April, 2020

• 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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• 16 April

  The fog surrounding coronavirus economy

  Just how serious will the economic impact of the coronavirus be? Amid vast uncertainty, some very large numbers are flying around, and there’s a lot of confusion over what they mean. Peering through this fog, it’s worth noting: Authoritative official forecasters are far more pessimistic in the short term than most private-sector analysts. When Goldman Sachs, for instance, recently said ...

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• 16 April

  Now, money is losing its meaning amid virus

  Doing “whatever it takes” to save the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic is going to cost a lot of money. The US government alone is spending a few trillion dollars, and the Federal Reserve is creating another few trillion dollars to keep the financial system from collapsing. A custom Bloomberg index measuring M2 figures for 12 major economies including ...

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• 16 April

  Meticulous! Germany can handle a pandemic

  

  It’s still early days in this pandemic, but not too early to venture a prediction: Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, will come out of it looking quite good. What’s more, she may look even better as the outbreak enters its second phase, in which lockdowns gradually yield to uneasy resumptions of social and economic life. That’s because this pandemic ...

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• 16 April

  US store turnaround is no match for virus

  

  There is a sad inevitability about US department store JC Penney potentially exploring bankruptcy protection. The 118-year-old retailer has enough cash to survive the coming months, but it is looking into a possible bankruptcy filing to restructure its finances, Reuters, citing people familiar with the talks. JC Penney said it wouldn’t make a $12 million interest payment due April 15, ...

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• 16 April

  Asia’s demographics make foreign workers critical

  

  For Asia’s most prosperous societies, Covid-19 has exposed a big vulnerability: People simply aren’t having enough babies to replenish their aging populations. It’s foreign workers that make these countries function. That’s why pulling up the drawbridge to halt further spread of the disease and protect domestic businesses would be perilous. Even Japan and South Korea, often seen as hostile to ...

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