Headlines

The Bank of Canada raised interest rates aggressively for a sixth straight time, while opening the door to pausing its hiking cycle, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers led by Governor Tiff Macklem increased the benchmark overnight lending rate by 50 basis points to 4.25% on Wednesday, the highest since the beginning of 2008. The move was in line with the expectations of a slim majority of economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Canada's exports rose in October, largely driven by pharmaceutical products, while imports were also up, largely as a result of a depreciation of the Canadian dollar, data showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The country's trade surplus with the world grew to C$1.21 billion ($888.53 million) in October, Statistics Canada said, slightly above analysts' forecasts of a surplus of C$1.20 billion. Exports rose 1.5%, helped by higher exports of medicinal products as well as gold bars and coins to the United States, Statscan said. By volume, exports were up 0.1%.

China rolled back rules on isolating people with COVID-19 and dropped virus test requirements for some public places Wednesday in a dramatic change to a strategy that confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign, the Associated Press reported. The move adds to earlier easing that fueled hopes Beijing was scrapping its “zero COVID” strategy, which is disrupting manufacturing and global trade.

Experts on Wednesday raised concerns over a new policy announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria that heavily limits withdrawals of money in a push for a cashless economy, the Associated Press reported. The monetary policy, which applies to ATMs, banks and cash back from purchases, follows the launch of the West African nation’s newly designed currency notes to control the money supply. The central bank limited weekly over-the-counter cash withdrawals to 100,000 naira ($225) for individuals and 500,000 naira ($1,124) for corporations, with a processing fee required to access more.

England's Rugby Football Union (RFU) has rejected applications by the administrators of Wasps and Worcester seeking to prevent the automatic relegation of both clubs, saying the COVID-19 pandemic was not the primary reason for their financial woes, Reuters reported. Wasps and Worcester, who have both been suspended for going into administration, will now drop from the top-flight Premiership to the second-tier Championship in the 2023-24 season.

Lenders to bankrupt Jet Airways India Ltd. are resisting a court-approved resolution plan, further delaying the former No. 1 private airline’s return to the skies, according to people familiar with the matter and email communications seen by Bloomberg News. The primary dispute is about whether the new owners of Jet Airways need to pay more money into the pension funds of ex-employees, the people said, asking not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Germany’s top court dismissed two cases challenging the country’s approval of the European Union’s €800 billion ($839 billion) pandemic recovery fund, Bloomberg News reported. The Federal Constitutional Court cleared the fund, dubbed “Next Generation EU,” on Tuesday. The massive stimulus plan marked the crux of the region’s economic response to the pandemic, consisting of grants and loans primarily for the worst-hit EU nations. The program doesn’t “blatantly transgress” the EU rules under which it was set up, Court Vice-President Doris Koenig said as she delivered the ruling.

Former Wirecard executives go on trial on Thursday, two years after the collapse of the payments company that produced Germany's biggest post-war fraud scandal and sent shockwaves through the country's political and financial establishment, Reuters reported. Austrian former chief executive Markus Braun and two other high-ranking managers of the defunct blue-chip company are facing a number of charges, including fraud and market manipulation, and could be jailed for up to 15 years if convicted. Braun denies wrongdoing and accuses others of running a shadow operation without his knowledge.

European Union countries on Tuesday considered the latest proposal for a lower gas price gap of 220 euros ($231), a week away from a meeting when the bloc hopes to resolve an issue that has deeply divided the 27 member states, Reuters reported. A handful of states, including Europe's biggest economy Germany, has opposed the idea of any cap, saying it could make it harder to secure supplies, while Belgium, Italy and Poland see it as a way to protect consumers and economies from the shock of high energy prices.

After a string of battlefield losses in Ukraine in recent months, President Vladimir Putin faces a big test at home: mobilizing Russia’s economy to feed the war effort, the Wall Street Journal reported. Russian officials have crisscrossed the country to increase production and replenish dwindling stockpiles of missiles and other munitions. State budget data from the Russian Ministry of Finance shows defense expenditures rising this year by around 30% compared with 2021 to around $78 billion and increasing further next year to around $82.5 billion.