Author: LoveWorld UK

China dismissed as groundless on Monday Australia’s questioning of how Beijing handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had been open and transparent, despite growing scepticism about the accuracy of its official death toll. Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the virus, joining a chorus of concern over how China tackled the virus that emerged in its central city of Wuhan last year. Since then the virus has caused nearly 2.4 million infections and more than 160,000 deaths worldwide, paralysing life and business in major cities. In Beijing, a foreign ministry…

Britain will review its approach to the coronavirus pandemic to learn what it could have done better, Culture Minister Oliver Dowden said on Monday, following criticism that the government was too slow to react. “When we’re dealing with an unprecedented crisis like this we’re not going to have perfect 20:20 hindsight vision on this,” he told BBC TV. “Of course we will need to look back and see the things we could have done differently. “But right now people would not be expecting us to be looking back over the past few months, they would be expecting us to be…

Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent said a recovery in Britain’s economy after the government relaxes its coronavirus lockdown might be held back by people remaining cautious. “I think it is certainly conceivable, it is certainly possible,” Broadbent said when asked about a possible rapid bounce back in the economy during an online presentation to businesses on Monday. “I think the question that we will have to think about is whether behavioural responses of people mean that even if the government-imposed lockdown is lifted, demand may remain weak in some areas just out of people’s natural caution.” Broadbent said…

Britain’s financial watchdog has proposed a repayment freeze for millions of consumers with auto finance contracts, goods bought on high-cost credit, and pawned belongings during the coronavirus pandemic. Britain extended a national lockdown on Thursday by a further three weeks to early May, with many businesses shut and millions of people furloughed or having to claim welfare as a deep and rapid recession beckons. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Friday it expects car leasing firms to provide a three-month payment freeze to customers who are having temporary difficulties meeting payments due to the coronavirus. “If customers are experiencing…

New York and six other Northeastern states on Thursday extended coronavirus stay-at-home orders to May 15, as President Donald Trump issued new federal guidelines for a cautious reopening of the economy in keeping with advice from leading public health authorities. The president, who had pressed to restart idled businesses as early as May 1 and had declared “total” authority to do so, settled instead for a phased-in, science-based strategy, heeding warnings from infectious-disease experts that easing social distancing too soon would invite disaster. “We are not opening all at once, but one careful step at a time,” Trump told reporters…

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate urged people to look after their mental health during the novel coronavirus outbreak and drew attention to the particular psychological strain felt by frontline health workers. “We can feel frustrated, miss loved ones or get anxious,” William, the grandson of Queen Elizabeth, and Kate said in an interview promoting a government Every Mind Matters online platform which gives tips on mental health. “There are things we can all do to look after our mental wellbeing at this time.” Prince William told the BBC he was especially worried about front-line health workers who were…

As the coronavirus spread in Russia, a group of 500 Chinese residents of Khabarovsk city in the Far East decided to lock themselves inside an apartment block, imposing a regime of self-isolation that has been in place since April 1. “Of course we are dying to go home,” 50-year-old Liu Haijun, a native of the northeastern Chinese border city of Suifenhe, told Reuters by phone from the building called the Tianyu Guesthouse. “But with the border closed and flights cancelled, and rumours of people getting infected on the journey back, and because my business is here, we just have to…

Britain’s stock markets jumped on Friday as investors cheered plans for a gradual restarting of the U.S. economy and encouraging data on possible treatment for the COVID-19 disease. The commodity-heavy FTSE 100 index .FTSE rose 2.5%, with shares in the world’s top iron ore miner Rio Tinto Ltd (RIO.L) (RIO.AX) gaining 5.2% after it posted higher-than-expected quarterly production. Peers BHP Group (BHPB.L) and Glencore (GLEN.L) added more than 5%, leading the wider mining index .FTNMX1770 up 4.6%. Markets globally took heart as the United States joined other countries in planning lockdown exit measures with a staggered, three-stage approach following weeks-long lockdown that…

DUBAI (Reuters) – Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways has the full support of its state shareholder as it plans a partial resumption of passenger flights from May 1, its chief executive Tony Douglas said on Thursday. Several states have stepped in to assist airlines after the coronavirus outbreak virtually halted all international air travel, though the oil rich Abu Dhabi government has so far not said whether it would help the airline it owns. “The cumulative gains achieve by our ongoing transformation, and the unwavering support of our shareholder, has left us in a relatively strong position to withstand any instability,”…

Amazon (AMZN.O) has no clarity yet on when its warehouses in France might reopen, the head of its French business said on Thursday, after the e-commerce giant clashed with unions over the measures taken to limit the risks of coronavirus contagion. Amazon closed six French warehouses used to stock and package goods for shipment on Thursday until at least April 20, in one of the biggest fallouts yet from a growing stand-off with its workers over safety measures during the pandemic. The world’s largest online retailer is facing mounting scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic as it juggles a…