Headlines

The general secretary of Canada Soccer insisted on Monday evening that the organization was not considering bankruptcy, contradicting news reports it was mulling the move to escape the dire financial straits it has been in since the men’s national team qualified for last year’s FIFA World Cup, the Globe and Mail reported. “Absolutely, unequivocally, we are not contemplating bankruptcy,” said Jason deVos, during an interview with The Globe and Mail.

The nature of the inflation problem in the eurozone is changing, and interest rates will need to be higher for longer than policymakers and investors once estimated, Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, said on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. While the shocks that pushed the region’s inflation rate above 10 percent late last year, such as supply chain bottlenecks during the pandemic and the surge in energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have started to wane, their impact is still passing through the economy.

Annual inflation in Brazil slowed further in early June, hitting its lowest in nearly three years as the central bank signaled it may start cutting interest rates at its next meeting if the positive scenario for consumer prices consolidates, Reuters reported. In Latin America's largest economy, 12-month inflation reached 3.4% in mid-June, data from statistics agency IBGE showed on Tuesday, slightly above market expectations of 3.36% but still the lowest since September 2020.

Canadian inflation slowed to its weakest pace in two years and core measures edged lower, reducing pressure on the central bank for another interest-rate hike next month, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 3.4% in May from a year ago, the smallest increase since June 2021, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. That matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists and was down a full percentage point from 4.4% in April. On a monthly basis, the index rose 0.4%, also matching expectations.

The UK and the European Union signed a long-awaited memorandum of understanding on financial services on Tuesday, marking a moment of accord amid years of wrangling over post-Brexit co-operation, Bloomberg News reported. Jeremy Hunt approved the memo with Commissioner Mairead McGuinness during the first visit to Brussels by a UK chancellor in more than three years.

A Singapore judge handed a 12-month prison term to a businessman for conspiring to misappropriate money in the Wirecard AG scandal, Bloomberg News reported. Henry Yeo, a director at Jacobson Fareast Marketing Services Pte, was convicted after pleading guilty to three charges in a Singapore state court on Tuesday. “Wirecard Asia suffered a total loss of S$123,070 ($91,072) as a result of the accused’s participation in the conspiracy to dishonestly misappropriate money from its account,” deputy public prosecutor Vincent Ong said in court.

Pakistan’s prime minister said Tuesday he was hopeful the International Monetary Fund will make its decision in a day or two on the fate of the much-needed $6 billion bailout package for his country, the Associated Press reported. The remarks by Shahbaz Sharif came after he spoke to Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF chief, according to a government statement. The two also met last week, on the sidelines of a global financing meeting in Paris.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund approved a 3-year Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility for about $1.51 billion with Senegal, and a $324 million arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility, the IMF said on Monday, Reuters reported. The EFF/ECF program will help address macroeconomic imbalances while the RSF arrangement will help with longer-term challenges related to climate change, the fund said.

Embattled cinema chain operator Cineworld Group on Monday said it will file for administration in Britain and suspend trading on the London Stock Exchange next month, as part of a restructuring plan to reduce its massive debt, Reuters reported. Shares in the world's second-largest movie theatre chain operator, which filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in September, slumped 26% to 0.52 pence in morning trade. The company had disclosed a net debt of about $8.8 billion, according to its latest results at the time.

The committee of creditors (CoC) for Go First Airlines has approved an in-principle interim funding of ₹425 crore so that the grounded carrier, the first in the country to voluntarily seek bankruptcy protection, manages to fly again soon, the Economic Times of India reported. The funding is, however, subject to the carrier being given a no-objection certificate (NOC) by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Permissions linked to the funding are the DGCA's green light to allow the airline to fly and a security clearance.