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Southeast Asia poverty to surge in ‘socio-economic crisis’:U.N.

“Without alternative income, formal social protection systems or savings to buffer these shocks, workers and their families will be pushed into poverty, reversing decades of poverty reduction.”
The region-wide economy was expected to contract by 0.4 per cent in 2020, it said, while remittances from Southeast Asians working abroad were likely to fall by 13 per cent or $10 billion.

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Large U.S. COVID-19 vaccine trials will exclude pregnant women for now

Bioethicists, vaccine and maternal health experts have argued for years that pregnant women should be included early in trials of pandemic vaccines so they would not need to wait until long after a successful candidate emerges. That debate fell on deaf ears in recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika, but has taken on new urgency in the era of COVID-19, as studies show pregnant women are at increased risk of severe disease from the new coronavirus.

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Gilead raises sales outlook to include COVID-19 treatment remdesivir

Demand for remdesivir continues to outstrip supply in many parts of the world.

Gilead’s chief executive, Daniel O’Day, on a conference call, said the company expects by the end of September to be producing enough remdesivir to meet real-time global demand.

Gilead said it still expects to manufacturer 2 million or more remdesivir treatment courses cumulatively in 2020, and its revenue outlook reflects expected sales of up to 1.5 million courses this year.

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U.S.consumer spending presses ahead; declining income poses challenge

The extra unemployment checks are worth about $75 billion per month and accounted for nearly 5% of personal income in June. A staggering 30.2 million Americans were receiving unemployment checks in the week ending July 11. Though government welfare payments have been declining after jumping 110% in April, unemployment benefits increased 8.5% in June.
Consumers socked away $1.3 trillion over the last three months. Savings funded spending last month, pulling the saving rate down to a still-high 19% from 24.2% in May.

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India found cybersecurity lapses at National Payments Corp in 2019 – government document

The March 2019 government document cited the storing of 16-digit card numbers and other personal information such as customer names, account numbers and national identity numbers in “plain text” in some databases, leaving the data unprotected if the system was breached. The audit has not previously been reported.

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