January, 2021

• 18 January

  AASTS, Ministry of Climate Change discuss ways to protect environment

  

  ABU DHABI / WAM Officials from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Sharjah (AASTS) and the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment discussed their cooperation and collaboration, including ways of employing the academy’s capabilities and the expertise of its staff to protect the environment and curb marine activities that cause climate change. Their cooperation also includes ...

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• 18 January

  Ministry of Health wins two awards

  Dubai / WAM The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) won two prestigious awards at the HIMSS-Elsevier Digital Healthcare Award Middle East 2020, which is organised by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). In the Outstanding ICT Innovation category, MoHAP came first through the ‘Newborn Hearing Screening’ project, which aims to deploy a universal and automated newborn hearing ...

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• 18 January

  Dubai issues 9,949 DED Trader licences till 2020-end

  

  DUBAI / WAM The DED Trader licence, launched by the Business Registration & Licensing (BRL) sector of Dubai Economy (DED) to licence freelancers at their place of residence in Dubai and enable start-ups to conduct business activities online and across social networking accounts, has seen overwhelming response with 9,949 licences issued since its launch in 2017 till end of 2020. ...

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• 18 January

  California braces for winter fire season, blackouts

  

  Bloomberg California utilities are warning that they may need to cut power to almost 280,000 homes and businesses to prevent live wires from sparking wildfires as high winds are expected to sweep through the drought-weary state. Edison International’s Southern California Edison said 256,000 customers in six counties near Los Angeles face blackouts within 48 hours due to a forecast of ...

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• 18 January

  Why are we muddling through vaccination?

  

  Covid-19 exposed all the flaws of both national and international governance. The World Health Organization struggled. Too many countries, even those supposedly best prepared for a pandemic, flailed and failed to grasp lessons from each other’s experiences, at the cost of 2 million lives and trillions of dollars. Has the world rectified those weaknesses? A vaccination campaign of record size ...

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• 18 January

  Ford’s exit foretells Brazil’s troubles

  

  When Ford Motor Company announced it was shuttering its operations in Brazil, the reaction was swift and shrill. Adversaries of President Jair Bolsonaro were quick to blame official neglect and ineptitude, to the delight of cartoonists and social media warriors. Bolsonaro faulted decades of dirigisme and accused Ford of plumping for subsidies, even as the Economy Ministry scolded the automaker ...

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• 18 January

  December’s retail sales drop misses big picture

  Consumers didn’t end 2020 with a bang, Commerce Department retail sales figures show. But the unusual dynamics of a year defined by the pandemic — which gave rise to trends such as shoppers buying Christmas gifts earlier and shifting their spending from experiences to goods — meant a December pullback didn’t stop the retail industry from enjoying a solid holiday ...

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• 18 January

  How to prevent repeat of US Capitol attack

  As details emerge about the Janaury 6 attack on the Capitol, it’s become clear that some of the rioters were planning far worse acts of violence, and national-security officials at all levels of government were utterly unprepared. Congress should conduct an urgent and thorough investigation to determine what went wrong and how to stop it from happening again. The immediate ...

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• 18 January

  India’s ‘richest men’ caught in crossfire over farming laws

  

  Bloomberg Two of India’s richest men have landed in an unlikely controversy over farming laws, becoming targets of protesters who allege the tycoons have benefited from their close links to PM Narendra Modi. For weeks, tens of thousands of farmers have camped outside the nation’s capital, demanding the withdrawal of recently passed legislation they say, without evidence, was designed to ...

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• 18 January

  Malaysia says ‘not slow’ in getting vaccines

  Bloomberg Malaysia isn’t a laggard in securing vaccines, Science Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said, seeking to allay concerns about the speed of the country’s purchases of shots. The nation is set to get its first delivery of vaccines before the end of February and the government will try its best to get as many people inoculated within a year, he said. ...

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