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Istanbul: With earthquake risk city’s business now getting ahead on contingency planning
The impact would, of course, be huge. Insurers estimate a $300...
Singapore mending regulations to stay globally competitive: PM Wong
Lawrence Wong ,Prime Minister, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence...
Cathay Pacific working with Airbus on single-pilot system for long-haul
That promises savings for airlines, amid uncertainty over the post-pandemic economics of intercontinental flying. But it is likely to encounter resistance from pilots already hit by mass layoffs, and safety concerns about aircraft automation.
Lufthansa has also worked on the single-pilot programme but currently has no plans to use it, a spokesman for the German carrier told Reuters.
US, China trade war costs global value chains 3-5 years of growth, says UN
The report from the United Nations Development Programme looking at the post-pandemic future of global value chains found that trade within those supply lines shrank in absolute terms along with other types of trade. Still, they’ll remain at the core of economic recovery in the Asia-Pacific region even as global manufacturers consider moving production closer to home.
The supply troubles come as the cost of shipping goods across the globe is skyrocketing, threatening to boost consumer prices and compounding concerns in global markets already bracing for accelerating inflation.
COVID-19 cases surge in Africa, less than 0.8% of fully vaccinated, say officials
New cases are up nearly 30% in the past week and deaths are up by 15%, she said, with five countries — South Africa, Tunisia, Zambia, Uganda and Namibia — accounting for 76% of the new cases. The continent of 1.3 billion people has not yet been battered with an emergency during the pandemic on the scale of that recently facing India, but officials including Moeti continue to warn that such a catastrophe could hit.
“Africa is in the midst of a full blown third wave…We’ve seen in India and elsewhere how quickly COVID-19 can rebound and overwhelm health systems,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, told a news conference.
Suicide remains one of leading causes of death worldwide: WHOWHO
From job loss to financial stress and social isolation, the many risk factors triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic make suicide prevention “even more important now”, said the top WHO official.
Among young people aged 15-29, suicide was the fourth leading cause of death after road injury, tuberculosis and interpersonal violence, according to the study: Suicide worldwide in 2019.
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Republican challenge to Obamacare law
If Obamacare had been struck down, up to 20 million Americans stood to lose their medical insurance and insurers could have once again refused to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. Obamacare expanded the Medicaid state-federal healthcare program and created marketplaces for private insurance.
The provision, called the “individual mandate,” required Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a financial penalty. It marked the third time the court has preserved Obamacare since its 2010 enactment.
Reinsurers look at dumping coal from bulk-buy policies in green gambit
Five of the world’s six largest reinsurers – Swiss Re, Munich Re, Hannover Re, SCOR and Lloyd’s of London – have already scaled back bespoke coverage for coal projects. But only Swiss Re, in a statement in March, has said it will go further and tighten its treaty reinsurance stance.
A rail contractor to Adani Enterprises’ giant Australian coal project last month, for example, asked the Australian government for help to obtain insurance that it was not able to secure from the market.
“The first consequence is insurance is harder to get, the second consequence is it’s expensive, the third consequence is there are all sorts of caveats on it and at the extreme you might not be offered it”, said Paul Merrey, insurance partner at KPMG.
Google must face shareholder lawsuit claiming it hid security risks
The lawsuit, led by the state of Rhode Island, followed an October 2018 Wall Street Journal article that said Google concealed the exposure of private data for nearly 500,000 Google+ users because it feared regulatory scrutiny and reputational harm.
French chef seeks $1.9 million from Allianz for Covid-19 BI losses
Tensions between French restaurant operators and insurers over such claims have failed to dissipate after a year of public fights and legal disputes. AXA, which was ordered to compensate some restaurants, offered a 300 million-euro settlement to its policyholders last week, seeking to appease clients.
Global COVID-19 death toll exceeds 4 mln
The top five countries by total number of deaths – the United States, Brazil, India, Russia and Mexico – represent about 50% of all deaths in the world, while Peru, Hungary, Bosnia, the Czech Republic and Gibraltar have the highest death rates when adjusted for population. Countries in Latin America are facing their worst outbreak since March, with 43 of every 100 infections in the world being reported in the region, according to a Reuters analysis
UN chief: Desertification and drought destabilizing well-being of 3.2 billion people
Having contributed to the collapse of biodiversity and promoting zoonoses – diseases which jump from animals to humans
Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) called desertification “another reminder” that human health and that of the environment, are “deeply intertwined”.
Desertification and drought also increase water scarcity, at a time when two billion people still lack access to safe drinking water, said Ms. Azoulay, adding that “over three billion may have to confront a similar situation by 2050”.