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Eco/Invest/Demography

Modern driver-assistance technology ‘far from reliable’ – AAA study

Automakers are accelerating the automation of routine driving tasks including cruising on a highway and stop-and-go traffic. The options offer a new source of profit for automakers as more consumers buy or lease vehicles with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.
Some of the systems, such as automatic emergency braking, have proven safety benefits, while others, including pedestrian detection, are still in their infancy.

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Global recovery could be faster if COVID vaccine made available to all:WHO chief

“Sharing vaccines or sharing other tools actually helps the world to recover together. The economic recovery can be faster and the damage from COVID-19 could be less,” World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus .

“Vaccine nationalism is not good, it will not help us,” he said in an allusion to the competitive scramble of nations and pharmaceutical researchers to come up with an effective vaccine and order as many doses as possible in advance.

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It’s not for me:speed of COVID-19 vaccine race raises safety concerns

Regulators around the world have repeatedly said speed will not compromise safety, as quicker results would stem from conducting in parallel trials that are usually done in sequence.

However, these reassurances have failed to convince many, including in Western countries where scepticism about vaccinations was already growing before the pandemic.

Preliminary results of a survey conducted over the last three months in 19 countries showed that only about 70% of British and U.S. respondents would take a COVID-19 vaccine if available, Scott Ratzan, co-leader of ‘Business Partners to CONVINCE’, told Reuters.

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Initial investigations point to negligence as cause of Beirut blast, source says

The explosion killed more than 100 people,affected 3,00.000 people and caused an economic losses of $ three billion
The prime minister and presidency have said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures.“It is negligence,” the official source told Reuters, adding that the issue on storing the material safely had come before several committees and judges and “nothing was done” to order the material be removed or disposed of,

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Indian pharma majors race ahead to launch affordable drugs for Covid-19 treatment

Drug major Cipla is working with government agencies to develop a treatment for COVID-19 while ramping up the production of various life saving essential drugs, according to company’s chairman YK Hamied.
Drug firm BDR Pharmaceuticals on Wednesday said it has launched its antiviral drug Favipiravir for the treatment of COVID-19 patients in India at a price of Rs 63 per tablet.
Lupin on Wednesday announced the launch of its Favipiravir drug under the brand name ‘Covihalt’ for the treatment patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms at Rs 49 per tablet in India.

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 Reliance Industries now the second biggest brand globally after Apple

One of the most profitable companies in India, Reliance is, “very well respected” and “seen as behaving ethically” as well as being associated with “growth”, “innovative products” and “great customer service”, it said. “In particular, people have a strong emotional connection with the organisation.”

FutureBrand, which is a global brand transformation company, said part of Reliance’s success could be attributed to Mukesh Ambani’s recasting of the firm as a one-stop-shop for Indians.

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Global coronavirus deaths exceed 700,000, one person dies every 15 seconds on average

Even in parts of the world that had appeared to have curbed the spread of the virus, countries have recently seen single-day records in new cases, signaling the battle is far from over. Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel all recently had record increases in cases.

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Proportion of youth with COVID-19 triples in five months: WHO

An analysis by the WHO of 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12 found that the share of people aged 15-24 years rose to 15% from 4.5%.

Apart from the United States which leads a global tally with 4.8 million total cases, European countries including Spain, Germany and France, and Asian countries such as Japan, have said that many of the newly infected are young people.

“Younger people tend to be less vigilant about masking and social distancing,” Neysa Ernst, nurse manager at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s biocontainment unit in Baltimore, Maryland told Reuters in an email.

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