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Marsh McLennan strikes $7.75 bln deal for McGriff Insurance Services
Marsh McLennan said it expects the deal, struck through its Marsh...
California sues Exxon over global plastic pollution
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state sued Exxon...
ELEMENT and Parametrix launch innovative cloud outage insurance in Europe
Parametrix developed this unique insurance solution based on its proprietary monitoring technology that analyses the global performance and availability of cloud service providers’ down to the millisecond level. The highly advanced parametric system ensures an accurate and precise overview of risk accumulation and concentration across different IT-services and regions. Also, the monitoring system detects insured events in real time and triggers compensation with waiting periods as short as only one hour. This new insurance solution in the field of cyber and tech-related insurance is an innovative answer for companies to financial losses due to cloud outages.
New Zealand’s Auckland stays in lockdown, officials report Pfizer-linked death
The health ministry on Monday announced a woman had died due to myocarditis, which is known to be a rare side effect of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that can limit the organ’s ability to pump blood and can cause changes in heartbeat rhythms. The health ministry did not provide the woman’s age. Pfizer in New Zealand did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine contamination woes in Japan have widened with another million doses being suspended after foreign substances were found in more batches and two people died following shots from affected lots.
Global COVID-19 toll surpasses 4.5 million, US daily average for new cases increases
The European Union is set to recommend halting nonessential travel from the US because of the spread of COVID-19, according to The Wall Street Journal. Diplomatic sources told the newspaper on Sunday that a final decision on the issue is expected on Monday.
Climate Change: Insurers can afford to drop Oil and Gas—but many won’t
To date, just one insurer has promised to take “significant action” in this regard, according to analysts at Societe Generale SA.
Australia’s Suncorp was the first to announce it would no longer provide coverage for all new oil and gas production projects.While insurers (23 in all) have moved to end their underwriting of coal-related activities, they have been slow to act on oil and gas. That’s mainly because the insurance market for those fossil fuels is considerably larger, with estimated premiums of more than $17 billion in 2018, compared with $6 billion for coal power, said Peter Bosshard, program director at the Sunrise Project and global coordinator of Insure Our Future (IOF).
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear water to be released via undersea tunnel
The government decided in April to start discharging the water, after further treatment and dilution, into the Pacific Ocean in spring 2023 under safety standards set by regulators. The idea has been fiercely opposed by fishermen, residents and neighboring countries including China and South Korea.
The offshore discharge using a pipeline enclosed inside a concrete tunnel is an attempt to minimize the “reputational damage” that would occur if the contaminated water is released close to marine life off the Fukushima coast.
Sun Life taps AWS to transform its global digital services
As part of its move to accelerate digital transformation and deliver new client experiences using the cloud, Sun Life built development workspaces in North America and innovation labs in Asia to bring together IT teams and business leaders to innovate with AWS technologies.
In Asia, for example, one of the labs created the Sun Life Secure Experience, which enables Sun Life advisors to collaborate with clients virtually using video conferencing and secure file sharing.
China plans to ban U.S. IPOs for data-heavy tech firms – WSJ
Officials from China’s stock regulator have told some companies and international investors in recent weeks, that the new rules would prohibit internet firms holding a swath of user-related data from listing abroad, according to the report.
Microsoft warns thousands of cloud customers of exposed databases
Microsoft told Reuters that “customers who may have been impacted received a notification from us,” without elaborating.
The disclosure comes after months of bad security news for Microsoft. The company was breached by the same suspected Russian government hackers that infiltrated SolarWinds, who stole Microsoft source code. Then a wide number of hackers broke into Exchange email servers while a patch was being developed.
Contaminant in Moderna vaccines suspected to be metallic particles -NHK
Japan on Thursday suspended the use of 1.63 million doses shipped to 863 vaccination centres nationwide, more than a week after the domestic distributor, Takeda Pharmaceutical (4502.T), received reports of contaminants in some vials.
The NHK report, published late on Thursday, cited ministry sources as saying the particle reacted to magnets and was therefore suspected to be a metal. Moderna has described it as “particulate matter” that did not pose a safety or efficacy issue.
China spells out how excessive ‘996’ work culture is illegal
The Supreme People’s Court and Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security published a lengthy essay Friday about labor violations and unreasonable overtime, labeled ‘996’ because of the common practice of working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. It outlined 10 cases — including but not limited to the tech industry — in which employees were forced to work extra hours, or put in harm’s way.