
Does the revival of air transport also involve the vaccine?
By ASLA - Associazione degli Studi Legali Associati
By ASLA - Associazione degli Studi Legali Associati
The event began last week during a winter storm, which made it harder to see the tar approaching and deal with it at sea, Israeli officials said
Lima - The death toll in Peru continued to mount on Friday as a relentless second wave of the coronavirus left many hospitals short of oxygen for critical patients even as daily infections continued to climb. In Lima, long lines snake down city blocks as friends and relatives seek to snatch up the last remaining bottled oxygen available in the capital
Berlin - Negotiations about the next steps in the development of a Franco-German fighter jet are still going on, the German defence ministry said on Friday of Europe's biggest defence project. A defence ministry spokesman was commenting on the latest round of talks between the defence ministers of both countries which took place on Thursday
Frankfurt - As the euro zone begins to emerge from the depths of a pandemic-induced recession, the European Central Bank is facing a difficult balancing act between supporting indebted governments and keeping creditors onside. Encouraged by the ECB's massive bond purchase programme and ultra-low interest rates, national governments have taken on a mountain of new borrowing to cushion the coronavirus pandemic
Spain will receive one of the biggest slices of European recovery funds in the coming years, up to 140 billion euros ($170 billion) of which about half will be in the form of grants.
Cape Town - For South African winemaker Vergenoegd Löw, the pandemic could have been a disaster but a bitter trade war between China and Australia has thrown the 325-year-old estate a lifeline. Bottles of its reds, whites and roses piled up when South Africa banned alcohol sales under a strict lockdown and visitors who once flocked to the vineyard near Cape Town to sip wine and snap photos of its famed Indian Runner ducks vanished
Geneva - A recovery in global trade is expected to slow again in the first quarter of 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic keeps disrupting the travel industry after world trade contracted 9% in 2020, a U.N. report said on Wednesday. After lockdowns caused trade to shrink 15% in the first half of 2020, it rebounded in the second half, with global trade in goods up about 8% in the fourth quarter compared with the third, UNCTAD said.
Singapore - A prominent Singapore businessman has said he will exit his investment in a tobacco firm linked to the Myanmar military, after the army deposed the country's democratically elected government in a coup last week
London - National oil companies (NOCs) risk squandering $400 billion on expensive oil and gas projects over the next decade that may only break even if the world fails to meet the Paris climate goals, a non-governmental organisation said on Tuesday. In a new report called Risky Bet, the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) estimated that NOCs could invest $1.9 trillion over the next ten years
Berlin - Germany's industrial sector avoided a contraction in December despite coronavirus lockdowns at home and abroad as strong demand from China helped export-oriented manufacturers in Europe's largest economy weather the COVID-19 pandemic. Industrial output was flat on the month after an upwardly revised increase of 1.5% in the previous month
Mogadishu - An alliance of Somali opposition parties proposed the creation of a national council of lawmakers, opposition leaders and civil society to govern the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation after the president's term expired on Monday with no clear plan for succession. The power vacuum and divisions between political leaders was a boost to the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency, a Somali security analyst warned
By ASLA - Associazione degli Studi Legali Associati
Moscow - The consortium behind the Russia-led Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline has resumed laying pipes in the waters of Denmark, it said on Saturday, despite mounting pressure on the project from Washington. Construction of the link, which would double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline to 110 billion cubic metres of gas per year, was suspended in December 2019 due to the threat of sanctions from Washington
Milan - Italy's central bank called on Saturday for cohesion as the country battles a government crisis, saying it was imperative to revive growth and reduce a public debt that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed to levels last seen after World War One. Italy's debt is expected to approach 160% of domestic output at the end of this year
Kundli - Thousands of farmers across India blocked roads on Saturday with makeshift tents, tractors, trucks and boulders to pressure the government to roll back agricultural reforms that have triggered months-long protests. While the initial protests were started by rice and wheat growers from northern India who camped out on the outskirts of New Delhi, demonstrations have spread across the country
Frankfurt - Deutsche Bank eked out a small annual profit in 2020, its first since 2014, saying on Thursday it had made strong gains at its investment banking division. Over the past 10 years, Deutsche has lost a total 8.2 billion euros ($9.8 billion) and the return to profit marks an important milestone for Chief Executive Christian Sewing as analysts had been predicting another loss in 2020
