Headlines

Tunisian youths clashed with security forces in cities across this North African nation for a fourth night on Monday, burning tires and hurling gasoline bombs to protest worsening economic problems, police violence and poor government services, the Washington Post reported. Security forces have retaliated with tear gas and water cannons to disperse the hundreds of teenagers. While scenes of mayhem and chaos captured in videos zipped across social media, there were also peaceful demonstrations.

A federal judge ordered that Venezuela’s stake in oil refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp. be put up for sale to satisfy creditors, calling the country’s nonpayment an affront while acknowledging that no auction can occur under current U.S. sanctions, the Wall Street Journal reported. Judge Leonard Stark of the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., said that Venezuela’s shares in Citgo’s parent company should be positioned for sale “to the extent possible.” No such sale can occur under rules promulgated by the Trump administration that restrict transfers of Venezuelan state property.

The Bank of England’s chief economist said the government can afford to end its furlough plan before the U.K.’s recovery is fully complete, Bloomberg News reported. Andy Haldane, who has been the most publicly optimistic of the central bank’s rate-setting committee, said the economy may be growing quickly enough by the second quarter to absorb the 1 million people who lost their jobs in the coronaviurus crisis.

One thing is missing from China’s otherwise remarkable economic recovery: a strong rebound in consumer spending, the Wall Street Journal reported. Even though China was the only major economy to expand during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, its growth remains highly unbalanced, relying heavily on exports of manufactured goods to the U.S. and elsewhere. Domestic consumption has lagged, with retail sales shrinking 3.9% in 2020 from the previous year and demand for imported goods falling slightly. There are many reasons for the weakness.

The European Union and the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden should suspend a trade dispute to give themselves time to find common ground, France’s foreign minister said, Reuters reported. “The issue that’s poisoning everyone is that of the price escalation and taxes on steel, digital technology, Airbus and more particularly our wine sector,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview. He said he hoped the sides could find a way to settle the dispute. “It may take time, but in the meantime, we can always order a moratorium,” he added.

Beijing’s bar against Australian coal imports is upending global flows of the energy commodity, leaving dozens of loaded ships stranded off the Chinese coast and reshaping the direction of the seaborne trade, the Wall Street Journal reported. The flotilla of coal carriers sitting outside Chinese ports has grown to some 65 vessels, according to ship brokers in Singapore and London. Ship operators and coal suppliers unable to find new buyers for their cargo are waiting out a trade dispute that has lasted several months.

European airports have called on the EU to loosen state aid rules as the outlook for travel darkens amid a resurgence of coronavirus cases, the Irish Times reported. The demand came as the airports industry warned it saw “no realistic prospect” of an improvement in travel in the coming months and cut its forecast for passenger numbers this year.

India’s troubled shadow banks face mounting challenges to a nascent recovery from the pandemic, with their asset quality set to deteriorate further as flagged recently by the financial regulator, Bloomberg News reported. Non-performing assets already swelled in the most recent data to the highest in at least five years, at 6.3% as of March 2020 even before the worst of the pandemic impact, the Reserve Bank of India said in a report last week. That’s up 100 basis points from the year earlier, and the RBI forecasts it’s headed higher.

In the 99 years since it was founded to pump the oil fields of Patagonia, Argentine energy driller YPF SA has been whipsawed by countless booms and busts. If global oil markets weren’t collapsing, it seemed, then Argentina was mired in a debt crisis that was wreaking havoc on the whole nation’s finances. Never, though, had the company been pushed into a large-scale default of any kind, Bloomberg News reported. Until, it would appear, now. Word of this came in an odd way: Officials at state-run YPF sent a press release laying out a plan to saddle creditors with losses in a debt exchange.

Germany’s upper house of parliament called on Monday for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to extend a waiver on insolvency filings for firms hit by the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reported. The provision, which is due to expire at the end of the month, has helped reduce the number of bankruptcies in Europe’s largest economy through lockdown, with the Federal Statistics Office last week reporting a 31.9% year-on-year drop in October.