February, 2020

• 16 February

  Taiwan reports its first death from China virus

  Bloomberg Fears continue to grow as much of the world shifts its attention to cruise ships infected with the coronavirus. Japan said it found an additional 70 cases aboard the Diamond Princess, a luxury liner that’s been quarantined at the port of Yokohama, bringing the total number of infected on the ship to 355. Malaysia said it won’t allow any ...

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• 16 February

  Trump had authority for Soleimani attack, says memo

  

  Bloomberg The White House delivered its legal justification for the January airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, arguing that President Donald Trump was authorised to take the action under the Constitution and 2002 legislation authorising the Iraq war. The Trump administration memo, which was released by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, was the first official explanation of the ...

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• 16 February

  Sanders fans’ threats ‘outrageous’: Biden

  

  Bloomberg Joe Biden said threats against officials at a prominent Nevada union that criticised Bernie Sanders’ health care plan by some supporters of the Vermont senator were “outrageous.” The threats were “vicious, malicious,” and “misogynistic,” Biden said in an excerpt of an interview on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The former vice president called on Sanders to accept greater ...

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• 16 February

  Libya arms embargo has become a ‘joke’: UN official

  

  Bloomberg A senior United Nations official called the arms embargo on Libya a “joke” as governments struggled to hold together efforts to end a civil war in the North African country. Germany hosted a meeting of top officials in Munich, who expressed concern about “the deplorable recent violations” of the Libyan weapons embargo, while reaffirming the conclusions of a summit ...

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• 16 February

  Coronavirus threatens Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese dream’

  

  President Xi Jinping has an unwritten deal with the Chinese people: Give me total political control, and I will solve China’s problems and make it a global superpower. This implicit “social contract” had seemed to be working pretty well, until the coronavirus breakout. The epidemic that began in Wuhan in December has spread deep into China’s social fabric. It has ...

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• 16 February

  Bingeing alone isn’t enough for Nestle

  

  It isn’t just Unilever NV that’s struggling to sell more food. Rival Nestle SA now expects to come up short of its self-imposed sales-growth target this year, and it’s counting on acquisitions to put it back on track. While Chief Executive Officer Mark Schneider met the lower end of a goal for underlying operating margin 12 months early, it will ...

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• 16 February

  Amundi’s stellar year has a valedictory feel for CEO

  

  Yves Perrier, the chief executive officer of Amundi SA, has said for several years that his aim is to make Asia a second domestic market for his firm. In 2019, the business started to deliver on that promise — which could pave the way for Perrier, who’s spent the past decade building Amundi into Europe’s biggest fund manager, to depart ...

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• 16 February

  Airbus, Boeing forgot how to make money

  Bombardier Inc. has given up trying to compete in the commercial aerospace market by selling its remaining stake in the 100-150 seat A220 program to its joint venture partner Airbus SE. The $1.5 billion full-year net loss that Airbus announced, alongside that deal, is a painful reminder of why Bombardier’s own large jet ambitions always looked doomed. In theory, building ...

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• 16 February

  The world is conspiring to make gas cheaper

  

  How cheap would you like your natural gas today? Is zero low enough? OK, how about we pay you to take it off our hands? That’s what’s happening in the middle of the US shale patch at the moment — and it’s a symptom of a glut that could reshape energy markets across the world in the coming years. Gas ...

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• 16 February

  The misery of Kraft Heinz isn’t over yet

  

  It’s never good when a CEO has to kick off his company’s year-end earnings report, as Kraft Heinz Co.’s did by saying: “While our 2019 results were disappointing …” Disappointing is putting it mildly, though. Try miserable. To recap: It was one year ago this month that the packaged-food manufacturer suffered a $15.4 billion writedown because of damage — largely ...

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