Kuala Lumpur - Indonesia's ambitious biodiesel programme will increase the risks of deforestation as more tropical forest could be cleared to grow palm oil, environmentalists have warned, urging policymakers to implement a long-term ban on new plantations. Indonesia - which is home to the world's third-largest tropical forests but is also its biggest producer of palm oil - has steadily increased the portion in its biodiesel mandate derived from palm oil
A move by South Korea towards releasing $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds may help spur Iran’s judiciary to resolve the seizure of a Korean ship being held for alleged environmental pollution
Under sanctions, Iran has tended not to release official data on oil or product exports, a mainstay of its economy. Iranian oil exports were as high as 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 but fell to 300,000 bpd in 2020, assessments based on tanker tracking show
Geneva - Qatar has suspended a trade dispute with the United Arab Emirates at the World Trade Organization, a document showed on Tuesday, after tensions between Doha and its Gulf neighbours eased. Doha launched its case with the WTO in 2017 over trade in goods, services and intellectual property after the UAE and other Arab states in the Gulf and beyond cut diplomatic and business ties with Qatar as part of a political dispute
Frankfurt - Natural catastrophes around the world resulted in $210 billion in damage in 2020, with the United States especially hard hit by hurricanes and wildfires, a top insurer said. The damage, tallied by the German reinsurer Munich Re, increased from $166 billion in the previous year, and comes as a warming planet heightens risks
Moscow - Russia, one of the world's largest wheat exporters, plans to impose a higher export tax on wheat from March 1, its economy minister said on Friday, in another push to curb a rise in domestic food prices triggered by the COVID-19 crisis. Wheat prices in Chicago and Paris jumped after the proposal, which the Russian government has yet to sign
Brussels - The European Commission is working on a vaccine certificate, dubbed 'Vaxproof', that could help restore cross-border travel, EU officials said, but the plan is dividing EU nations. The issue has been discussed for months but has led to no compromise because of fears over vaccine hesitancy and privacy. The EU executive Commission is working on a system for mutual recognition in all 27 EU countries of a certificate proving the holder has been vaccinated
The German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern plans to set up a foundation to help the completion of the Nord Stream 2 (NS2) pipeline to bring Russian gas to Germany
Asian spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) jumped nearly 50% this week to a record high, based on available data going back to 2009, as logistical issues disrupt supply to the world’s top consuming region
By ASLA - Associazione degli Studi Legali Associati
Libya - The Central Bank of Libya on Sunday introduced a new unified exchange rate agreed last month after years of division between rival branches based on opposing sides of the front line. As part of the change, the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli suspended a fee on foreign currency transactions that it introduced two years ago to bring the official rate closer to the black market rate
Dubai - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday not to be "trapped" by an alleged Israeli plan to provoke a war through attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq
Bahrain's Ministry of Health said in a statement and on its Instagram account that citizens and residents above 18 years of age could register online to receive the vaccine for free
Pipe-laying vessel Akademik Cherskiy, expected to be used to finish the Moscow-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, has left the German project hub of Mukran and is heading to the Russian port of Kaliningrad
Abidjan - U.S. chocolate maker Hershey's move to buy cheap beans from the New York futures exchange is an attempt to derail plans by Ivory Coast and Ghana to increase farmers' income, the Ivorian cocoa regulator alleged in a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's top producers, are expected to sell their first full cocoa crop this season under a new scheme that includes a price premium of $400 per tonne
Seoul - South Korea's antitrust regulator said Wednesday it has fined a French engineering company 12.5 billion won (US$11 million) for its unfair tie-in sales to South Korean shipbuilding clients
Washington - The Trump administration last week unveiled an executive order prohibiting U.S. investments in Chinese companies that Washington says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military
Lagos - Nigeria has slipped into a recession after its gross domestic product contracted for the second consecutive quarter, according to data released on Saturday which showed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and low oil prices. Africa's biggest economy was last in recession in 2016, its first in a generation
Chennai - The Indian units of Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries and Saudi Arabia-based Aljomaih Holding won government auctions to sell solar power for a record low of two rupees ($0.0270) per kilo watt hour (kWh), sources said
Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has been for years working to revamp its submarine force, some of which date back to World War Two
