Author: LoveWorld UK

British healthcare workers will on Thursday begin taking part in a University of Oxford-led international trial of two anti-malarial drugs to see if they can prevent COVID-19, including one U.S. President Donald Trump says he has been taking. The ‘COPCOV’ study will involve more than 40,000 frontline healthcare workers from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America to determine if chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are effective in preventing the novel coronavirus. The drugs have risen to prominence since Trump said earlier this week he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive medicine against the virus despite medical warnings about its use. The trial,…

Outbursts of political anger are rare in Japan. Street protests tend to be tame and some are led by the elderly. Government supporters have swamped online debate at times, and the Shinzo Abe administration has rarely listened to voices of dissent. But now, the coronanvirus is reshaping how the Japanese talk about politics. In an unusual outburst of political anger, millions of tweets by hundreds of thousands of netizens have helped force the government to delay a bill extending the retirement age for prosecutors, which critics say threatens judicial independence. Opposition party lawmakers and others have also said the legislation…

London-listed stocks headed lower on Thursday as a plunge in Japanese exports dulled optimism around a speedy recovery from a coronavirus-induced economic slump, with investors also sifting through another mixed bag of quarterly earnings reports. The export-heavy FTSE 100 .FTSE slipped 0.7%, taking the shine off strong gains earlier in the week as data showed Japan’s April exports fell the most since the global financial crisis with the pandemic slamming demand for cars and industrial materials. The mid-cap FTSE 250 .FTMC shed 0.4%, snapping a four-day winning streak. Real estate, financials and consumer discretionary stocks were among the biggest drags on the index in…

British low-cost airline easyJet said it would restart a small number of flights on June 15, becoming the latest airline to plan for the return of European travel by making face masks mandatory onboard. EasyJet’s planes have been grounded since late March when the novel coronavirus spread across Europe. The airline said it would restart primarily domestic flights in Britain and France, before adding other destinations. Flights would restart with new safety measures including the wearing of masks by passengers and cabin crew, enhanced cleaning of aircraft and no food service onboard. EasyJet shares, which have sunk 62% over the…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took fresh aim at China over the coronavirus on Wednesday, calling the $2 billion Beijing has pledged to fight the pandemic “paltry” compared to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars of damage. Pompeo rejected President Xi Jinping’s claim that Beijing had acted with transparency after the outbreak in China, and said if Xi wanted to show that, he should hold a news conference and allow reporters to ask him anything they liked. “President Xi claimed this week that China is acting with openness, transparency responsibility. I wish it were…

Taiwan cannot accept becoming part of China under its “one country, two systems” offer of autonomy, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday, strongly rejecting China’s sovereignty claims and likely setting the stage for an ever-worsening of ties. China responded that “reunification” was inevitable and that it would never tolerate Taiwan’s independence. In a speech after being sworn in for her second and final term in office, Tsai said relations between Taiwan and China had reached an historical turning point. “Both sides have a duty to find a way to coexist over the long term and prevent the intensification of antagonism…

Britain’s Cambridge University became one of the first in the world on Wednesday to announce that all its lectures would be delivered online over the next academic year because of the coronavirus outbreak. The university, which shut its campuses to students in March after the British government introduced a strict lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, said teaching would be delivered virtually until summer 2021, although it was possible some smaller teaching groups might be able to occur in person. “Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the university has decided there will…

British retailer Marks & Spencer (MKS.L) said it would accelerate its latest turnaround programme as it dealt with the fallout from the coronavirus crisis and a 21% fall in annual profit. When the pandemic hit, M&S, whose shares are down 66% over the last year, was already in the midst of another attempt at re-invention after more than a decade of failed revivals. On Wednesday it said its “never the same again” programme would draw on learning from the crisis and capitalise on the opportunities to drive its transformation plan in a changed consumer environment. M&S said accelerated priorities include…

Just over a third of companies in Britain believe they can fully restart operations while implementing the government’s coronavirus workplace guidance, a survey showed on Wednesday. The British Chambers of Commerce said 45% of firms it questioned felt they would be able to partly reopen and 10% said they would not be able to operate at all, mostly citing problems with social distancing. The BCC’s director general, Adam Marshall said some sectors still needed clarity from the government on when and how they will be allowed to restart. “This is particularly the case for hospitality and leisure companies, which will not reopen before…

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) on Tuesday announced it would stop selling its talc Baby Powder in the United States and Canada, saying demand had dropped in the wake of what it called “misinformation” about the product’s safety amid a barrage of legal challenges. J&J faces more than 19,000 lawsuits from consumers and their survivors claiming its talc products caused cancer due to contamination with asbestos, a known carcinogen. Many are pending before a U.S. district judge in New Jersey. “I wish my mother could be here to see this day,” said Crystal Deckard, whose mother Darlene Coker alleged Baby Powder…