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Exchange rates have been stable in COVID crisis – are we heading for a storm?
Nov 20, 2020 16:27The second wave of the coronavirus is currently hitting Europe harder than the US, but this pattern may soon reverse as winter sets in, particularly if America’s post-election interregnum paralyses both health and macroeconomic policy. And although officials claim the US still has capacity to provide much-needed disaster relief to hard-hit workers and small businesses, the growing share of US public and corporate debt in global markets suggests longer-term fragilities.
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Poorer countries may have to wait years for a COVID vaccine
Nov 20, 2020 04:41Disparities in global vaccine sales and distribution exacerbated by propriety control of manufacturing technologies are expected to create a “global vaccine apartheid,” in which wealthy countries distribute COVID-19 vaccines within their borders for months, if not years, before poorer nations have access.
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Report finds over 100 rebellions in US jails and prisons over COVID conditions
Nov 19, 2020 11:48According to a report released by the archival group Perilous: A Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest on November 13, incarcerated people in the U.S. collectively organized at least 106 COVID-19 related rebellions from March 17 to June 15. Perilous, a volunteer collective project that tracks information on all prison uprisings, riots, protests, strikes and other unrest within carceral facilities, described this activity as “clearly one of the most massive waves of prisoner resistance in the past decade.
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Officials condemn Trump's false claims and say election 'most secure in US history'
Nov 18, 2020 14:07The 3rd of November presidential election was the “most secure in American history” with no evidence that votes were compromised or altered, a coalition of federal and state officials has said, offering the clearest repudiation yet of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud. The statement backed repeated assurances by experts and state officials that, despite the coronavirus pandemic and record numbers of voters, the election went smoothly without irregularities.
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Why a COVID-19 vaccine could further imperil deep-sea sharks
Nov 18, 2020 13:49Trawling for prey at more than a thousand feet under the surface, the scalloped hammerhead shark relies on a special oil in its liver to survive the crushing pressures of the deep. Shark liver oil, or squalene, is a fatty substance that provides vital buoyancy for this critically endangered species and many others. But it’s also a lifesaver for humans as a boosting agent in vaccines, called an adjuvant, that improves the immune system and makes vaccines more effective.
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Covid-19 soars to new heights in US
Nov 16, 2020 06:03According to data from Johns Hopkins, the number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. increased by more than 136,000 between Tuesday and Wednesday, November 11th and 10th while over 1,420 Americans died from Covid-19 during that time period, bringing the death toll to roughly 240,000. The U.S. is heading for a "dark winter," a "Covid hell," the "darkest days of the pandemic."
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11 percent of US adults go hungry as Trump and McConnell fixate on challenging election results
Nov 16, 2020 05:51Federal data shows nearly 11 percent of American adults – including up to 14 percent of adults living with children — report their households do not have enough to eat. Hopes that Congress will pass another pandemic relief package before the end of the year are growing dim, as President Donald Trump fixates attention on trying to overturn the election that he, as the US media projected, lost.
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WHO hails Iran’s innovative efforts in coronavirus antidotes
Nov 15, 2020 07:18The recent news that the World Health Organization (WHO)’s list of 48 promising candidate vaccines as antidotes to the Coronavirus pandemic, includes eight of the vaccines that medical scientists in the Islamic Republic are in the process of manufacturing, need not come as a surprise to anyone, especially those keenly following Iran’s spectacular progress in the pharmaceutical and related fields.
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UN agencies warn of global hunger and displacement 'surge' from coronavirus pandemic
Nov 14, 2020 06:34Two United Nations agencies on Tuesday November 10th highlighted concerns about how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting global hunger and population displacement—warning that both "could surge as people on the move and those reliant on a dwindling flow of remittances desperately seek work to support their families."
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Fur trades and pandemics: Coronavirus and Denmark’s great mink massacre
Nov 12, 2020 15:40“The worst case scenario is a new pandemic, starting all over again out of Denmark,” came the words of a grave Kåre Mølbak, director of the Danish health authorities, the State Serum Institute. According to the Institute, COVID-19 infections were registered on 216 mink farms on November 6. Not only had such infections been registered; new variants, five different clusters in all, were also found.