April, 2020

• 21 April

  Virus risks unrest with hunger rising

  

  Bloomberg The threat of social and political unrest around the world is rising as the coronavirus crisis fuels discontent amid food shortages, job losses and lockdowns. That may particularly impact nations that are already battling food crises, according to a report from 16 organisations including United Nations agencies and the European Union. The number of people facing acute food insecurity ...

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• 21 April

  Trump-backed virus drug to be tested in Mumbai

  

  Bloomberg As many as 15,000 people in Mumbai, including many in Dharavi, Asia’s most crowded slum, will be given an anti-malarial drug as a preventive therapy to ward off the deadly coronavirus. The first-of-its-kind mass experiment of using hydroxychloroquine as a prophylaxis is being undertaken in the state of Maharashtra — home to India’s financial centre that’s racing to curb ...

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• 21 April

  Immigration will be new casualty of coronavirus

  

  Even before President Donald Trump announced that he intends to temporarily suspend immigration to the US because of Covid-19, it was becoming clear that the effect of the virus on migration would be powerful, long-lasting and unfortunate. Many countries besides the US have already shuttered or severely limited entry from foreigners — and many of those restrictions will not be ...

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• 21 April

  Supporting US shutdown, not protests

  

  What exactly are we to make of the protests against the current shutdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic? For one thing, they’re small and unrepresentative: The vast majority of US citizens say they support the shutdown policy, and that support is if anything growing. Political scientist John Sides has the data. “Cancel all meetings or gatherings of more than 10 ...

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• 21 April

  Don’t expect Johnson to be the same UK PM

  In his absence, Boris Johnson’s British government has mainly followed the lockdown strategy that was determined before the prime minister was infected with Covid-19. Many are hoping that he will soon return to work and change course; that he’ll celebrate signs of a flattening infection curve and reopen Britain for business. It’s unlikely to work out that way. It’s true ...

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• 21 April

  Investment banks get Covid-19 trading pass

  Regulators and central bankers, pressed to keep economies alive through the Covid-19 lockdowns, have whizzed through their crisis playbooks to pump liquidity into the financial system. The mission is noble, and essential: to make sure banks can support companies and individuals until business activity resumes. But the methods need to be scrutinised carefully. There’s plenty that can go wrong when ...

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• 21 April

  Is Trump breaking norms to save his Nov re-election?

  

  President Donald Trump’s encouragement of protests against states’ stay-in-place orders is un-presidential in the colloquial sense: it’s unbecoming of a president. But Trump’s latest gambit is un-presidential in a much deeper sense, too. It contradicts the very constitutional justification for why we have a president in the first place. The whole point of the presidency is to have an elected ...

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• 21 April

  As oil crashes, Iron ore is still rocking

  

  Last year was supposed to be an aberration for iron ore, an unexpected period of sky-high prices after a fatal dam collapse in Brazil and a tropical cyclone in Australia. Instead, it continues to defy gravity. Sheltered from the worst of the pandemic upheaval, Australian diggers like BHP Group, which reported stable output for the March quarter on Tuesday, can ...

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• 21 April

  Shake Shack doesn’t want Uncle Sam’s $10m after all

  

  Social media perked up over the past few days on the news that a number of biggish, publicly traded restaurant chains managed to snare millions in government aid for small businesses that more modestly sized restaurants and vendors missed out on. Public outrage about this dumpster fire is useful and welcome. It’s also occasionally been misplaced. But it’s founded on ...

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• 21 April

  Asia, Europe stocks drop with futures; oil in focus after rout

  

  Bloomberg Stocks in Europe and Asia retreated while US equity-index futures edged lower on Tuesday as concern about the health of North Korea’s dictator introduced more uncertainty into markets roiled by an unprecedented oil collapse and the coronavirus epidemic. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell for the first time in four days, with energy companies leading the decline. Contracts on ...

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