February, 2019

• 12 February

  TUI down as losses plague Europe’s top holiday firms

  Bloomberg TUI AG fell as much as 8 percent after Europe’s biggest holiday company detailed how a glut of flights and hotel rooms is hurting earnings, giving investors more reasons for concern following a profit warning last week. The loss for the quarter through December more than doubled, with no prospect of a turnaround because prices are depressed by unfilled ...

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• 12 February

  Trump gives diplomacy a chance to oust Maduro

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump likes to boast about his disruptive foreign policy style—calling North Korea’s leader “Little Rocket Man” or announcing plans to pull troops from Syria without notifying his top generals. But with Venezuela, Trump is playing it uncharacteristically straight, using textbook diplomacy that he usually shuns in seeking the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro. Instead of going it ...

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• 12 February

  Refugee bill: Australia suffers historic defeat

  Bloomberg The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has lost a crucial vote on a bill that allowed doctors greater say on the medical evacuation of sick asylum seekers from detention centers on Manus Island and Nauru. During a heated debate in the parliament, Morrison warned the changes would weaken Australia’s borders and raise national security concerns. Despite the defeat, ...

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• 12 February

  Catalan crisis shapes Spain as separatist trial begins

  Bloomberg The Catalonia drama unfolded on a new stage with the start of a historic trial of separatist leaders in Madrid — and it threatens to claim the scalp of a second Spanish prime minister in less than a year. Twelve separatists leaders — led by former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras who is facing up to 25 years in jail ...

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• 12 February

  US vows to fight Russia, China for influence in NATO’s east

  

  Bloomberg The US will fight to regain influence in NATO’s eastern flank, particularly in countries such as Hungary where the government’s spotty record on democracy led to a freeze in relations that allowed Russia and China to extend their sway, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said. Pompeo, in the first visit to Hungary by a US secretary of state since ...

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• 12 February

  Abe seeks Seoul’s apology over king remark

  

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denounced a top South Korean lawmaker’s comments about the Japanese emperor as “extremely inappropriate,” ratcheting up already-high tensions between the two neighbours. Abe told parliament that Japan asked South Korea to apologize for National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang’s remarks last week describing Emperor Akihito as “the son of the main culprit of war crimes.” Moon ...

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• 12 February

  Duterte wants to rename the Philippines

  Bloomberg Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is advocating to change the nation’s name one day to “Maharlika” to move away from the country’s colonial links. Duterte’s call echoes a push by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to call the nation “Maharlika,” which in the local language means nobility. The country, which was under Spanish rule for more than 300 years, derived ...

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• 12 February

  China’s hunger for capital is behind market opening

  

  Beijing is selling its relaxation of inward foreign investment limits as a natural opening of financial markets. The reality is that China needs the capital to keep the economy going, and the question is whether investors will buy the hype. Authorities doubled to $300 billion the quota for stocks, bonds and other financial products under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor ...

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• 12 February

  European election won’t break EU

  

  Just how anti-European Union (EU) will the next European parliament be? Latest polls suggest that that populist, often euroskeptic parties, could do well enough in May’s vote to get a disruptive blocking minority – but that would require an improbable degree of cooperation on their part. Given the difficulty of placing dozens of parties in 27 countries on a single ...

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• 12 February

  Trump’s State of the Union address was almost good

  President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address had been trailed as an appeal for unity — and, by the president’s standards, it almost was. Despite some jarring moments, he made a passable attempt at a presidential tone, calling for governing “not as two parties but as one nation,” and speaking of a “new opportunity” in US politics for those ...

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