Russian gas producer Novatek has started ship-to-ship loadings of liquefied natural gas from the Yamal LNG project near the northern port of Murmansk
London - Turkey's two new economic czars will need a fresh crisis playbook if they are to keep the lira and the economy from plunging into deeper turmoil. The shock departure of finance minister Berat Albayrak, who is President Tayyip Erdogan's son-in-law, and central bank chief Murat Uysal over the weekend gave the lira its best day in over two years on Monday
Moín - Two women in charge of operating the scanners at the APM Terminals dock, in Moín (Limon) were detained for providing false information about a container loaded with fruit and containing 990 kilos of cocaine morning.The drug hidden in the shipment of pineapple that left the Limon megaport was seized on August 17 in the port of Rotterdam
Libreville - Gabon and Paris-based asset manager Meridiam signed a $210 million deal to build a hydroelectric dam as part of the central African nation's international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Once operational in 2023, the Kinguele Aval project on the Mbei River is slated to have production capacity of around 205 gigawatt hours per year, or 13% of the current consumption of the capital Libreville, 100 kilometres to the west
Khartoum - Sudan doubled domestic fuel prices on Tuesday, a move that should help reduce a gaping budget deficit but is sure to anger many of the country’s impoverished citizens. The government, which has long fixed fuel prices at some of the lowest levels in the world, raised the price at the pump of locally produced diesel to 46 Sudanese pounds ($0.8364) a litre from the previous 23 pounds
Kyiv - Ukraine will receive a $100 million loan from the World Bank to finance the recovery of the eastern Donbass region badly hit by a six-year military conflict with Russia-backed separatists, the Ukrainian president said on Saturday. In a Twitter post, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed gratitude to the World Bank "for supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity."
Abidjan - Cocoa arrivals at ports in Ivory Coast tumbled this week due to a violent political standoff following a disputed presidential election in the world's top growing nation. The delivery of cocoa beans to Abidjan and San Pedro ports between Monday and Wednesday were estimated 29,000 tonnes
Istanbul - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan fired central bank governor Murat Uysal on Saturday and replaced him with ex-finance minister Naci Agbal, acting after a 30% plunge in the lira currency's value to record lows this year
German utility Uniper UN01.DE on Friday said it would review plans for a liquefied natural gas terminal in Wilhelmshaven
Turkey began drilling at a second borehole in a Black Sea natural gas field where it made its largest ever discovery earlier this year
Vares - In a remote mountain town with a history of mining that dates from Roman times, hopes are high that British mineral company Adriatic Metals will bring jobs and spur some of the economic revival Bosnia craves. Foreign direct investment in the country had already fallen as bureaucracy deterred investors. In the first half of this year, it was down nearly 50% compared with a year ago as the pandemic paralysed economic activity
Baku - Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday his troops would "go to the end" should negotiations fail to result in an agreement by ethnic Armenian forces to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. Aliyev spoke during a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in the Azeri capital Baku
Oil traders are scouting for newly built supertankers to store diesel for the next few months as they brace for lower demand in Europe amid renewed restrictions aimed at battling the pandemic
Iran has delivered several gasoline and crude oil shipments to Syria, easing a near two-month gasoline shortage, port officials and traders said
Wartsila posted third-quarter earnings per share below market forecasts on Friday, saying the COVID-19 pandemic continued to limit investments in both its marine and energy markets
Hong Kong - China has raised $6 billion in a dollar bond issue that was offered to U.S. investors for the first time, just weeks before the Nov. 3 election. The deal attracted an orderbook of $27.2 billion
Manila - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has lifted the moratorium on petroleum exploration in the South China Sea, paving the way for three projects to resume, including a possible joint venture with China. Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said on Thursday that service contractors were notified to resume energy-related activity in the area
A Turkish seismic survey ship has reached the location in the eastern Mediterranean where it will operate and has begun to take readings
Royal Dutch Shell said its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas project off Australia, off line since early February, is working on restarting operations but would not resume full production this year
Paris - France will stop providing state export guarantees to projects involving dirty forms of oil such as shale from next year, followed by all types of oil from 2025 and gas from 2035, the finance ministry said on Monday. The French state stopped giving export guarantees, which companies often need to get bank credit, to projects this year where fracking and flaring were involved and also dropped its financial support for coal developments
