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  Bloomberg President Joe Biden was to issue an executive order to transfer shift the $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets frozen in the US so it can be used to compensate victims of the Sepember 11 terrorist attacks and support aid efforts in Afghanistan, a person familiar with the matter said. The order will direct US financial institutions ...

  Bloomberg The UK economy expanded at the fastest pace since World War II last year after suffering a milder hit than expected in December. The 7.5% expansion was the largest since 1941 and made Britain the fastest-growing advanced economy in 2021. The economy nonetheless remained smaller in the fourth quarter than at the end of 2019, before the pandemic ...

  Bloomberg There’s a big upside to record used-car prices: Auto lenders like GM Financial are cashing in. General Motors Co.’s lending unit booked a $2 billion gain last year reselling the vehicles that came back from expired leases and anything the company repossessed, according to a regulatory filing. That helped GM Financial to nearly double its annual profit to ...

  Bloomberg Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany could loosen some pandemic restrictions next week as the country’s outbreak shows signs of peaking. While contagion rates are continuing to post records on a daily basis, the pace of the increases have slowed. Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases in intensive-care facilities are less than half the level in early December. That’s prompted calls for ...

  Bloomberg Hungarian inflation surged to an almost 15-year high as government-imposed price caps on goods ranging from sugar to gasoline failed to rein in price growth. Consumer prices grew an annual 7.9% in January, the fastest pace since August 2007 and exceeding the 7.4% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey, the Budapest-based statistics office said in a statement. The ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (Added) and Abu Dhabi Energy Services (Ades), the energy services market maker of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, announced a cooperation agreement to enhance electricity and water consumption efficiency of industrial facilities in the emirate. The agreement will allow Ades to explore potential opportunities to reduce electricity and ...

  DUBAI / WAM Hamad Ahmed Al Rahoumi, First Deputy Speaker of the Federal National Council (FNC), on Thursday met Oscar Salomon, President of the Senate of Paraguay, at the FNC Secretariat’s headquarters. Saeed Rashid Al Abedi, Vice Chairman of the Emirati-Latin American and North American Parliaments Friendship Committee of the FNC, Mariam Majid bin Thaniya, Member of the Committee, ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE and Canada have issued a joint statement for greater cooperation in the field of cultural and creative sector to enrich the creative economy ecosystem in the two countries. The announcement came at the end of a bilateral meeting, at Ministry of Culture and Youth – Abu Dhabi, between Mubarak Al Nakhi, Under-Secretary of ...

  DUBAI / WAM Dubai Electricity and Water Authority’s (Dewa’s) EV Green Charger stations at Expo 2020 Dubai have provided 87,772 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity for the electric vehicles (EV) of visitors to the exhibition during its first three months, with 3,681 charging transactions. This helped visitors travel approximately 415,000 kilometres in eco-friendly vehicles. Dewa provided Expo 2020 visitors with ...

  Bloomberg Russia and Belarus began their largest joint military drills in years Thursday, watched closely by the US and Europe amid tensions over neighboring Ukraine. Thousands of troops backed by tanks, fighter aircraft and advanced S-400 missile-defense systems are involved in the “Allied Resolve 2022” exercises in Belarus that run to February 20. They include drills near the border ...