Category:

Risk Management

Govt must indemnify vaccine makers against all lawsuits: Adar Poonawalla

“We need to have the government indemnify manufacturers, especially vaccine manufacturers, against all lawsuits. In fact, COVAX and other countries have already started talking about that,” Serum Institute of India (SII) Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla . said.
It is because when frivolous claims come up, and something is blown out of proportion in the media, skepticism sets in that definitely something can happen due to the vaccine and to dispel that, the government needs to step in to spread the right information,
He also said that the vaccine makers are going to propose this to the government,

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Is Covid-19 Vaccine a victory for Big Pharma

It’s an incredible public relations coup for an industry desperate to rescue its image. Just last month, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty and has agreed to penalties of more than $8 billion after being prosecuted for its role in America’s horrific opioid crisis. Pfizer set an earlier record for a drug industry fraud settlement in 2009 at $2.3 billion, in a case over its fraudulent marketing of a painkiller, an antipsychotic and other drugs for conditions for which it hadn’t received approval.The turpitude of the pharmaceutical industry is so commonplace that it has become part of the cultural wallpaper. The screenwriters of the 1993 movie

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Hackers’ broad attack sets cyber experts worldwide scrambling to defend networks

“This hack was so big in scope that even our cybersecurity experts don’t have a real sense yet in terms of the breadth of the intrusion itself,” adding that it would take some time to fully vet all the agencies and targets.

The breach appeared to provide President-elect Joe Biden with an immediate headache when he takes office on Jan. 20. His transition team’s executive director Yohannes Abraham told reporters on Friday there would be “substantial costs” and the incoming administration “will reserve the right to respond at a time and in a manner of our choosing, often in close coordination with our allies and partners.”

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Hack against US is ‘grave threat’, cybersecurity agency says

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in its most detailed comments yet that the intrusion had compromised federal agencies as well as critical infrastructure in a sophisticated attack that was hard to detect and will be difficult to undo
This threat actor has demonstrated sophistication and complex tradecraft in these intrusions, the agency said in its unusual alert. CISA expects that removing the threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging.

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Microsoft says it found malicious software in its systems

The U.S. National Security Agency issued a rare “cybersecurity advisory” Thursday detailing how certain Microsoft Azure cloud services may have been compromised by hackers and directing users to lock down their systems.

“Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious Solar Winds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed,” a Microsoft spokesperson said, adding that the company had found “no indications that our systems were used to attack others.”

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Ransomware attacks on the rise even as cyber insurers scale back

Ransomware attacks typically involve the infection of computers with malicious software, often downloaded by clicking on seemingly innocuous links in emails or other website pop-ups and leaving users locked out of their systems, with the demand of a ransom to be paid to restore computer functions.
Paul Bantick, Beazley’s global head of cyber and technology, said that ransomware attackers were demanding more money than in the past and had also become more creative in ways in which they sought to extort money.

“COVID-19, coronavirus, vaccines, all these things, they have enabled people to target organizations,” Bantick said.

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Dutch court case claims Shell’s operations violate human rights

The case brought by the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, links the oil major’s stance on climate change with human rights. The ruling will also have implications for Shell’s European peers as pressure mounts on polluting energy companies to step up the fight against global warming.

Over two weeks of court proceedings, lawyers for Milieudefensie have argued that Shell is violating human rights by extracting fossil fuels and undermining the Paris Agreement’s aim of keeping temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Shell says it’s playing its part in addressing climate change, which can only be tackled through collaboration and not court action.

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SC directs states to carry out fire safety audit of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said hospitals whose fire NOC has expired will have to get it renewed within four weeks. The top court said all the states will follow COVID-19 guidelines, including on wearing of face mask and adherence to social distancing measures, and the standard operating procedure issued by the competent authority.

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From insurers to landlords, retailers to restaurants, COVID tarnsforms  Economies

Like no other event in memory, the pandemic has upended economies in the United States and across the world — transforming how people work, travel, eat, shop and congregate. It has changed how students are educated, how people communicate, how households are entertained and which industries, geographic areas and categories of people will thrive and which will suffer.

It has widened a gap between educated and affluent people who can work from home and the less fortunate — people in lower-income households without college educations or high skills who depend solely on wages rather than stock or home equity gains — who now stand to be left further behind. And it’s forced many working mothers to quit their jobs for lack of child care.

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