Headlines

The Febiofest film festival, which took place annually in Prague and other Czech cities and towns, is now in a state of bankruptcy, Czech Radio reported on Sunday. The founder of the cinema showcase, Fero Fenič, filed bankruptcy proceedings against the company which now owns it, saying that he did not receive payment after selling the festival and is owed CZK 4.5 million. The festival, which was created in 1993, did not take place this year. Read more.

China left benchmark lending rates unchanged at a monthly fixing on Monday, matching expectations, as a weaker yuan continued to limit further monetary easing and policymakers waited to see the effects of previous stimulus on credit demand, Reuters reported. Recent data shows the recovery in the world's second-largest economy remains patchy with industrial output and retail sales surprising on the upside but deflation gathering pace and few signs the struggling property market will bounce back any time soon.

Canada's financial watchdog said on Monday it was seeking feedback on the public disclosure of cryptocurrency assets by federally regulated financial institutions, joining global regulators in ramping up scrutiny on the volatile sector, Reuters reported. The consultation by Canada's Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) comes after the agency in July proposed new guidelines for crypto assets citing a risky environment.

The German government pledged Monday to invest 4 billion euros ($4.37 billion) in African green energy projects until 2030, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying that countries in Africa should benefit more from their wealth of raw materials, the Associated Press reported. Scholz discussed the pledge at a news conference on the G20 Compact with Africa summit taking place in Berlin. He did not mention any specific projects but said the materials used in green energy should be processed in the African nations they come from. “This creates jobs and prosperity in these countries,” Scholz said.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Monday criticised sticking to what he called the country's "inflexible" debt brake and took a swipe at Finance Minister Christian Lindner on prospective subsidy cuts, saying it was "all just talk," Reuters reported. The comments laid bare strains in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling coalition after a court ruling last week that wiped 60 billion euros ($65 billion) from the federal budget sent the government scrambling for alternative sources of funding.

Zambia’s dollar debt plunged after official creditors co-led by China and France rejected a revised bondholder restructuring proposal, stalling the revamp of $3 billion of outstanding notes, Bloomberg News reported. The development, which calls into question a Group of 20 plan to help poor countries overhaul unsustainable loans, comes after Zambia last month reached a memorandum of understanding with official creditors to restructure $6.3 billion of debt. It needed to receive at least as favorable treatment from private creditors under the G20’s Common Framework guidelines.

Britain's pharmaceutical industry and the government have agreed terms to renew a medicines access scheme that requires the companies to pay back part of their drug revenue generated from the national health service, they said on Monday, Reuters reported. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said in a joint statement that the scheme agreed with the government and National Health Service (NHS) England, will run for five years until end-2028.

An apex court ruling in India allowing bankruptcy proceedings against personal guarantors of defaulting borrowers is set to raise the recovery rate for public-sector lenders to at least 19% from about 14% now, industry estimates showed, The Economist reported. "The recent ruling has potential to improve the recovery in existing written-off accounts, many of which are through the bankruptcy code, and result in 5 percentage point incremental recovery from personal guarantees," said Hari Hara Mishra, CEO, ARC Association.

In Shenzhen, a metropolis born of China’s economic prosperity, Paibang Village is a reminder of the city’s modest past and the challenges ahead for reviving the country’s property sector. Paibang is what China calls an urban village, a labyrinth of low-slung apartment buildings and mom-and-pop storefronts connected by a maze of alleyways and narrow roads. There are hundreds of them in Shenzhen, a municipality of 18 million people next to Hong Kong, and thousands of such villages across China.

Swedish landlord SBB’s offer to buy back some of its bonds at steep discounts may be tantamount to a default, according to a statement from S&P Global Ratings, Bloomberg News reported. The ratings agency placed Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB, as it is otherwise known, on watch for a possible downgrade to selective default in a statement Friday. S&P said it would be able to assess further once the final results of the buyback were published.