Headlines
Americas
Venezuela’s navy battles a cruise ship, and loses
IT WAS, ON the face of it, a mismatched contest. The ANBV Naiguatá, a Venezuelan patrol vessel, was armed with a 76mm naval gun, a German-built anti-aircraft system that sprays a cloud of tungsten bullets and a pair of deck-mounted machine guns, among other weaponry. The RCGS Resolute, a Portuguese-flagged cruise ship with an 80-seat theatre, had the...
Jair Bolsonaro isolates himself, in the wrong way
ONE BY ONE the doubters have made their peace with medical science. Only four rulers in the world continue to deny the threat to public health posed by covid-19. Two are flotsam from the former Soviet Union, the despots of Belarus and Turkmenistan. A third is Daniel Ortega, the tropical dictator of Nicaragua. The other is the elected president of a...
Latin America’s health systems brace for a battering
A PROCESSION OF disappointments awaits residents of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, when illness strikes. Those who report symptoms of covid-19 to the health-care hotline get appointments scheduled for several weeks later, by which time they will probably have recovered or died. With ambulance services overwhelmed, stricken people arrive at hospitals...
The White House v covid-19
WHEN THE Trump administration took office in January 2017 it inherited, among other things, plans to make cheaper ventilators and 20m reusable face masks, should the country need them. Nobody followed up. In 2018 John Bolton, the national-security adviser, “streamlined” the National Security Council and, in the process, closed its pandemic preparedness...
The United States census has an inmate problem
ROBERT HOLBROOK was 17 years old when he went to prison in 1991. For the next 27 years he was incarcerated in several state prisons in Pennsylvania. He was imprisoned at SCI Greene, a supermax prison in the south-western corner of the state, during the 2010 census. Since 1790, the Census Bureau—which began its decennial count on April 1st—has registered...
Asia Pacific
SANNE appoints new business development director in Tokyo
Makoto Nagao, has been appointed to the newly created role of Director, Business Development adding further strength to SANNE’s Asia-Pacific business. With more than 35 years of experience, Nagao-san brings a wealth of knowledge, following a lengthy career with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, SMFG. While he was at SMFG, Nagao-san was General Manager...
Crayfish.io launches UK’s first funded initiative to get businesses China-ready
A ground-breaking initiative with a £500k investment fund dedicated to helping UK businesses get ‘China-ready’ has been launched in Cambridge by global online platform, Crayfish.io. Starting in September, the Crayfish China Accelerator programme - which has secured UK-China Enterprise Ltd (UKCE), a Chinese-capital-backed VC fund, as its...
SANNE opens new office in Mumbai, India
SANNE, a leading global provider of alternative asset and corporate services has further extended its global reach with the opening of a new office in Mumbai, India. With existing offices in 18 leading international finance centres, SANNE now has a local presence in one of the world’s fastest growing alternative markets and is also pleased to announce...
SANNE secures new bookkeeping licence in China
SANNE, a leading global provider of alternative asset and corporate administration services obtains new bookkeeping licence in China boosting its already strong proposition. The new licence expands SANNE’s existing product offering in China, adding bookkeeping, accounting and tax preparation services for Chinese registered entities. Jing Jing...
SANNE appoints Country Head to lead its Singapore business
Adding further expertise and knowledge to its APAC business As a leading global provider of alternative asset and corporate business services, SANNE is pleased to announce the appointment of David Fowler to the role of Country Head − Singapore with immediate effect. Based in SANNE’s Singapore office, David will be taking over the role from Valérie...
Europe
Augusta raises additional $115m for litigation and dispute funding
Investment in response to growing demand from lawyers Augusta, the UK’s largest litigation and disputes funder by case volume announces it has raised a further US $115m from a multi-billion-dollar US-based investment manager. In 2018, Augusta secured £150m from a global investment fund, to finance business growth and investment in funding cases....
An affiliate of Sun European Partners announces that it has completed the sale of Famosa
Sun European Partners, LLP (“Sun European Partners” or “Sun”) today announces that one of its affiliates has completed the sale of Fábricas Agrupadas de Muñecas de Onil, S.A. (“Famosa” or “the Company”), a leading designer, developer, manufacturer and distributer of toys in Spain and throughout the world, to Giochi Preziosi S.p.A.. Famosa,...
