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International News

Container ships sent to Tripoli to keep Lebanon supply lines running

Ship insurer Gard said: “According to our correspondents, the port of Beirut is closed for a minimum period of 14 days which could be extended until port facilities have been restored.”

The International Transport Workers’ Federation, which represents seafarers, quoted its representatives in Lebanon as saying at least 12 dockers and seven separate seafarers had been killed in the port. The figure could not be independently confirmed.
Lebanon, which imports almost all it uses, relies on container ships to bring in everything from refrigerated food cargoes to clothing and other consumer goods.
There is no firm date for Beirut port to re-open, and this is a strain on supply chains.

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Robots running the industrial world are open to cyber attacks

Robots are often connected to networks and run via software, according to the report, and previously unknown vulnerabilities could allow hackers to hide malicious code in them and other automated, programmable manufacturing machines.

The researcher found flaws in software produced and distributed by the Swedish-Swiss multinational ABB Ltd, one among world’s largest industrial robot maker. They also found other vulnerabilities in one of industry’s most popular open-source software called “Robot Operating System Industrial”, or Ros-I, adapted for ABB and for Kuka AG, a German robot maker.

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Morgan Stanley launches Property & Casualty insurance for high net worth clients

Through this new arrangement, HUB International, Marsh Private Client Services, and Willis Towers Watson will assist Morgan Stanley clients in assessing their risk exposures and provide solutions to help them protect their assets. The insurance brokers will leverage their deep relationships with a vast array of insurance companies and their global footprint of dedicated specialists and in-house resources

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Beirut devastating explosion to weigh on Lebanon’s challenged insurance sector:AM Best

Insurance penetration rates in Lebanon generally are low and property insurance represents only a small fraction of the Lebanese insurance industry, which is dominated by three segments: life, medical and motor. Based on the latest available data, together these segments accounted for almost 85% of Lebanon’s gross written premium (GWP) in 2018.

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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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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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