April, 2020

• 16 April

  Google to slow hiring for rest of 2020, says CEO

  

  Bloomberg Google parent Alphabet Inc. is slowing hiring for the remainder of the year, the most drastic action by the web search giant since the Covid-19 pandemic began battering its advertising business several weeks ago. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told staff about the decision in an email. He also highlighted other areas of cost cutting, saying the company will ...

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• 16 April

  UK earnings to halve this year, says Citi

  Bloomberg Profits and dividends at Britain’s publicly traded companies are set to halve this year due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Citigroup Inc. predicts. The bank warned clients that the pandemic’s economic impact will be greater in the UK due to the country’s dependency on its services industry, which is deeply affected by social distancing efforts. While consensus is for a ...

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• 16 April

  Trump challenge to mercury curbs a boost for coal plants

  

  Bloomberg The Trump administration is preparing to attack the legal basis of requirements to capture mercury and other heavy metal pollution from power plants, setting the stage for a court to potentially toss out the mandates altogether. The move will come in the form of a final Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule concluding those mercury pollution controls are too costly ...

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• 16 April

  South Korean leader wins big in election during pandemic

  

  Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s ruling coalition scored the largest parliamentary election victory since the end of military-backed rule more than three decades ago, signalling to global leaders that a strong pandemic response can win votes. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and its satellite group won 180 places in the 300-seat National Assembly, according to data from South ...

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• 16 April

  N Korean defector wins vote in posh South Korea district

  

  Bloomberg One of the highest-ranking North Koreans ever to defect made history by winning a parliamentary election in South Korea, running on a conservative platform where he lambasted both Kim Jong-un and the president of the country he now calls home. Thae Yong-ho, who once was a top diplomat representing what North Korea calls its “unique socialist political mode,” pulled ...

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• 16 April

  China rebuffs US blame on N-test activity

  

  Bloomberg China rebuffed a US accusation that it had maintained activity at a nuclear weapons test site, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying the country was upholding its commitment to the international testing ban. In a summary of an annual report assessing global arms-control agreements, the US State Department said that China “maintained a high level of activity” at its ...

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• 16 April

  18 killed as Nigerian forces impose Covid-19 controls

  

  Bloomberg Security personnel in Nigeria have killed at least 18 people enforcing restrictions introduced to slow the spread of coronavirus, ThisDay reported, citing a report by the National Human Rights Commission. “Whereas Covid-19 has led to the death of about 11 patients to date, law-enforcement agents have extra-judicially executed 18 persons to enforce the regulations,” the Lagos-based newspaper said, citing ...

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• 16 April

  Brazil negotiating with Maduro to repatriate staff in Venezuela

  

  Bloomberg Brazil is negotiating with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to airlift diplomatic and military staff who are stranded after his government denied permission for a Brazilian Air Force cargo jet to land in Caracas, two people familiar with the matter said. The plane was scheduled to land in the Venezuelan capital on Friday to pick up diplomatic officials and their ...

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• 16 April

  How not to hold a vote during a pandemic

  

  When Thomas Edison was asked about conducting thousands of experiments without results, he responded that he always got results: He knew “several thousand things that won’t work.” America’s states are, Louis Brandeis said, laboratories of democracy, and recently Wisconsin successfully demonstrated what does not work when holding elections during a pandemic. After insisting for weeks that the statutory election schedule ...

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• 16 April

  The Covid-19 tracking app won’t work

  

  Apple and Google have generated much hope and controversy with their plan to create a Covid-19 tracking app. Too bad it won’t work. Public debate has focussed on how to balance the right to privacy with the potential to save lives. There’s ample reason for skepticism — for example, “anonymous” Bluetooth tracking can be deanonymised. But that’s not what I ...

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