Huge Tax Changes for Self-Employed Following Publication of New Legislation
On 11 July 2019, the Government published draft legislation outlining the IR35 changes coming to the private sector, which are expected to affect 250,000 businesses. The reform will impact users and suppliers of personal service company contractors in the private sector. Companies have only nine months to plan for the new off-payroll changes, as they...
Young people pick their banking partners for the future
Battle of the brands Generation Z calls the brands it will bank on in 2030 Britain Banks most trusted for handling payments and safe storage of dataTech brands first choice for creating smart, real-time servicesAs a sector, financial services scores poorly for ethics and positive social impact More than two in five young people (43%) believe that...
Alcentra Closes Significant Capital Raise for its European Direct Lending Strategy
Record €5.5 billion raise reflects strong investor demand, Alcentra’s track record of deployment and returns Alcentra, one of Europe’s largest and longest tenured managers of private debt and part of BNY Mellon Investment Management, has announced the close of its latest European direct lending capital raise. The firm has raised €5.5...
Mena
As Coronavirus Hits U.S., Some Expatriates Stay in Africa
Mask shortages in hospitals. Inadequate coronavirus testing. Medical supplies flown in from overseas. And an international charity setting up a field hospital in Central Park.John Shaw watched from afar what was going on back home in the United States and decided to stay put, in Kenya.“Africa just felt better,” said Mr. Shaw, a 38-year-old American...
Poachers Kill More Rhinos as Coronavirus Halts Tourism to Africa
The past few weeks have not been easy for Nico Jacobs, founder of Rhino 911, a nonprofit that provides emergency helicopter transport for rhinoceroses in need of rescue in South Africa. That’s because times are much worse for the rhinos.Since South Africa announced a national lockdown on March 23 to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, Mr. Jacobs...
We Can Still Travel — With Photoshop and a Dream
Marty Pollak and Monica Palenzuela, not atop the Perito Moreno Glacier.Marty Pollak and Monica Palenzuela, in Brooklyn.Travel and travel planning are being disrupted by the worldwide spread of the coronavirus. For the latest updates, read The New York Times’s Covid-19 coverage here.On March 19, Marty Pollak and Monica Palenzuela journeyed from New...
Chad’s Ex-President, Sentenced to Life, Given Temporary Reprieve From Prison
Hissène Habré, the former president of Chad who was found guilty of crimes against humanity, has been temporarily set free from his prison cell in Senegal.Mr. Habré, 78, was convicted in 2015 of multiple crimes during his leadership of the West African country in the 1980s, including killings, torture and sex crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison.His...
Autocrats’ Quandary: You Can’t Arrest a Virus
CAIRO — When the virus hit, the strongmen hit back as they know best.For Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, that meant deploying chemical warfare troops, clad in protective suits and armed with disinfectant, to the streets of Cairo, in a theatrical display of military muscle projected via social media.Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin,...
International
Startups offer a different future for South Korea’s economy
COUPANG, AN E-COMMERCE firm and South Korea’s most valuable startup, occupies the upper 20 floors of a skyscraper in Jamsil, a district in southern Seoul. The lower floors are still used by affiliates of Hyundai, the country’s second-biggest conglomerate, whose engineering arm built and operates the building. Coupang employees joke that it is easy...
South Korea is going through deep social, economic change
THE TENSION between traditional top-down economic and social decision-making and a more individualistic, bottom-up approach has been apparent in South Korea since it democratised more than three decades ago. In the past two months, however, two things have happened that have highlighted this tension. On February 10th, in what feels now like a different...
South Korean women are fighting to be heard
ENTERPRISING WOMEN are everywhere in South Korean film and television. In “The Handmaiden”, a film by Park Chan-wook, two women team up to take revenge on their male tormentors and eventually elope as a couple. “Crash-landing On You”, a television series that had the country glued to its screens this year, features a chaebol heiress who cuts...
K-pop is changing, too
IN A SMALL restaurant in a quiet backstreet in Seoul’s Gangnam district, the walls and part of the ceiling are covered in posters, postcards and key rings. On one shelf sits an enormous pyramid of coffee-cup sleeves. All the decorations show members of BTS, South Korea’s most successful K-pop act and the highest-grossing boy band in the world. They...
South Koreans are unhappy with the pace of political change
ON A WINDSWEPT pier in Mokpo on the far south-western coast of South Korea sits the rusting hull of a ferry. It is what remains of the Sewol, which sank in 2014 on its way to the island of Jeju. Yellow ribbons still cover the gates to the pier, along with pictures of the 304 people, mostly schoolchildren, who died in the disaster. The wreck has become...