Tag Archives: Spanish

Italy

UPDATE sells Euro-2 zone bonds; Italy has set the best month since May | Instant News


* Eurozone periphery government bond yields tmsnrt.rs/2ii2Bqr (Updates throughout)

By Elizabeth Howcroft

LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) – Eurozone government bonds were sold on Friday, both in the core and periphery, with Italian 10-year bonds set as the worst day since early May but still producing strong performance throughout the month.

With the market widely cautious on Friday, analysts said the sell-off could be triggered by an unusual month-end flow.

“I attribute it to long-term, long-term positions from dealers who may be mistaken because of the sale of real cash flow,” said Peter Chatwell, chief of multi-asset strategy at Mizuho.

Analysts were surprised by the move, because the month-end index extension – where funds rebalanced their portfolios to reflect activity during the month – was expected to support bonds at the start of the session.

Italian 10-year yields are at their highest level in more than a week, up 6 basis points (bps) at 1.092% at 1449 GMT.

However, Italian bonds have experienced a decent month, with yields set down 24 bps in July – the best month since May. The paper demand was driven by recovery funds agreed by the European Union last week.

The 750 billion euro fund, which will partly be offered as a grant to the member states hardest hit by the coronavirus, has been hailed as a game changer for the eurozone and has increased Italy’s debt, given concerns about the country’s sustainability. loan.

Italy’s risk premium pays Germany for 10-year debt falling to March lows when the fund was agreed, although it has risen again this week, and is 3 bps wider on Friday at 160.65 bps.

Mizuho Chatwell said the Italian rally that was easing this week could be due to oversupply.

“What happened to BTP was a bit exhausted after recording a number of supplies,” he said.

“I think the market is now saturated with this positivity, but supply continues to run,” he added.

The 10-year German Bund benchmark was set for the best month since April, as investors flocked to safe-haven debt, pushing yields below -0.5%.

Safe-haven bonds are likely to remain supported given the increasing number of coronavirus cases around the world, raising fears of new lockouts.

Global fund managers prefer to cut equities to their lowest level in four years in July while keeping bond allocations unchanged, as hopes for economic recovery fade, a Reuters poll shows.

Data on Thursday revealed a record contraction in Germany – the region’s leading economy – and sent Bund results to two and a half month lows, but there was little reaction on Friday to the euro zone GDP estimates.

But euro zone inflation suddenly rose in July, supporting the European Central Bank’s expectations that negative headline readings could be avoided. (Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli and Elizabeth Howcroft; editing by Gareth Jones and Mark Potter)

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Germany

Germany warns against trips to three regions of Spain hit by the virus | Instant News


FILE PHOTOS: People enjoy fine weather on the coast of Barceloneta, after regional authorities of Catalonia and the city council announced restrictions to restrain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Barcelona, ​​Spain July 19, 2020. REUTERS / Nacho Doce / Photo File

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German foreign ministry on Friday advised people not to travel to the northern Spanish region of Catalonia, Navarre and Aragon, because of fears that travel could bring a second wave of COVID-19 infections.

The Robert Koch Institute, a German public health agency, places all three regions of Spain on a list of high-risk locations, which means people returning to Germany are required to quarantine for 14 days or give a negative corona virus test.

With the increasing number of viruses in Germany, concerns are growing that tourists returning from destinations experiencing a surge in new cases can spread the infection quickly. Germany reported 870 cases of the corona virus on Friday, the highest daily total since mid-May.

Starting next week, Germany plans to make a mandatory corona virus test at the airport for all tourists returning from high-risk areas to slow the spread of infection.

The travel warning is the latest blow to the Spanish economy, which is already in a steep recession and is dependent on tourism for 12.3% of its economic output. Germany makes about 5% of tourists to Catalonia’s main city, Barcelona in 2019, according to the city’s tourism activity report.

Germany’s travel warnings are following in the steps by other European countries to limit travel from Spain, especially Britain, which is the largest share of foreign visitors. It has introduced a 14-day quarantine on all arrivals from Spain and recommends it to all but important trips to mainland Spain. Norway also enforces a 10-day quarantine.

France has advised against traveling to Catalonia.

Reporting by Caroline Copley; Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo Gonzalez in Madrid; Editing by Michelle Martin and Peter Graff

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Italy

France, Italy, Spain are beginning to see a shocking virus attack on the economy | Instant News


France, Italy and Spain reported sharp contractions on Friday as their economies were hit hard by the corona virus, with the pandemic wiping out years of growth in a matter of weeks when the lockout closed shops, factories and restaurants.

