An aggressive Federal Reserve, soaring inflation and geopolitical uncertainty from the war in Ukraine are muddying the outlook for the upcoming US earnings season, leaving some strategists wary of surprises as corporate results kick off this week.

Germany’s economic growth could fall to 1.4 per cent-1.5 per cent this year, from 2.7 per cent in 2021, with an average of around 590,000 people on reduced-hours lay-off schemes over the course of the year, Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag.

Russia will relax temporary capital control measures aimed at limiting a drop in the rouble by allowing individuals to buy cash foreign currency and will also scrap commission for buying forex through brokerages, the central bank said on Friday.

Germany’s banking regulator on Sunday said it had stripped Russia’s VTB of control over its European subsidiary as sanctions hit the second-biggest Russian bank over the war in Ukraine.

Four years ago, fried-chicken chain KFC tweeted from its Canadian account that it would accept bitcoin as payment for its  “buckets”.

Ukraine has banned all imports from Russia, one of its key trading partners before the war with annual imports valued at about $6 billion, and called on other countries to follow and impose harsher economic sanctions on Moscow.

The Russian government said on Sunday it has increased its reserve fund used for emergency spending by 273.4 billion roubles ($3.52 billion) to ensure economic stability against the backdrop of Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Four local garment exporters have filed a case against British clothing retailer Edinburgh Woolen Mill (EWM) claiming Tk 5.98 crore in payments for goods they had shipped.

Germany could end Russian oil imports this year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday, signalling the urgency driving Europe’s biggest economy to wean itself off energy from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union on Friday formally adopted new sweeping sanctions against Russia, including bans on the import of coal, wood, chemicals and other products which were estimated to slash at least 10 per cent of total imports from Moscow.

Russia’s inflation rate reached 16.7 per cent year-on-year in March, the state statistics agency said Friday, a level not seen since 2015, while food prices have risen even more steeply.

Canada’s unemployment rate fell to the lowest on record in March as job gains continued throughout the economy, Statistics Canada announced on Friday.

Russia faces its first sovereign external default in over a century after it made arrangements to make an international bond repayment in roubles earlier this week, even though the payment was due in US dollars.

The United States on Friday broadened its export curbs against Russia and Belarus, restricting access to imports of items such as fertilizer and pipe valves as it seeks to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and Minsk following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Semiconductor chip supply is unlikely to be enough to completely satisfy demand again until 2024, Volkswagen Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Arno Antlitz said in an interview with German daily Boersen-Zeitung on Saturday.

Sri Lanka will need about $3 billion in external assistance within the next six months to help restore supplies of essential items, including fuel and medicines, to manage a severe economic crisis, its finance minister told Reuters on Saturday.

The dollar hovered near two-year highs against a basket of major currencies on Thursday after meeting minutes showed the Federal Reserve preparing to move aggressively to fight inflation, while commodity currencies fell further from recent peaks.

European Union envoys are set to approve on Thursday a ban on Russian coal that would take full effect from mid-August, a month later than initially proposed, an EU source told Reuters, following pressure from Germany to delay the measure.

Given the climate emergency, the UN chief says that investing now in fossil fuels is  “moral and economic madness”. But given the energy shock from the war in Ukraine, Britain is set to do just that.

The Russian rouble’s recent sharp rebound reflects economic weakness, not resilience. After shedding 45 per cent of its value against the dollar in the two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the currency has bounced back and is now trading just below its pre-war level.