Istanbul - A Turkish ship set sail on Monday to carry out seismic surveys in the eastern Mediterranean, prompting Greece to issue a furious new demand for European Union sanctions on Ankara in a row over offshore exploration rights. France expressed its concern after the Turkish vessel, the "Oruc Reis", began its voyage
By ASLA - Associazione Studi Legali Associati
An Iranian-flagged oil tanker left Venezuela on Friday for Iran’s Kharg Island, Refinitiv Eikon data showed, after the vessel loaded 1.9 million barrels of heavy crude at the South American country’s Jose oil terminal
Azerbaijan’s ties with Russia, already strained by conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, face further pressure from the launch later this year of a gas pipeline that is poised to squeeze Moscow’s diminished gas sales to Europe and Turkey
A pipe-laying vessel expected to be used to finish the Moscow-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, is heading towards the Russian port of Kaliningrad
Singapore’s annual liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering capacity is expected to hit 1 million tonnes by 2021, as the world’s largest marine refuelling hub transitions toward cleaner shipping fuels
Saudi Arabia shipped 6.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in September, slightly above August levels, and kept output steady at 8.974 million bpd last month
A Turkish drill ship has left the area where it was operating southwest of Cyprus and reached Turkey’s coast for maintenance in a move the European Union said would help ease tensions in the Eastern Mediterranea
The U.S. Trade Representative and the EU's Washington office did not immediately answer requests for comment. Boeing declined comment on the confidential WTO report but accused Airbus of ignoring its recent decision to forego tax breaks in Washington state to try to resolve the dispute. Airbus, which recently announced its own concessions on funding in France and Spain
London - Britain suffered a record collapse in economic output in the second quarter of 2020 when COVID-19 lockdown measures were in force and people had few opportunities to spend
Cairo - A blockade on Libya's oil facilities has been partially lifted, allowing a gradual reopening of some ports and fields, but obstacles and uncertainties complicate a full recovery
Teheran - Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps opened a new naval base along one of the world’s busiest oil transit routes on the Persian Gulf as frictions with the U.S. and its allies in the region loom over security in the waterway. The Shaheed Rahbari base near the port of Sirik, on the eastern side of the Strait of Hormuz, took six years to build and will give Iran “full control” of various vessels that use the channel
Teheran - The first of a group of three tankers carrying Iranian fuel for gasoline-starved Venezuela entered the waters of the South American nation on Monday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, in the most recent sign of the countries' expanding trade. The two OPEC members have increased cooperation this year by exchanging crude, fuel, food, equipment for refineries and other industrial goods
Around two-thirds of the 2.1 million foreigners living in Switzerland in 2019 were citizens of the EU, as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, which with Switzerland are members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
The Trump administration, which has worked to expand U.S. oil and gas drilling and roll back Obama-era rules on pollution from fossil fuels, originally wanted to expand offshore drilling off many of America's coasts, including Florida
London - Royal Dutch Shell is looking to slash up to 40% off the cost of producing oil and gas in a major drive to save cash so it can overhaul its business and focus more on renewable energy and power markets. Shell's new cost-cutting review, known internally as Project Reshape and expected to be completed this year
Madrid - After securing a generous portion of European Union recovery funds for the coronavirus crisis, Spain faces an unlikely problem - how to make use of all the money, government sources told: "This is not a crisis of dough (money), it is a crisis of ideas," one of the sources said, referring to concrete investment projects to help the economy out of a record recession. In a country that has not managed to approve a full-year budget since 2016
London - Global oil refiners reeling from months of lackluster demand and an abundance of inventories are cutting fuel production into the autumn because the recovery in demand from the impact of coronavirus has stalled
Beijing - The chairman of cash-strapped HNA Group has been barred from taking flights and high-speed trains and going on vacations due to the Chinese conglomerate's failure to pay a court-ordered $5,300 in a lawsuit
China has been actively offering vaccines that are still undergoing late-stage trials to people facing high infection risk and considering expanding the programme to prepare against a potential resurgence, raising safety concerns from experts
In April, a court convicted 12 people of smuggling the drugs, but the two alleged kingpins of the operation remain at large
Oil major BP has provisionally chartered a supertanker to store crude oil off Malaysia at this year’s lowest rate yet, according to industry sources and data on Refinitiv Eikon
European Union leaders should impose “severe” economic sanctions on Turkey for a limited time if Ankara does not remove its military vessels and gas drilling ships from waters off Cyprus
