Bloomberg Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi vowed to free up more economic stimulus and increase vaccinations to offset a prolonged lockdown amid a coronavirus resurgence. The premier, at his first news conference since his governing coalition was sworn in on February 13, unveiled a 32 billion-euro ($38 billion) pandemic relief package he called “only a first step.” The package was ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG plans to widen cost-saving efforts and standardise key technologies as the German manufacturer seeks to rival Tesla Inc. on electric cars and keep traditional rivals at bay. VW targets 1 million electric-vehicle sales this year and aims to become the global EV market leader by 2025 at the latest, the company said. By 2030, the share of ...

Bloomberg BMW AG’s Mini brand will go all-electric from 2030 as the automaker intensifies its transition to battery-powered vehicles, according to people familiar with the matter. The iconic British brand will roll out its last combustion-engine variant in 2025, and around half of all Mini sales should be electric by 2027, one of the people said, declining to be named ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. is expanding digital medical consultations to its employees across the US and says it will start offering the service to other companies. Together with the launch of an online pharmacy in December, the initiative marks Amazon’s entry into the gargantuan US health care industry. Medical services have long been seen as a target for Amazon, both to ...

Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. warned it’s grappling with the fallout from a “serious imbalance” in semiconductors globally, becoming the largest tech giant to voice concerns about chip shortages spreading beyond the automaking industry. Samsung, one of the world’s largest makers of chips and consumer electronics, expects the crunch to pose a problem to its business next quarter, co-Chief Executive Officer ...

Bloomberg The autonomous-car artificial intelligence (AI) from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo avoided or mitigated crashes in most of a set of virtually recreated fatal accidents, according to a white paper the company. The simulations were based on 72 fatal crashes that occurred between 2008 and 2017 in Chandler, Arizona, where Waymo currently operates a small-scale autonomous ride-hail service based on its ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s Google is halving the percentage it takes from app developers on sales through its Google Play store, following a similar move by rival Apple Inc. last year. The Mountain View, California-based internet giant said it’s reducing the fees to 15% from 30% for the first $1 million in revenue on sales of apps and in-app-purchases each year. ...

CAIRO / WAM Adel bin Abdulrahman Al Asoumi, President of the Arab Parliament, congratulated His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, on being selected as the International Personality for Humanitarian Relief for 2021. In a statement to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), Al Asoumi said ...

SHARJAH / WAM Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department in Sharjah revealed that the volume of real estate transactions in the emirate reached 1,818 transactions with a value of AED3.5 billion in February 2021. Abdul Aziz Ahmed Al Shamsi, Director-General of the Department, explained that the number of sales transactions in the emirate amounted to 457, which accounted for 25.1 percent ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE has strongly condemned the terror attacks that targeted an area in Western Niger close to the country’s border with Mali, which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of innocent people. In a statement, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation affirmed the UAE’s strong condemnation of these criminal acts and its permanent ...