HONG KONG: HSBC said yesterday its third-quarter post-tax profits fell 46 percent on-year as the Asia-focused banking giant continued to take a hammering from the coronavirus pandemic and spiralling China-US tensions. 

SHANGHAI: The most essential item in aircraft engineer Tao Rui’s possession during a recent outing in Shanghai was the Alipay smartphone app from Ant Group, a company little known outside China until it unfurled plans for the biggest IPO in history. As Tao and a friend strolled the city at the weekend, he used Alipay to buy a cup of milk tea, a deep-fried octopus snack and a box of candy. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait registered 775 new coronavirus cases during the past 24 hours, raising the total number of cases to 123,092, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday. 

SEOUL: South Korea’s billionaire business leaders lined up yesterday to pay respects to the late Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee, for decades the country’s richest and most powerful industrialist. 

FRANKFURT: It’s been a baptism by fire for Christine Lagarde whose first year as head of the European Central Bank has been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and the drastic action needed to keep the eurozone economy afloat. 

JOHANNESBURG/HARARE: Having fled an economic implosion in his native Zimbabwe, Brighton Takawira was able to support his mother back home with modest earnings from a small perfume business he set up in South Africa. Then the pandemic struck. Borders closed. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Ministry of Health (MoH) registered on Monday 682 additional COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, increasing the total number of infections to 122,317, while three new deaths were added to a death toll of 749. 

SAN FRANCISCO: Big Tech is bracing for a tumultuous week marked by quarterly results likely to show resilience despite the pandemic, and fresh attacks from lawmakers ahead of the November 3 election. 

NEW YORK: With earnings season in full swing, more companies are again offering earnings guidance, signaling to investors that some corporations are adapting to uncertainty about a global pandemic that may extend deep into next year.