February, 2019

• 27 February

  Egypt vows to punish negligence as Cairo train crash kills 25

  

  Bloomberg Egypt’s prime minister vowed swift accountability and an end to the “age of ignoring negligence,” as the death toll from the capital’s worst train crash in years climbed to 25. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly spoke as authorities launched an investigation into what caused the train to collide with the barrier at the end of the track in downtown Cairo’s ...

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• 27 February

  Trump, Kim hail prospects for success at start of summit

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un sounded an optimistic note at the start of their second set of face-to-face meetings in eight months, as the US leader sought to advance nuclear talks that have largely stalled since their first summit in June. The two leaders shook hands and made brief remarks ahead of a one-on-one meeting at ...

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• 27 February

  Opposition rejects Buhari’s re-election

  

  Bloomberg Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari won a second term as president of Africa’s biggest oil producer with promises to revive an anemic economy and tackle security threats including a devastating war against insurgents loyal to IS. His main opponent rejected the results. The defeated rival, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday said he will go to court to contest Independent National Electoral Commission ...

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• 27 February

  Romania’s anti-graft crusader scores win in EU-job attempt

  Bloomberg A Romanian anti-graft crusader won support from a key panel of European Union lawmakers to become the bloc’s first chief prosecutor, highlighting EU concerns about the erosion of democracy in the country. Laura Codruta Kovesi, who was fired by Romania’s ruling Socialist Democrats after she put dozens of corrupt politicians behind bars, gained the backing of the European Parliament’s ...

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• 27 February

  Time to unleash $8trn of climate defense firepower

  

  On Monday, the British Met Office recorded the UK’s warmest winter day on record. In Chile, January temperatures in the capital city of Santiago beat the previous record by a full degree Celsius. Globally, the last five years were collectively the world’s warmest ever. Ever. The world is losing the race to curb carbon dioxide emissions. In 2017, output of ...

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• 27 February

  Bad jobs data could bite China

  

  China has long been criticised both for its obsession with GDP statistics and their quality: Pressuring cadres to meet growth targets has encouraged a risky buildup of debt and, at times, the outright fabrication of numbers. If anything, though, the quality of China’s official employment data is even worse — and the inaccuracies could have equally dangerous repercussions. Until relatively ...

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• 27 February

  No, they don’t expect you to spend $2,000 on a phone

  

  When companies turn to gimmicks as the headline act in a product launch, you know there’s not much really going on. We can’t blame Samsung Electronics Co. and Huawei Technologies Co. for releasing $2,000 and $2,600 phones respectively. Foldable screens are kind of cool, I suppose. But so are those weird and wonderful concept cars the auto industry likes to ...

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• 27 February

  Amazon’s vanishing tax bill isn’t in fact a scandal

  It seems Amazon.com Inc. will be paying zero tax on its profits of roughly $10 billion in 2018. This has caused an outcry in certain quarters, but the complaints are misplaced. The corporate tax code is riddled with loopholes and has plenty of misguided preferences — some of them new, thanks to the tax-reform measure passed in 2017. But the ...

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• 27 February

  Bangladesh versus India in development race

  

  There’s an old theory that as an organism develops, it progresses through the same evolutionary stages traveled by its ancestors. Traditionally, economic development has worked in a similar way. When a country first shifts from agrarian poverty to industrialisation, it tends to start out in light manufacturing, especially textiles. Later it masters more complex manufactured products, and finally it progresses ...

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• 27 February

  Cheap as chips doesn’t cut it in Brexit Britain

  

  Just because it’s a bargain, doesn’t mean it’s worth it. Associated British Foods Plc has said its Primark discount clothing chain had performed well in the UK in the first half of its financial year, offsetting difficult conditions in Germany. This comes days after value bakery brand Greggs Plc said full-year underlying pre-tax profit was likely to be ahead of ...

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