Blogroll

Airlines on Thursday appealed for urgent government financial support as U.S. carriers rushed to cut flights to Europe in the wake of new U.S. travel restrictions aimed at combating the coronavirus outbreak, while United Airlines warned of U.S. travel disruption as the virus spreads domestically.

A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry suggested on Thursday the U.S. military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak, doubling down on a war of words with Washington.

Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc said on Thursday they had taken down a network of Russian-linked fake accounts operated out of Ghana and Nigeria which targeted the United States.

France will close from Monday all nurseries, schools and universities to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address, calling the outbreak the nation's worst public health crisis in a century.

Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing told Reuters on Thursday that it had created a $10 million fund to support drivers and couriers diagnosed with the coronavirus as companies worldwide grapple with how to respond to the pandemic.

Wirecard AG said on Thursday auditing firm KPMG did not find any discrepancies in its audit of the company's operations in India and Singapore as well as the Merchant Cash Advance and Digital Lending division.

Broadcom Inc withdrew its revenue forecast for 2020 on Thursday, joining a host of chipmakers that have either cut or pulled their sales outlook due to demand and supply disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Growth in cloud business helped Oracle Corp top quarterly profit and revenue on Thursday and said the coronavirus will have "minimal impact" on the fourth-quarter revenue, which is usually skewed toward software licenses rather than hardware.

Workplace communication platform Slack Technologies Inc forecast a soft revenue outlook for the first quarter on Thursday, sending its shares down more than 20% aftermarket, on a day major U.S. stock indexes went into a tailspin amid coronavirus fears.

Italy's antitrust watchdog said on Thursday it was investigating e-commerce giants Amazon and eBay for an allegedly excessive rise in the price of products such as hand sanitizer during the coronavirus crisis.

President Donald Trump signed legislation on Thursday to bar telecom carriers from using U.S. subsidies to purchase network equipment from Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL], ZTE Corp and other companies deemed a national security threat.

Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday raised its full-year capital expenditure as it accelerates its transition to 5G network.

Britain likely has between 5,000 and 10,000 people infected with coronavirus, the government's chief scientific adviser said on Thursday, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson stepped up the response to the outbreak.

France's competition watchdog is set to fine iPhone maker Apple Inc next Monday over anti-competitive behaviour in its distribution and sales network, two sources close to the matter said on Thursday.

The United States went into crisis mode on Thursday to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has played havoc with businesses, shuttered schools and universities and severely disrupted the sports and entertainment world.

The Dutch government on Thursday changed its travel advice for the United States, advising citizens to only travel to the U.S. "if necessary."

U.S. companies have announced 633 layoffs related to the coronavirus outbreak so far, global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas said on Thursday, providing the first tally of American job losses from what has mushroomed into a global pandemic.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had "almost no interaction" with a Brazilian government official they met in Florida last week who later tested positive for coronavirus and do not need to be tested, the White House said on Thursday.

Two of the Netherlands' premier tourist attractions, the Rijksmuseum national gallery and Van Gogh museum, closed to the public on Thursday as a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people was imposed in response to the coronavirus epidemic.

The number of new coronavirus infections in the Netherlands rose 22% to 614 on Thursday, health officials said.