For the first time in U.S. history, the White House communications team will consist of only women, Joseph Biden announced. He has appointed Jen Psaki, a former State Department spokeswoman, as his spokesperson. Biden announced the planned appointment of former State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki as White House spokesperson, Reuters reports. He has chosen campaign spokesman Kate Bedingfield as...

Venezuela has resumed direct oil deliveries to China, which were carried out in secret for over a year due to U.S. sanctions, Reuters reports with reference to the data of the tracker Refinitiv Eikon and internal documents of the Venezuelan state company PDVSA. According to the agency, the Chinese oil companies CNPC and PetroChina stopped taking oil cargoes in Venezuelan ports since August 2019...

The European Commission has developed a "European Pharmaceutical Strategy" aimed at providing the EU market with quality medicines at affordable prices and preventing shortages of medical products, according to EC materials. "The strategy is based on experience in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to strengthen and make the pharmaceutical sector more sustainable," the document says....

The Government of India has announced ban of 43 mobile applications developed by Chinese companies in the country. These include four mobile applications from the Chinese Internet retailer Alibaba, including AliExpress.  India's Ministry of Information Technology and Electronics said that the applications were "harmful to India's sovereignty and integrity, India's defence, security and...

US President Donald Trump said he has instructed the US General Services Administration to 'do what needs to be done' on the 'initial protocols' for the transfer of power to Joe Biden. CNN previously reported that the General Services Administration (GSA) and its head, Emily Murphy, had declared Biden the winner of the election and was ready to begin the transfer of power. "We are making good...

The G20 countries have pledged to work to supply the entire planet with COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines and to build a balanced "post-covid" world order. Participants in the summit, which took place on 21-22 November via videoconference, consider it urgent to establish control over the spread of the disease. "We have mobilized resources to address the urgent financial challenges in global health to...

According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the volume of restrictive trade measures imposed by the G20 countries has fallen sharply over the past six months, affecting imports by $42.9 billion, a magnitude less than in the previous half of the year. However, this trend is primarily due to the decline in trade turnover and the shift in government attention to fighting the pandemic. At that,...

China, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and the ASEAN countries have signed a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Its ratification will result in the creation of the world's largest free trade area. The agreement maintains selective trade restrictions and is generally less advanced than the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership initiated by the US,...

GDP of the UK increased by 15.5% in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter - these figures were published by the National Statistics Office (ONS) on Thursday 12 November. This is a record quarterly growth since 1955, reflecting the recovery of the British economy from the recession in the second quarter under particularly stringent quarantine measures - GDP then fell by 20.4%....