2020年4月8日星期三

Wednesday Morning Briefing: Europe's struggle for solidarity

Coronavirus

Europe's struggle for solidarity

It's been a bad 24 hours for Europe in its efforts to coordinate a joined-up response to the pandemic among its 27 member states. First, news broke that the president of the EU's main science organisation quit over red tape and infighting; then the bloc's finance chiefs failed to broker an EU-wide rescue package for the economy after all-night talks collapsed.

Officials said a feud between Italy and the Netherlands over what conditions should be attached to euro zone credit was blocking progress on half a trillion euros worth of aid. They will try again to break the deadlock on Thursday night.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was not amused. He was quoted by one official as saying: "Shame on Europe. Stop this clownish show!"

WHO China-centric, organisation "blew it", Trump says

"The W.H.O. really blew it," Trump said in a Twitter post, calling the agency "China centric". He later repeated the comment at a White House news briefing, saying he would put a hold on U.S. funding for the agency.

U.S. conservatives have increasingly criticised the WHO during the pandemic, saying it relied on faulty data from China about the outbreak of the virus.

The WHO did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Impossible dilemma

When to emerge from a lockdown safely for the population and before your economy faces catastrophe? That is the dilemma facing several countries, and in particular Italy, which has the world's highest death toll and where the lockdown has been in place longer compared with most nations.

Its northern industrial heartlands that generate a third of its economic output have also been where the coronavirus has hit hardest.

"One of the most important parts is not to let go of the measures too early in order not to have a fall back again," said WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier.

A painful lesson with blood and tears

The Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged reopened on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in two months.

The virus has become a global pandemic infecting over 1.4 million people and killing 82,000, wreaking havoc on the global economy as governments impose sweeping lockdowns to rein in its spread.

While China's operation to contain the outbreak in Wuhan has been hailed as a success, it took the best part of a month for the military-style quarantine to be put in place.

China won't borrow from Fed's playbook

Debt worries and property risks prevent China's central bank from following in the footsteps of the U.S. Federal Reserve with steep rate cuts or quantitative easing, policy sources said.

Instead the People's Bank of China will largely rely on policy tools such as bank reserves, various lending facilities, and tools including market interest rates to support the economy, the sources said.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Carrie Lam, Heineken, Tesco
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources. Here’s a look at our coverage.

Are you a government employee or contractor involved in coronavirus testing or the wider public health response? Are you a doctor, nurse or health worker caring for patients? Have you worked on similar outbreaks in the past? Has the disease known as COVID-19 personally affected you or your family? Are you aware of new problems that are about to emerge, such as critical supply shortages?

We need your tips, firsthand accounts, relevant documents or expert knowledge. Please contact us at coronavirus@reuters.com.

We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how.

Top Stories

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned after he faced mounting backlash for firing and ridiculing the commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier who pleaded for help stemming a coronavirus outbreak onboard. Modly’s resignation highlighted the U.S. military’s struggle to meet increasingly competing priorities: maintaining readiness for conflict and safeguarding service members.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent a second night in intensive care and was in a stable condition after receiving oxygen support for COVID-19 complications, raising questions about how key decisions would be taken in his absence. Johnson, who tested positive nearly two weeks ago, was admitted to St Thomas’ hospital on Sunday evening with a persistent high temperature and cough.

Firefighters in Berlin quickly brought under control a blaze at a royal palace being rebuilt at great expense in the centre of the capital. The fire service said in a Tweet that a propane gas canister had exploded and building materials and two bitumen boilers had caught fire. One person was injured and about 80 emergency services staff were on the scene.

Despite a last-minute court battle and a stay-at-home order, thousands of Wisconsin voters braved the coronavirus outbreak to wait 6 feet apart in lines for hours and cast ballots in the state’s presidential primary and local elections. Some Wisconsinites who had requested absentee ballots said they never received them, forcing them to choose between risking their health to cast a ballot in person or forgoing their right to vote.

Business

Wobbly U.S. fiscal response could deepen coronavirus recession

The U.S. government’s massive effort to nurse the economy through the coronavirus crisis was billed as a send-money-and-don’t-sweat-the-details flood of cash to people and businesses in a $22 trillion system that has ground to a halt.

2 min read

Jobless Americans to see extra payments as soon as this week

Americans who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus outbreak will start getting enhanced jobless benefits as soon as this week as states deploy hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid, state officials said.

5 min read

Tesla to furlough workers, cut employee salaries due to coronavirus

Tesla told employees it would furlough all non-essential workers and implement salary cuts during a shut down of its U.S. production facilities because of the coronavirus outbreak.

3 min read

Top Stories on Reuters TV

City where outbreak began ends lockdown

Jack Dorsey pledges $1 bln stake for COVID-19

没有评论:

发表评论