December, 2019

• 28 December

  Abu Dhabi fund provides $300mn aid to Jordan

  

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), announced on Saturday that it is providing $300 million in development aid to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The move comes following the directives of President President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with the support of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince ...

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• 28 December

  Musk’s Vegas tunnel to be operational in 2020

  Bloomberg Billionaire Elon Musk said the transportation tunnel his startup Boring Co is building in Las Vegas will hopefully be operational next year. The Tesla Inc chief executive officer made the comments about the $48.7 million subterranean transit project in the US resort city in Twitter posts, The Las Vegas tunnel is the company’s only major project so far other ...

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• 28 December

  Spotify to stop selling US political advertising

  

  Bloomberg Spotify Technology SA will stop selling US political advertising in early 2020, following Twitter Inc’s lead in steering clear of a contentious election cycle. The move will apply to Spotify’s ad-supported service, as well as its original and exclusive podcasts, the company said. The music-streaming service never sold political ads in other countries, so the change only affects the ...

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• 28 December

  Regeneron cuts employee numbers as it reworks partnership with Sanofi

  

  Bloomberg Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc said it plans to cut some staff as it restructures its partnership with French drugmaker Sanofi, with whom it had shared drug sales responsibilities. Regeneron employees to be affected work on the rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara, which Sanofi is expected to gain global rights to under the restructuring. There will be no Kevzara roles at Regeneron ...

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• 28 December

  Drugmaker Melinta files for bankruptcy in US

  Bloomberg Melinta Therapeutics Inc, a bio-pharmaceutical company specialising in infectious disease treatment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware with plans to continue operating. Melinta listed as much as $500 million in assets and up to $500 million in liabilities in its bankruptcy petition. Founded in 2000 by scientists including Nobel Prize winner Thomas Steitz, the company sells drugs that ...

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• 28 December

  Wheat could be surprise winner of US-China deal

  

  Bloomberg In the agriculture world, news of the partial US-China trade deal has sparked a lot of buzz about soybeans. It turns out, wheat could actually end up being a bigger surprise winner. Speculations is mounting that China will work to fill its wheat-buying quota as part of the detente, a pledge it failed to stick to in the past. ...

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• 28 December

  Apple sued by NY doctor over watch’s heart technology

  

  Bloomberg A New York University cardiologist claims Apple Inc’s Watch uses his patented heartbeat-monitoring invention and he wants compensation. Dr Joseph Wiesel, who teaches at NYU School of Medicine, filed a suit recently against the tech giant, in federal court in Brooklyn. Wiesel claims the Apple Watch infringes his patent for a method to detect an irregular heartbeat. Apple promotes ...

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• 28 December

  Amazon’s Deliveroo deal probed as UK targets tech giants

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc’s purchase of a minority stake in UK food startup Deliveroo faces a British probe in another sign of mounting antitrust scrutiny of American tech giants. The Competition and Markets Authority said it’s opening an in-depth investigation of Amazon’s investment of about $500 million, saying it risked a “substantial lessening” of competition “in the supply of online food ...

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• 28 December

  US denies seeking 20% troop funding boost from S Korea

  

  Bloomberg The US denied a report that it’s demanding South Korea pay as much as 20% more to host American troops, as funding talks between the two nations continue. The 10%-20% figure referred to in Korean media is “ungrounded speculation,” a Trump administration official said by email. US negotiators will seek a “fair and equitable” outcome at the next round ...

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• 28 December

  Truck bomb kills 73 in Somalia’s capital

  Bloomberg More than 73 people died when a truck bomb exploded during rush hour at a busy intersection in Somalia’s capital, police said. An explosives-laden vehicle hit the taxation office near a junction in Mogadishu, Ahmed Abdi Hussein, a Somali police officer, told Bloomberg News by phone. Another police official said the target was Turkish engineers who were in a ...

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