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Global coronavirus cases exceed 15 million 

The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the world’s infections and half its deaths.

Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according to the Reuters tally, based on official reports.

After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January, it took about 15 weeks to reach 2 million cases. By contrast, it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13.

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France weighs insurance options to protect companies,jobs from future Pandemics

The goal is to protect companies and jobs from the damage that major events such as pandemics can cause, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in a statement. A working group consisting of lawmakers and industry representatives came up with a range of solutions on developing insurance coverage for such catastrophes, and Le Maire sought public comment on its proposals to inform the government’s work on the issue

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Dam collapse in China could point to a ‘black swan’ disaster

But climate change is bringing a new normal of extremes and flood-risk policies decided a decade or two ago are no longer sufficient, said Benjamin Horton, director at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.

“What really needs to happen is to work with the ecosystems,not against them by building dams,by extending flood wetlands and flood plains and allowing the water to naturally mix with the environment,”he said.

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EU makes world’s biggest ‘green recovery’ pledge – but will it hit the mark?

The money represents a 30% share of a mammoth package, comprising a 1.074 trillion euro EU budget for 2021-27 and a 750 billion euro coronavirus recovery fund. Leaders also agreed that even those parts of the overall package not specifically earmarked for climate spending must “do no harm” to the EU’s goal to become climate neutral by 2050.

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China offers more financial support for flood-hit areas

Separately, the CBIRC urged insurers to properly perform investigations and claims settlement and arrange financial resources in advance to help flood-hit companies and people resume production and normal lives in a timely manner.Large parts of China were reeling on Friday from the worst floods in decades, which destroyed homes and affected millions of people.

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Twitter says attackers downloaded data from up to 8 non-verified

Hackers may have also attempted to sell the user names of some of the accounts, it said.

The high-profile accounts that were hacked also included rapper Kanye West, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and the corporate accounts for Uber and Apple.

In its latest statement, Twitter said attackers “manipulated a small number of employees” to gain access to the internal support tools used in the hack.

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