February, 2020

• 10 February

  Verizon muscles into Europe’s 5G race with UK outpost

  

  Bloomberg A giant of US telecommunications is muscling into Europe’s 5G race. Verizon Communications Inc is opening a 5G tech showroom and production studio in London, its first outside of the US, complicating the push already underway among European counterparts like Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group Plc to land business customers. The so-called lab showcases services enabled by the ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  Google heads to EU court in episode one of $9bn trilogy

  

  Bloomberg Google’s decade-long antitrust fight with the European Union is set for more twists and turns this week as the internet giant battles the first in a trilogy of fines that cost the company nearly $9 billion. The EU’s General Court in Luxembourg will host a three-day hearing starting on February 12 as the Alphabet Inc unit seeks to topple ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  French economy to rebound from strike impact

  Bloomberg France’s central bank is expecting a punchy rebound by the economy at the start of the year after disruption by strikes and a surprise contraction at the end of 2019. The Bank of France business indicators for January show economic growth resuming the pace it set for most of 2019, until December when prolonged protests over pension reform disrupted ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  China warns France on excluding Huawei from 5G networks

  

  Bloomberg China warned France against treating Huawei Technologies Co differently from European competitors when it comes to future 5G network equipment contracts, as the US mounts a campaign to keep the Chinese tech giant at bay. In a lengthy statement issued on its website, the Chinese embassy in Paris urged France to establish “transparent criteria and treat all companies in ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  Gates to prioritise gender, climate in philanthropy

  

  Bloomberg Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the world’s biggest private foundation, said fighting climate change and promoting gender equality will be prominent issues in their philanthropy going forward. In a letter marking the 20th anniversary of the foundation’s inception, the couple said that climate has emerged as a key issue for the Microsoft Corp co-founder, while gender equality has ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  Merkel’s succession collapses, blows open race to run Germany

  

  Bloomberg The race to lead Germany was thrown wide open on Monday when Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she will step down as leader of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and won’t run as the party’s candidate for chancellor in the next election. Kramp-Karrenbauer, widely known by her initials AKK, has struggled to stamp her authority on the party since ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  Japanese cruise ship reported to have 60 more virus infections

  

  Bloomberg A cruise ship in Japan was reported to have about 60 more coronavirus infections, adding to the 70 already confirmed, according to TBS. The global death toll from the coronavirus outbreak reached 910, as the World Health Organization’s chief voiced concern over the spread of the disease from people with no travel history to China. Coronavirus cases traced to ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  Scotland leader warns Johnson he ‘can’t deny democracy’

  

  Bloomberg Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon vowed to maintain pressure on the UK for another referendum on independence and said the standoff with PM Boris Johnson over the issue is just a “phony battle.” In an interview with Bloomberg Television in Brussels on Monday, she also repeated the possibility of asking the courts to decide whether the Scottish Parliament already ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  US charges China military officers over hack

  

  Bloomberg The Department of Justice announced charges on Monday against four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the 2017 hack of Equifax Inc, according to US Attorney General William Barr. Barr said the charges stem from “breaking into the computer systems” of the credit-reporting company and stealing intellectual property and sensitive personal information at a unprecedented scale. At ...

  Read More »
• 10 February

  Giuliani giving Ukraine data to DOJ, says Barr

  

  Bloomberg Attorney General William Barr acknowledged for the first time on Monday that President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been giving the Justice Department (DOJ) information he collected in Ukraine, bringing what was a stealth campaign into official government channels. Barr said, however, that information coming from Ukraine must be carefully vetted to ensure it is accurate and ...

  Read More »