temporarily ...

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