Eurozone consumer confidence falls close to record lowest

Eurozone

Cost of living rising at the fastest rate in single currency zone. Rising energy and food prices pushed inflation to 8.1% in the year leading up to May. Analysts warn of recession risk for 19-nation bloc. The level of consumer confidence in the eurozone has reached its lowest point since the beginning of the coronavirus … Read more

Indigenous protesters in Ecuador defy state of emergency

protesters

Indigenous protesters in Ecuador defied a state of emergency, continuing with road blockages that are now on their sixth day. The demonstrations have blocked roads across the country, including highways leading into the capital Quito. Fuel prices have risen sharply since 2020, almost doubling for diesel and rising from $1 to $1.90 per gallon (3.8 … Read more

Sri Lanka students mob PM’s home over economic crisis

Sri Lanka

Thousands of Sri Lankan university students mobbed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s domestic on Sunday annoying his resignation over the island kingdom’s worsening economic crisis. Months of lengthy blackouts, file inflation, and acute meal and fuel shortages have sparked growing public discontent in Sri Lanka, which is managing its worst financial downturn when you consider its … Read more

Italian police bust 440-mln-euro Covid aid fraud

Italian police

Italian police said Wednesday they have got busted a chief operation to defraud a central authority scheme to assist companies at some point of the coronavirus pandemic, recuperating extra than 400 million euros ($430 million). Twelve human beings have been arrested as part of the edge in opposition to a crook community based in Rimini, … Read more

Visitors baffled: To see an Upside-down house in Colombia

Colombia

Tourists tired of the continuing coronavirus pandemic have been drawn to a topsy-turvy mansion in Colombia. Fritz Schall, an Austrian who resides in Colombia with his family, designed the upside-down house in the Guatavita district, with ceilings in place of floors. According to the media, Schall stated, “Everyone looked at me like I was mad, … Read more

Israel ‘leads the way’ with 4th Covid jabs for vulnerable

Israel 'leads the way' with 4th Covid jabs for vulnerable

RAMAT GAN, Israel, Dec 31, 2021 (AFP) – Israel on Friday started giving fourth Covid vaccine shots to people with weakened immunity, becoming one of the first countries to do so in hopes of countering a case surge driven by the Omicron variant. The effort comes almost exactly one year after Israel began a massive vaccination … Read more

Fitch downgrades Sri Lanka as default fears mount

Fitch

International ratings agency Fitch downgraded cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Saturday by one notch to ‘CC’ due to mounting fears of a sovereign default on its $26 billion foreign debt. The downgrade came a day after Sri Lanka reported a 1.5 per cent contraction in the third quarter of this year, as a foreign exchange crisis … Read more

Tarin expects reduction in inflation soon

Shaukat Tarin

PESHAWAR: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin has expressed gratitude to the members of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly for electing him as the senator and asserted that Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf would continue to serve the masses. Talking to newsmen after winning the Senate election from the provincial assembly, he said, he would … Read more

Fitch downgrades Sri Lanka as default fears mount

Sri Lanka

COLOMBO: International ratings agency Fitch downgraded cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Saturday by one notch to ‘CC’ due to mounting fears of a sovereign default on its $26 billion foreign debt. The downgrade came a day after Sri Lanka reported a 1.5 per cent contraction in the third quarter of this year, as a foreign exchange crisis … Read more

Brazil startup dares to deliver to favelas

Brazil

SAO PAULO: Clapping their hands, ringing bells and yelling at the top of their lungs to find the right recipient, delivery workers for Brazilian startup Favela Xpress dare to go where traditional companies won’t: the slums. The firm launched in April in Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo’s second-biggest ‘favela’, a sprawling shantytown of 100,000 people with a maze … Read more

Sri Lankan economy slumps in face of forex crisis

Sri Lankan economy

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s economy shrank in the third quarter as a foreign exchange crisis wrecked its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed on Thursday. The GDP contracted 1.5 per cent on-year in the three months to September, the department of census and statistics said, ending four consecutive quarters of growth. The island’s tourism-dependent economy … Read more

UK unemployment dips despite end of virus jobs scheme

UK unemployment

LONDON: Unemployment in Britain has fallen again, despite the end of a government scheme to keep millions of private-sector workers in their roles during the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed on Tuesday. The jobless rate, which measures the number of people out of work as a proportion of the working population as a whole, slipped to … Read more

Sub-prime to Covid: how ECB reacted in times of crisis

FRANKFURT – The coronavirus pandemic is not the first crisis to force monetary policymakers into drastic action to avert economic disaster. As the European Central Bank readies for a crunch meeting Thursday to discuss soaring inflation and a path out of stimulus, here is a look at other times the Frankfurt institution was put to … Read more

China’s SenseTime postpones Hong Kong IPO after US blacklisting

HONG KONG – Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime said Monday it was postponing a planned $767 million initial public offering in Hong Kong after it was blacklisted by the US over human rights concerns in Xinjiang. The US Treasury announced the ban on Friday, saying SenseTime’s facial recognition programmes were designed in part to be … Read more

Young Arabs swipe to fintech as saving, investing takes off

Young Arabs

DUBAI: Being raised in the Middle East with a lack of savings and investment culture, many young Arabs are turning to online banking services to help track their spending and budget. When Mayar Akrameh was growing up in Lebanon, financial advice was simple: work long, work hard and aim for a high-paying job. Now the 29-year-old … Read more

China’s SenseTime postpones Hong Kong IPO after US blacklisting

SenseTime

HONG KONG: Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime said Monday it was postponing a planned $767 million initial public offering in Hong Kong after it was blacklisted by the US over human rights concerns in Xinjiang. The US Treasury announced the ban on Friday, saying SenseTime’s facial recognition programmes were designed in part to be used against … Read more

More than half a billion pushed into extreme poverty due to health costs: UN

UN

UNITED NATIONS: The coronavirus pandemic is likely to halt two decades of global progress towards Universal Health Coverage, according to reports released on Sunday from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank, which reveal more than half a billion people are being pushed into extreme poverty because they have to pay for health … Read more

Spain to cut taxes for digital nomads

Spain to cut taxes for digital nomads

MADRID, The Spanish government adopted Friday measures to attract so-called digital nomads — remote tech workers who can do their job from anywhere with a good internet connection. A growing number of countries are seeking to lure digital nomads with easy visa conditions and tax breaks as they can help boost the local tech start-up scene. The Spanish measures, … Read more