May, 2020

• 9 May

  Abu Dhabi sees continued improvement in air quality

  

  ABU DHABI / WAM The Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) announced there has been a continued improvement of air quality in Abu Dhabi due to government efforts to control human and traffic movement in the capital, as part of the precautionary measures undertaken to combat Covid-19. The agency observed that air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) had decreased ...

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• 9 May

  Crazy dream of $45 oil may become reality in Argentina

  

  Bloomberg West Texas Intermediate has been gaining since its history-making crash in the US last month, trading at around $25. Brent crude has been practically soaring, touching $30 in London. They can’t match the criollo barrel in Argentina, though — $45 guaranteed, no matter what. That dream price doesn’t actually exist, but it could soon. The administration of President Alberto ...

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• 9 May

  US drilling sinks to record low with oil in retreat

  

  Bloomberg Oil and natural gas exploration plunged to an all-time low as the economic and industrial dislocations from the Covid-19 pandemic snuffed out the remnants of the American shale boom. Drilling in US oil and gas fields retreated by 34 rigs this week to 374, led by a precipitous drop in crude exploration that sank to levels not seen since ...

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• 9 May

  Italy leads power demand recovery

  Bloomberg Italy’s electricity demand jumped as lockdown restrictions were loosened, signaling that an economic recovery may be on its way. While consumption rose in France and Britain and held steady in Germany and Spain from the previous week, it’s not clear how quickly demand will recover or if it’ll ever reach pre-crisis levels as the threat of a deep recession ...

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• 9 May

  Is Huawei a paper tiger?

  

  As the United States’ confrontation with China escalates, the Trump administration may be making a classic American mistake: overestimating its adversary’s technological competence and ability to control events. The outbreak in Wuhan of the novel coronavirus shows how ragged and disorderly the Chinese police state was in the initial weeks of the pandemic. Beijing’s response was to suppress and manipulate ...

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• 9 May

  What will be the victim of ‘reopenings’?

  

  Many states are racing to reopen their economies before measures such as testing, contact tracing and full-time mask-wearing are in place. But the one of biggest economic effect of a hasty end of lockdowns adopted to limit the spread of the coronavirus won’t be to save businesses; it will be to kick people off of desperately needed government assistance. While ...

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• 9 May

  Virgin-O2’s $39b deal isn’t all about people

  If you listen to the protagonists, Europe’s biggest telecoms deal in a decade is all about the customers. The details of the merger of Virgin Media, the British cable unit of Liberty Global Plc, and O2, Telefonica SA’s UK mobile carrier, tell a different story. According to the companies, the 31.4 billion-pound ($39 billion) deal is aimed at creating a ...

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• 9 May

  The ‘phony war’ on coronavirus pandemic

  Governments around the world say they’re engaged in a war against the coronavirus. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the legend of the Mahabharata, fought over 18 days, as he declared, with little warning, a devastating national lockdown. British PM Boris Johnson, who always seems to be mentally screening a film of Winston Churchill in World War II, said that ...

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• 9 May

  Covid-19 kills old people. So do most other diseases

  

  Covid-19 is hard on the elderly, with those 65 and older accounting for 80% of the US deaths from the disease for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released demographic data. But this is true of most illnesses: In 2018, 78% of all US deaths from internal causes (that is, excluding accidents, murders, overdoses and the like) ...

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• 9 May

  Don’t let Uber, Lyft shortchange staff

  

  Too many US companies are building empires on the backs of low-wage workers. It’s a mistake to let it continue. California, for one, is fighting back. It sued Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc in state court, contending that the ride-hailing companies violated a new state law by improperly designating drivers as independent contractors rather than employees to save on ...

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