Category:

International News

Israeli Insurtech reaches $1 Billion Valuation

Founded in 2001, Earnix helps its customers provide personalized rates and products using artificial intelligence and analytics. The startup will use the new funds to grow internationally, develop new products and support deals, it said in a statement Sunday.
Israeli startups overall raised a record $1.44 billion in January, with a half-dozen firms announcing funding rounds of at least $100 million, according to a report from Start-Up Nation Central, a non-profit organization that tracks Israel’s tech industry.

read more

Pfizer jab 95.8% effective against Covid: Israel health ministry

Israel’s inoculation campaign is regarded as the world’s fastest, with one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine administered to 4.25 million people out of its nine million-strong population since December, according to the latest health ministry figures.

Some 2.88 million people have received the recommended full course of two jabs.

The health ministry said on Saturday the vaccine had proved 95.8 percent effective in preventing coronavirus infection among those vaccinated two weeks after receiving their second shot compared to unvaccinated people, according to data compiled up to February 13.

read more

Nigerian court freezes Shell accounts ahead of Aiteo lawsuit

The lawsuit is latest in a string of legal headaches for the biggest international oil company operating in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil exporter.

A British court last week cleared the way for local communities to sue the company over oil spills in the West African nation, and last month Shell lost a case brought in the Netherlands by Nigerian farmers and fisherman over pollution claims.

read more

AstraZeneca vaccine faces resistance in Europe after health workers suffer side-effects

“AstraZeneca caused more side-effects than the Pfizer vaccine,” said Melanie Cotigny, communications manager at Saint-Lo hospital in Normandy.

“Between 10% and 15% of those vaccinated may have side-effects from this vaccination, but it is only a feverish state, fevers, nausea and within 12 hours it goes away.”

read more

EU sues more countries over air pollution, nature and water

If found guilty, Slovakia would join a list of nine EU states that the bloc’s top court has found guilty of illegal air pollution, including Romania, Italy and Sweden. Failure to heed the rules could see those countries face further legal action from the EU to impose financial penalties.

Particulate matter is produced by industry, vehicle emissions and home heating, as well as some agriculture, and is associated with cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer.

read more