Spain’s economy shrank by 18.5% in the April-June period from the previous quarter, the French economy by nearly 14% and Italy by 12.4%.

Spain’s contraction is by far the sharpest drop since the country’s national statistics body began gathering data. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez met late Friday with regional leaders in Spain to discuss how to rebuild the economy and where to spread billions of euros in EU aid for recovery.

Spain in mid-March experienced closure for more than three months, stopping many economic activities, due to COVID-19 cases and soaring deaths. Lockdown ends June 21.

In France, a surprising decline of 13.8% in April-June from the previous three-month period also clearly illustrates the economic costs of the penalty of a two-month lockout. It was the third consecutive economic contraction in a worsening French recession. The pain has been so damaging to jobs and industry that the government is talking about the possibility of another national lockdown because the infection is increasing again.

The French economy had shrunk in the last quarter of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic attacked at full strength. For France and other major economies, this caused a sharp decline.

“All the growth in GDP seen in the decade 2010-2019 has been removed in five months,” said Marc Ostwald, chief economist at ADM Investor Services International. In the case of Italy, economists say they are wiping out around 30 years of growth.

Because lockdowns have abated and many businesses have reopened, there is hope that the recession will be short-lived, although an increase in transmission in many countries remains a risk.

France fared worse than Germany, Europe’s largest economy, which on Thursday reported a 10.1% decline in GDP during the April-June period as exports and business investment collapsed. Germany’s decline is also the biggest since quarterly growth figures began to be compiled in 1970, the official statistics agency said.

In March, the health crisis prompted the French government to introduce what is one of the tighterest European stalls, stopping many activities in the second largest economy in countries that use the euro currency. In France, COVID-19 has now killed more than 30,000 people and infected more than 186,000.

In releasing gloomy numbers on Friday, Insee said the economic low was in April, when only workers who were considered important could leave their homes. Activities began to increase again from May when the authorities began to ease lockdown restrictions, Insee added.

Friday’s figures show that the construction industry is one of the hardest hit in France, because workplaces stand idle, with workers forced to stay at home.

Detained families, many of whom have survived by government grants and work preservation schemes, have tightened their wallets amid job worries but also because shops have closed. Household spending dropped 11% in April-June, following a 5.8% decline in the first quarter.

Trade was also hit, when global lockdown stopped flights, closed borders and factories, and made transportation chaotic. French imports, already down 5.5% in the first quarter, shrank further in the second quarter, down 17.3%.

The damage to exports was even worse, down by a whopping 25.5% in the second quarter after a 6.1% retreat in the first quarter.

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Germany

Germany warns against trips to three regions of Spain hit by the virus | Instant News


BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s foreign ministry has warned against unnecessary travel to Spain’s Catalonia region – home to Barcelona -, Aragon and Navarre on Friday.

People returning to Germany from this region will be required to go to quarantine for 14 days unless they can give a negative test for COVID-19, the foreign ministry said on its website.

Reporting by Thomas Seythal and Caroline Copley

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Germany

Germany: Coronavirus vaccine might not be widely available before mid-2021 | Instant News


BERLIN, July 29 (Reuters) – German Research Minister Anja Karliczek said on Wednesday that a coronavirus vaccine might not be widely available before the middle of next year.

“We must continue to assume that vaccines for the wider population will only be available from the middle of next year,” he told a news conference. (Reporting by Reuters Television Writing by Michelle Martin, edited by Thomas Escritt)

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Italy

Nevada Jazz Johnson alumni are expected to sign an agreement with the Italian team | Instant News


Jazz Johnson’s professional basketball career is expected to begin in Italy.

The Wolf Pack alumni are approaching an agreement with Acqua S. Bernardo Cantu, according to the Italian website WinCantu.it. Johnson has not been officially added Register 2020-2015 Help. The Italian club has historically been one of the top basketball teams in Europe. Acqua S.Bernardo Cantu, founded in 1936, played in the Lega Basket Serie A, the highest level of basketball in Italy.

Johnson played for Nevada for two seasons after the transfer from Portland and is a fan favorite. At 5-foot-10, Johnson was one of the nation’s top shooters in each of the last two seasons and was the second choice of the All-Mountain West team last year after becoming the sixth person of the conference the previous year in the previous season.

Johnson, 23, averaged 12.3 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game in his college career. As a senior in Nevada, he scored the best 15.9 points of his career, adding 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists. He produced 43.2 percent of his 3-pointers with the Wolf Pack and reached 256 Treys in his college career while totaling 1,563 points.

