World & Politics
CO2 emissions drop by record 8.8% in the first half of 2020 - 10/15/2020
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...
IMF improves forecast for US GDP growth in 2020, downgrades for 2021 - 10/14/2020
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...
Italian Prime Minister allows fragmentary stop of the economy - 10/13/2020
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...
OECD proposes "a tax revolution" for international companies - 10/13/2020
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...
German government: Liquefied gas is as environmentally unfriendly as coal and oil - 10/12/2020
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...
G20 countries fail to agree on tech giants taxation - 10/08/2020
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...
EU Court outlaws massive collection of user data - 10/07/2020
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...
WHO: 10% of the world's population could already be infected with COVID-19 - 10/06/2020
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...
Biden is ready to postpone debates until Trump feels better - 10/05/2020
Democratic Party presidential candidate Joseph Biden is ready to postpone the next TV debates because the current US president Donald Trump has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. It was stated by the representative of Biden's election headquarters Kate Bedingfield on October 4 on the air of ABC TV company. She noted that the debate should be held on the planned date, October 15, but it...
Over 19,000 Amazon employees tested positive for COVID-19 - 10/05/2020
Amazon.com, the largest Internet retailer in the world, stated that 19,816 of its employees were tested positive for the coronavirus. In total, the company employs more than 1.3 people in the US. This is the first time when a US employer this large provided such data. Amazon expected to receive 33,952 coronavirus-positive tests given the level of incidence in the country as a whole. The U.S....
