The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of dollars. Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at U.S. financial institutions were frozen. But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis. On Monday, as the…

Over 72.77 million active telecommunication subscribers have been barred from making calls on their SIMs, following a directive from the Federal Government to telecommunication companies. On Monday, the Federal Government ordered telecommunications companies to enforce compliance with its National Identification Number-Subscriber Identity Module policy by restricting outgoing calls on all unlinked lines as the deadline for the verification expired on March 31. This directive was contained in a joint statement signed by Director of Public Affairs of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Ikechukwu Adinde, and Head, Corporate Communications at the Nigeria Identity Management Commission, Kayode Adegoke. According to the statement, 125…