Economy

Kevin McCarty J. Scott Applewhite / AP  

 

US debt ceiling  

Shutdown Closer - McCarthy Rejects Senate 

 

The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, rejected the Senate's proposal for short-term funding for the US government apparatus and did not allow the House to vote. That increases the risk of a shutdown starting over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reports.  

 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, says McCarthy stands in the way of a bipartisan bill. 

 

- If they present our proposal, it would go through, he tells the newspaper.  

 

 

 

Russian invasionRussian reactions 

Gazprombank buys Ikea's 14 Russian shopping centers  

 

The major Russian bank Gazprombank is ready as the buyer of the 14 Russian department stores owned by the Ikea-sphere's Ingka Group, write several media with reference to a press release.  

 

A subsidiary of Gazprombank buys the department stores for an unknown sum. All Russian employees at the so-called Mega department stores will be employed by the new owner, the big bank says. 

 

According to Affärsvärlden, the department stores are worth around the equivalent of 31 billion Swedish kronor. 

 

SAS pandemic loan approved after Ryanair's appeal. Johan Nilsson/TT / TT News Agency  

 

The problems for SAS 

Court rules: SAS's pandemic loan is approved again  

 

Denmark's and Sweden's state pandemic loan to SAS of a maximum of 1.5 billion is approved by the EU Court of Justice.  

 

The announcement comes after Ryanair appealed a previous positive decision from the European Commission in spring 2020. The court rejects all of the Irish low-cost airline's arguments and upholds previous judgments, they write in a press release according to TT. 

 

 

Ng Han Guan / AP  

 

The real estate crisis in China  

Evergrande trading suspended after new disclosure  

 

The crisis-hit Chinese property developer Evergrande has been suspended from trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday. The announcement comes just one day after Bloomberg's disclosure that the company's chairman Hui Ka Yan has been placed under police surveillance.  

 

The chairman is said to have been taken away by Chinese police in September and is now under a type of "home surveillance", which is not to be equated with Hui being suspected of a crime.  

 

It is not the first time debt-laden Evergrande has been suspended from trading on the stock exchange. At the end of August, trading in the share resumed after a 17-month hiatus.