Oslo - Norway's quarterly public spending exceeded the government's overall income for the first time in 25 years during the three months from April to June, Statistics Norway (SSB) said on Wednesday. The unusual deficit, amounting to $9.5 billion, came as the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp fall in tax revenue and in the price of crude oil
Beijing - China is planning a set of new government policies to develop its domestic semiconductor industry and counter restrictions imposed by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump
Dubai - Dubai is seeking to attract wealthy foreign retirees as the economy of the Middle East trade and tourism hub reels from the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices, prompting many expatriates to leave
A study undertaken in April by Cologne University's energy economics institute (EWI) showed that consumers would benefit from a 5% gas price discount if Nord Stream 2 materialised
China’s crude oil imports in August climbed 13% from a year earlier, buoyed by hefty orders placed earlier this year when global oil prices collapsed and as cargoes previously delayed by congestion at arrival ports finally cleared customs
The pandemic will not finish this year as the virus has spread from big cities to other parts of the country, Randeep Guleria, the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, said in an interview with India Today TV
To comply with ECB demands, Monte dei Paschi last week issued 300 million euros in second-tier capital, offering an 8.5% return
In the municipality of La Spezia, one of the most important Italian ports, the sick people are 387 (they were 318 yesterday), the hospitalized are 47 (they were 41)
Istanbul - Turkey's economy contracted by 9.9% in the second quarter as a coronavirus lockdown brought activity to a near standstill, according to data on Monday that showed its worst year-over-year performance in a decade
Ottawa - The Royal Canadian Navy is ditching the term “seaman” in favour of the gender-neutral “sailor,” the organization said Thursday: “By adopting gender neutral designation for junior members of the Royal Canadian Navy, we demonstrate to all Canadians that the Canadian Armed Forces will welcome anybody who wants to serve their country and uphold the values of inclusion and diversity"- Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said in a statement
Seoul - The economy of isolated North Korea grew for the first time in three years in 2019 as better weather conditions boosted crop yields, but sanctions imposed to stop its nuclear ambitions kept factory output weak, South Korea's central bank said. Gross domestic product (GDP) in North Korea last year rose 0.4%
Tel Aviv - The president of the United Arab Emirates has issued a decree cancelling a law on boycotting Israel and allowing trade and financial agreements between the two countries. The decree from UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan aims at "supporting bilateral cooperation in order to arrive at (the establishment) of bilateral relations"
By ASLA - Associazione degli Studi Legali Associati
Trieste - On 1 September 2020, the EuroScience Open Forum - Esof, the largest interdisciplinary scientific meeting in Europe, will begin in Trieste. An extraordinary event dedicated to scientific research and innovation
Athens - Greece's conservative government has drafted a bill which overhauls its insolvency code, seeking to help over-indebted households and businesses make a fresh start after a crippling decade-long debt crisis. More than one million individuals and 300,000 businesses owe money to banks and the state, legacy of a decade-long financial crisis that shrank the country’s economy by a quarter
Amsterdam - Investors may struggle to find new southern European government bonds for the next two years, as the European Union's support programmes could cover much of the new funding needs of countries worst hit by the pandemic. Together with ongoing European Central Bank bond buying, the net supply of new sovereign Italian bonds to the open market may even shrink
Beijing - When the government of the south China city of Zhongshan heard that watchmaker Kam Yuen Group was furloughing more than 100 workers, it brokered a deal to shift the surplus staff to another manufacturer - a growing practice The arrangement will see Guangdong Welland Technology Co, which makes smart-watches and weighing scales, take on 140 Kam Yuen workers over the next six months
Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the Kremlin had set up a "reserve police force" to support Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, although it would not be deployed unless unrest there got out of control, Interfax news agency reported. The remarks were the strongest signal the Kremlin has given yet that it is prepared to use force if needed in Belarus
Beijing - China bought only 5% of the targeted $25.3 billion in energy products from the United States in the first half of 2020, falling well short of its trade deal commitments at a time when relations between the two top economies are already sour. China's imports of crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), metallurgical coal and other energy products totalled around $1.29 billion this year through June
Washington - Top U.S. and Chinese trade officials reaffirmed their commitment to a Phase 1 trade deal, which has seen China lagging on its obligations to buy American goods, giving a boost to financial markets on Tuesday. The pledge was made in a telephone call between U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He