Author: LoveWorld UK

France will end special government powers brought in to deal with the coronavirus pandemic on July 10 though it will retain the ability to curb gatherings and freedom of movement for four months, the prime minister’s office said. As coronavirus infections spiralled out of control in March, France passed “state of health emergency” legislation which gave the government the power to restrict civil liberties by decree without parliamentary approval. With data showing the virus may be fading and the number of people in intensive care continuing to steadily decline since the government lifted its lockdown on May 11, France is…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday chided British bank HSBC (HSBA.L) for backing moves by China to end Hong Kong’s autonomy, saying such “corporate kowtows” got little in return from Beijing. Pompeo said the United States stood ready to help Britain with alternatives after Beijing reportedly threatened to punish HSBC and break commitments to build nuclear power plants in the country unless the British government allowed China’s Huawei Technologies to participate in building a 5G network. “The United States stands with our allies and partners against the Chinese Communist Party’s coercive bullying tactics,” Pompeo said in a statement,…

European Central Bank officials are drawing up a scheme to cope with potentially hundreds of billions of euros of unpaid loans in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The project, which comes as Europe mobilises trillions of euros to bolster the region’s economy, is aimed at shielding commercial banks from any second fallout from the crisis, if rising unemployment chokes off the income needed to repay loans. One of the people familiar with the plan said the ECB had set up a task force to look at the idea of a “bad…

Any inquiry into the French response to the coronavirus pandemic should be handled by parliament rather than a judicial panel, the justice minister said on Wednesday, amid growing scrutiny of the government’s COVID-19 measures. “The government is accountable to parliament. If parliament thinks (the outbreak) has been handled badly, then it must challenge the government’s response,” Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet told RTL radio. Belloubet was speaking after Paris prosecutors opened a preliminary inquiry into government actions to determine whether any criminal offences may have been committed. The prosecutors’ office said there had been 62 complaints by public bodies, including government…

Business conditions are improving after a tough start to the year, Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) Chief Executive Thomas Gottstein said in a presentation released on Wednesday. “Those early indications that we have seen now in the last couple of weeks have been actually quite promising and going in the right direction. We clearly had a lot of stress in the system in the second half of March but things really calmed down in April and they continue to be quite robust in May and June,” he said in an audiocast for a Goldman Sachs conference. “So far, so good. Clearly we…

British government borrowing is soaring to levels not seen since World War Two, something Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his finance minister Rishi Sunak will try to fix once the worst of the coronavirus crisis has passed. Government forecasters think the budget deficit could jump five-fold to 300 billion pounds this year or around 15% of annual economic output. By comparison, after the global financial crisis the deficit peaked at 10% and it took almost a decade of spending cuts to bring it down to around 2% last year. (Graphic: here) UK borrowing forecast to jump due to COVID Britain’s budget…

CONFESSION Christ is alive in me, because He has settled and made His home in my heart by faith; everything about Him is resident in my spirit. I’m living the supernatural life, naturally, because Christ is in me. I don’t walk in darkness about anything, because I’m conscious of His light in my heart, guiding me in the path of righteousness, to fulfil my destiny in Him. Hallelujah!

London mayor Sadiq Khan has ordered a review of the capital’s statues and street names after the toppling of the statue of an English slave trader by anti-racism protesters triggered a debate about the demons of Britain’s imperial past. A statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the 17th century from trading West African slaves, was torn down and thrown into Bristol harbour on Sunday by a group of demonstrators taking part in a wave of protests following the death of George Floyd in the United States. Khan said a commission would review statues, plaques and street names…

Thousands of mourners braved sweltering Texas heat on Monday to view the casket of George Floyd, whose death after a police officer knelt on his neck ignited worldwide protests against racism and calls for reforms of U.S. law enforcement. American flags fluttered along the route to the Fountain of Praise church in Houston, where Floyd grew up, as throngs of mourners wearing face coverings to prevent spread of the coronavirus formed a procession to pay final respects. Solemnly filing through the church in two parallel lines, some mourners bowed their heads, others made the sign of the cross or raised…

The novel coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August 2019, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data. The research used high-resolution satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan – where the disease emerged in late 2019 – and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as “cough” and “diarrhoea”. “Increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019,” according to the research. “While we cannot confirm if the increased volume…