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Bloomberg Two drugmakers behind the industry’s most prominent responses to the Covid-19 pandemic are looking into the possibility of a combined future as economies emerge from lockdowns. AstraZeneca Plc, co-developer of one of the fastest-moving experimental coronavirus vaccines, has made a preliminary approach to Gilead Sciences Inc., maker of the only US-approved treatment, according to people familiar with the matter. ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The latest regional developments and issues of mutual interest have been deliberated by His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry. This came during a phone call on Saturday, where top diplomat valued the efforts made by Egypt that led to ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Cuban government held an official ceremony in the country’s capital, Havana, to coincide with the arrival of UAE medical aid. The UAE recently dispatched an aid plane carrying eight metric tonnes of medical supplies to support Cuba in curbing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Commenting on the occasion, UAE Ambassador to Cuba Bader Abdulla ...

Dubai / WAM Dubai Municipality announced that it has begun distributing 600 residential plots in the Nad Hessa area to eligible citizens using smart technologies as part of its remote work framework and procedures. In a statement, the municipality noted that the distribution of lands reflects the keenness of the UAE leadership to provide a decent life for citizens, and ...

Dubai / WAM The Customs Development Division of Dubai Customs, which is in charge of developing innovative systems and platforms, showed that 96 percent of customs transactions were approved and endorsed automatically thanks to smart workspace system which reduced clearance time to 4 minutes only. Employees have used TEAMS Microsoft 615,000 times, completed 3.1 minutes of calling, and sent 440,000 ...

Bloomberg China’s trade surplus surged to a record in May as exports fell less than expected, helped by an increase in medical-related sales, and imports slumped along with commodity prices. Exports decreased 3.3% in dollar terms from a year earlier, beating economists’ estimates, while imports plunged 16.7%. That resulted in a trade surplus of $62.93 billion. The record surplus comes ...

Bloomberg Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd has launched clinical trials of a plant-derived drug it’s developing to treat Covid-19, joining the race to find an effective treatment for the disease that’s killed almost 400,000 people worldwide. India’s largest drugmaker will commence Phase II trials on 210 patients across 12 centers in India and the results are expected by October, according to ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s directive to pull 9,500 troops from Germany hits home hard for friends of America like Edgar Knobloch, whose Bavarian town has been home to US service members for seven decades. Like Chancellor Angela Merkel, the mayor of Grafenwoehr was caught off guard. It’s the latest sign of the US’s deterioration of ties with a loyal ally, ...

Bloomberg The world’s governments and central banks are shifting from rescue to recovery mode as the deepest slump since the Great Depression shows signs of bottoming out. After rolling out trillions of dollars worth of measures to prevent their economies and markets from collapsing, they are now doubling down with even more spending to backstop a recovery as coronavirus lockdowns ...

Bloomberg The US economy is unlikely to snap back quickly and may not return to normal until 2021, according to the chief of one of the nation’s biggest ports, after a government report raised hopes for a faster-than-expected rebound from a pandemic-induced recession. Even after the Labour Department’s surprisingly positive numbers on employment in May, “I’m still not convinced that ...