Author: LoveWorld UK

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on the highest ranking Chinese official yet targeted over alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority, a move likely to further ratchet up tensions between Washington and Beijing. Washington blacklisted Xinjiang region’s Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of China’s powerful Politburo, and three other officials. The highly anticipated action followed months of Washington’s hostility toward Beijing over China’s handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak and its tightening grip on Hong Kong. A senior administration official who briefed reporters after the announcements described Chen as the highest-ranking Chinese official ever…

Stress in financial markets could yet make a comeback, Britain’s finance industry warned the Bank of England last month, with Brexit and global political risks auguring for a difficult end to the year. Minutes published on Thursday from a June 2 meeting of the BoE’s UK Money Markets Committee (MMC), which includes major banks, showed unease about a possible repeat of market chaos that struck in March when the COVID-19 pandemic escalated. “While it was clear that liquidity had now returned… some members were more pessimistic about the potential recovery and noted the potential for stress to return,” the minutes…

The victory kept Liverpool on target to secure a record Premier League points tally, with Juergen Klopp’s side needing nine from their remaining four games to beat the mark set by Manchester City, who amassed 100 points in 2017-18. Liverpool were 2-0 up within eight minutes after Brighton paid heavily for sloppy work in their attempt to play the ball out from the back. Naby Keita robbed Davy Propper and slipped the ball to Salah who confidently drove home to open the scoring in the sixth minute. Two minutes later and Brighton were caught out again by Liverpool’s pressing, this…

Rishi Sunak is perfecting his Santa act. Nearly four months after announcing 30 billion pounds of extra spending, Britain’s finance minister on Wednesday unveiled new measures worth up to the same amount to help the economy. The best of them aim to avoid deep scars in the labour market. Sunak will offer employers a 1,000 pound bonus for every furloughed worker who stays on the payroll until the end of January 2021. The furlough scheme, which has so far cost over 27 billion pounds and is supporting 9.4 million jobs, winds up in October. Extending it indefinitely is infeasible. But…

Australia said on Thursday it was suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and announced measures to attract people and businesses from the Asian financial hub, after Beijing imposed a new security law there. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new national security law introduced last week in Hong Kong was a fundamental change of circumstances and Australia would suspend the extradition agreement. “There will be citizens of Hong Kong who may be looking to move elsewhere, to start a new life somewhere else, to take their skills, their businesses,” Morrison said. New Zealand said it was also reviewing its…

British finance minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday said he would act to put public finances back on a sustainable footing in the medium term, when he has a clearer view of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. Sunak said that interventions to support the economy would cost an extraordinary amount of money, but the cost of not acting would have been far greater in the long run. “We can’t sustainably live like this, of course we can’t, and over the medium term we can and we will return our public finances to a sustainable position,” Sunak told the BBC.…

Buyers returned to Britain’s property market last month as it reopened following the coronavirus lockdown but activity remained depressed, a closely-watched survey showed on Thursday. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said a net balance of +61% of its members reported a rise in new buyer enquiries in June, following a reading of -94% in May. Still, the number of properties on estate agents’ books stayed close to all-time lows, RICS said. The figures come a day after finance minister Rishi Sunak temporarily raised the threshold of a tax on property purchases to 500,000 pounds to boost activity in…

British finance minister Rishi Sunak will announce on Wednesday his next moves to prevent a wave of job cuts from snowballing into a full-blown unemployment crisis in the world’s sixth biggest economy. He is already on course to take state borrowing to World War Two levels as he subsidises 9 million jobs – equivalent to more than a third of private-sector workers – alongside other emergency measures. Britain, with a toll of close to 45,000 coronavirus-linked deaths, has been hit harder by the epidemic than any other European country. For the worst affected sectors of an economy that shrank by…

AC Milan could have won the Serie A title if Zlatan Ibrahimovic had been there for the whole season, the 38-year-old said after helping them beat leaders Juventus 4-2 on Tuesday. The Swede, who returned for a second stint at the club in January, was his usual outspoken self after converting a penalty which sparked Milan’s comeback from 2-0 down. He also hinted he would not extend his contract beyond the end of the season. “It’s no secret that I’m old but it’s just a number,” he said. “I wanted to feel alive and I just want to play. I…

China opened its powerful national security office in Hong Kong on Wednesday, turning a hotel near a city-centre park that has been one of the most popular venues for pro-democracy protests into its new headquarters. The office, which operates beyond the scrutiny of local courts or other institutions, will oversee the Hong Kong government’s enforcement of the sweeping national security legislation that Beijing imposed on the city last week. The legislation gives its agents, operating openly in the global financial hub for the first time, enforcement powers. It allows them to take suspects across the border for trials in Communist…