G20 countries continue to roll back measures taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic. By May this year, 49% of the restrictions had been lifted, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO) report. The organisation estimated the value of trade-restrictive measures at $135.7 billion. It also reported that the coverage of trade facilitation measures implemented since the beginning of the...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has pardoned nine Catalan separatist leaders convicted of a failed attempt to declare regional independence in 2017. Mr Sanchez announced the pardon in a televised address. The ban on those pardoned from holding public office remains in place, Reuters reported. Catalan separatist leaders were sentenced in 2019 to between nine and 13 years for offences of...

The EU Council extended sanctions against Belarus over the emergency landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk. The list includes 78 people and eight organisations. The US also imposed sanctions against the republic: six legal entities and 16 individuals were blacklisted. The UK, Canada and Ukraine also joined the sanctions. "Today the Council decided to impose restrictive measures against 78...

An Indian strain of coronavirus is highly likely to become dominant in the world, says WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan, quoted by The Straits Times. A new delta variant of COVID-19 is beginning to dominate the world because of its higher prevalence, the WHO spokesperson said. On May 26, it was reported that the WHO allowed the possibility that the Indian strain of the coronavirus to...

The number of Italians living in absolute poverty (below a monthly income of between 569.56 euros and 839.78 euros per person, depending on the region) was last year the highest since 2005, when such statistics began to be kept. In 2020, more than 5.6 million people and more than two million families in Italy were living in absolute poverty. More than 2.6 million families were in relative poverty...

This year, the global economy must focus primarily on the task of vaccinating people, said International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva, quoted by CNBC. She described this as the main focus for efforts in the near future. "Vaccination policy this year, and possibly next year, will be the most important part of economic policy, in terms of importance it could surpass even monetary...

A new outbreak of the coronavirus in one of the world's main container trading hubs, China's Guangdong province, has caused disruption to major ports in the south of the country. The partial closure of the Yantian terminal in Shenzhen has led to a reallocation of cargo to nearby Nansha and Shekou terminals, causing congestion there as well. Container shipping disruptions linked to the new...

G7 countries have agreed to launch an initiative aimed at building infrastructure in developing countries. It will be a Western competitor to China's One Belt, One Road project, the FT says. The G7 countries have agreed to launch an international initiative Build Back Better World in order to create infrastructure in developing countries, the need for which is estimated at more than $40 trillion,...

Chinese police have arrested 1,100 people suspected of using cryptocurrency transactions to launder money derived from criminal activity. The money in question is mostly from phone and internet fraud. According to Chinese police, members of more than 170 criminal groups have been arrested, whose members were transferring illegally obtained money into cryptocurrency through cryptocurrency...