China has warned the US that American citizens may be detained in China in response to the detention of Chinese researchers in August, The Wall Street Journal writes with reference to sources. According to the sources, since the summer of this year Beijing officials have repeatedly made relevant statements through various channels, including the U.S. Embassy in China. "Chinese government...

Global greenhouse gas emissions fell by about 8.8% in the first half of this year, which is a record high since the 2008 crisis, the 1979 oil shock and World War II. This was announced on Wednesday by the press service of the Potsdam Institute for the Study of Climate (PIK) with reference to an article in Nature Communications magazine. “The largest emission reductions were associated with the...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) improved its forecast for the growth rate of US GDP this year, but worsened the expected indicators for 2021. This follows from the report of the fund, presented on Tuesday in Washington during the autumn session of the governing bodies of the IMF and the World Bank. According to the IMF, this year the US GDP will decrease by 4.3%, in the updated June...

The option of introducing a new national quarantine and stopping the Italian economy is completely ruled out, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Monday, October 12. The country has prepared to prevent such a scenario, while the option of "limited" quarantines affecting certain areas is possible, Conte said. As of October 12, 36,205 people died in Italy with a confirmed diagnosis of...

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has presented a draft of a new approach to taxation of international companies, on which a group of 137 countries and jurisdictions has worked. This was reported on the OECD website. The proposal has two components. The first involves “a fundamentally new way of dividing taxation rights between countries.” The goal is for...

The use of liquefied shale gas is much more harmful to the climate than the supply of conventional gas via pipelines, according to the German Ministry of the Environment. The German government considers liquefied natural gas (LNG), produced using controversial hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology, as harmful to the climate as coal.  This is stated in the response of the German...

The G20 countries will not be able to meet the target previously set by the end of 2020 to agree on the taxation of digital companies. This was reported by the Kyodo agency. It is noted that the ministers of finance and the heads of the central banks of the association will clarify the details on this score following an online meeting scheduled for October 14. The main obstacle was the...

The Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest court in the EU, has severely restricted mass continuous collection and storage of user data via mobile and internet providers for EU governments, including law enforcement agencies and intelligence services. An exception is permitted only if national security is threatened. The court emphasized, however, that the collection of data to...

The number of people infected with the COVID-19 in the world may amount to 10% of the world's population, said Michael Ryan, Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergency Program. In total, more than 7.8 billion people live in the world "Current estimates tell us that about 10 percent of the world's population may have been infected with the virus... There are variations by...