The current list includes a maximum of five American players, including James Woodard (Tulsa), Maarten Leunen (Oregon), Donte Thomas (Bradley), Sha’Markus Kennedy (McNeese State) and Jaime Smith (Alabama – Huntsville), so maneuvering more further will be asked to add Johnson.

In European basketball, Cantu was second after Real Madrid from Spain won the European Cup, with 12 titles in addition to three domestic Italian League championships, the last coming in 1981. Cantu was one of 16 teams in Serie A and sat in the northern part of the country in the Lombardy region. The team plays at Pala Banco with 6,700 fans in Desio, Italy.

Serie A is one of the top non-NBA basketball leagues in the country. The season usually starts at the end of September.

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uk

Google’s new underwater cable to connect the US, UK and Spain | Instant News


Alphabet Google has commissioned a new submarine cable, which he said will be one of the first new fiber lines to connect the US and the UK since 2003 and subsequently entrenched technology giants in global internet infrastructure.

Cable, named Grace Hopper after a computer scientist, will also be connected to Spain, becoming the first Google fiber lines to land there, the company said in a statement. Join existing ones Google Submarine cables include Google Curie, which stretches from the US to Chile, and Dunant, which connects the US to France, and Equio. Companies based in Mountain View, California expect to complete the project in 2022. Steady trans-sea flow of cables announced by technology giants; Facebook joined telecommunications operators to connect Africa better in May.

“Once commissioned, Grace Hopper cable will be one of the first new cables to connect the US and UK since 2003, increasing capacity at this busy global intersection and powering Google services such as Meet, Gmail and Google Cloud,” said Bikash Koley, deputy -President of the Google Global Network, on a blogpost.

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Germany

Germany advises against traveling to Barcelona, ​​Costa Brava News | DW | Instant News


The German Foreign Ministry issued a warning on Tuesday for travel to three regions of Spain due to “new high-level infections and local lockouts.”

The updated advice applies to Aragon, Navarra and Catalonia – including the popular coastal cities of Barcelona and Costa Brava.

In a statement, the Catalonia government said they regretted the new advisors.

“We have not entered into an evaluation of decisions by other countries but we are clearly not sharing them. The Catalan government is responsible … and we are working to protect the lives and health of the people who live here or visit us,” Catalonia foreigners said the head of affairs Bernat Sole .

The Aragon regional government called Berlin’s travel recommendations “discriminatory.”

Read more: Coronavirus: Spanish youths lose again

The German Foreign Ministry stops issuing official travel warnings or adding three Spanish territories to the list of high-risk areas. Under the new rules, travelers returning from high-risk zones must undergo mandatory virus testing after returning to Germany.

Germany revoked its travel warning for Spain on June 21, as European countries gradually reopened their borders after months of closing. At the same time, the hard-hit Spain ended an emergency imposed by the pandemic. However, the recent increase in cases has pushed large parts of Spain to enforce rules for masks, and in some areas such as Barcelona, ​​orders for people to stay at home.

A blow to Spanish tourism?

Germany is not the only country concerned about a trip to Spain. Norway has imposed a 10-day quarantine for people returning from the Iberian Peninsula, and France is urging residents not to go to Catalonia. Over the weekend, Britain also announced that people returning from Spain had to be exiled for two weeks.

British Junior Minister Simon Clarke defended the decision on Tuesday, saying UK travel advice was guided by science and Spain’s infection rate had risen.

Read more: The Mallorca party ends for tourists amid new lockdowns

“Obviously we continue to work very closely with the Spanish authorities and wish them every success in controlling this situation as quickly as possible,” he told Sky.

His comments came after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described the move as a mistake, arguing that most of Spain had lower infection rates than Britain.

nm / rc (AFP, dpa)

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pakistan

Tourism, diplomacy faces pushback when the coronavirus virus increases | Instant News


BERLIN (AP) – The revival of tourism in Europe has just been a turbulence just weeks after countries reopened their borders, with increasing infections in Spain and other countries causing increased concern among health authorities regarding people who bring home corona virus from their summer vacation.

European countries began to open themselves up to tourists in the middle of June, but recent events show that the new freedom to travel is subject to setbacks. Over the weekend, the UK imposed a 14-day quarantine on travelers coming from Spain, Norway ordered a 10-day quarantine for people returning from the entire Iberian peninsula, and France urged its citizens not to visit Spain’s Catalonia region.

In Austria, the seaside resort town of St. Wolfgang shortened bar opening hours after an outbreak was detected on Friday. On Monday, 53 people have tested positive, including many who work in the tourism industry.

In Germany, officials decided last week to set up a testing station at the airport to encourage people coming from a long list of countries deemed to be at high risk – including popular destinations such as Turkey – to be tested. They will also allow people to be tested elsewhere for free within three days of arrival.

Bavarian Governor Markus Soeder said he was worried about travelers returning from vacation. Referring to the Austrian ski resort which was Europe’s initial hot spot in March, he said: “My concern is not that there will be a large Ischgl, but there will be many mini-Ischglls.”

Soeder called for tests of travelers returning from risk areas to be required, something the federal government is considering.

“Most of them are attentive people who have behaved very cautiously on holidays as well who take voluntary offers, while those who are more careless do not take voluntary tests,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, told RBB Inforadio.

New infections in Germany are traveling higher than low levels.

The tourism industry employs 2.6 million people in Spain and produces 12% of the country’s economic activities.

Juan Molas, head of the national association of tourism companies, Mesa del Turismo, said the Spanish tourism sector has lost an average of 5 billion euros ($ 5.8 billion) a week since March.

Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said the Spanish government was trying to persuade Britain to free the Balearic Islands, which have low infection rates, from quarantine rules.

“We live side by side with a virus. That doesn’t mean we can’t travel. We can, if we are careful,” Maroto said.

The Catalonia and Aragón regions have the most alarming Spanish virus groups, prompting authorities to tighten restrictions in Barcelona, ​​in rural areas around Lleida and in the relaxed Zaragoza just a month ago.

Catalonia faces “the 10 most decisive days this summer,” said regional leader Quim Torra, warning that it was in everyone’s hands to prevent the “critical situation” from worsening.

Elsewhere in Europe, authorities in Belgium say cases of COVID-19 are growing at an alarming rate amid a surge in infections in Antwerp. Greek authorities said they would likely extend the use of masks in churches and shopping centers.

And in North Africa, Morocco has banned most trips to and from several major cities – including Tangier, Casablanca and Marrakech, usually popular tourist destinations – to stem the small spike in the case.

In the Asia-Pacific region, many countries basically still prohibit foreign travelers or, if they allow them to enter, require them to submit to stringent tests and quarantine. That includes Australia, where Victoria’s prime minister, Daniel Andrews, said the biggest drivers in the outbreak in the region are people who continue to work after showing symptoms.

Border crossings are linked to other outbreaks in Asia. South Korea said 16 of the 25 new cases confirmed on Monday were related to people coming from abroad. Over the past few days, the country has reported dozens of cases among crew members of Russian-flagged cargo ships and hundreds of South Korean construction workers flown in from Iraq.

A count by Johns Hopkins University shows around 16.3 million confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide and around 650,000 deaths. The actual number is considered to be much higher due to testing limits and many small cases that are not reported.

The World Health Organization says the pandemic continues to increase, with doubling of cases over the past six weeks.

The head of the emergency UN health agency, Dr. Michael Ryan, stressed the need to “maintain pressure against viruses.”

“Every country where the pressure has been lifted on the virus, where the virus is still at the community level, there is a leap back in the case,” he said.

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Kurtenbach reports from Mito, Japan. Barry Hatton in Lisbon and Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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uk

UPDATE 1-Ryanair won’t cut UK-Spain flights after quarantine move | Instant News


(Adding O’Leary’s comments on British quarantine; Ryanair to challenge Irish quarantine in court)

DUBLIN, July 27 (Reuters) – Ryanair has no plans to reduce capacity to Spain after the British government suggested not to make an important trip to the country because COVID-19, the move of Group Executive Chairman Michael O’Leary was called “poorly managed overreaction” .

Britain on Saturday reinstated two weeks of quarantine for travelers arriving from Spain after a surge in corona virus cases, reversing the decision to cancel the requirements on July 10.

“It seems that overreaction is poorly managed,” O’Leary said in a call with investors in which he said the British government was “panicking” rather than focusing on limiting trips to certain areas with high infection rates.

“There is no scientific basis for national restrictions,” O’Leary said.

Asked whether Ryanair would reduce capacity between the two countries, Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan told Reuters: “We have no plans to reduce capacity in the medium term.”

Ryanair has seen a decline in bookings to Spain over the next 2-3 weeks as a result of a surge in infections, with the decline becoming more pronounced over the weekend as Britain moves to impose quarantine, O’Leary said.

However, it is still too early to say whether there will be an uptick to alternative destinations.

Ryanair this week will launch a legal challenge to a similar 14-day quarantine introduced by the Irish government, which only freed 14 countries, including Greece and Italy but not Spain, Britain or the United States, O’Leary said. (Reporting by Conor Humphries; editing by Louise Heavens and Jason Neely)

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