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FACEBOOK, INC. went on the offensive last week, banning Australian news organizations from posting links to their work on the social media giant’s platform. Facebook, which also blocked users from sharing the links, punched back after the Australian government proposed a law requiring it to pay publishers when links to their content appear on its site.

The move was gutsy — and brazen. In addition to blocking larger, traditional publishers in Australia, it also cut off sites offering public health information, assistance for victims of domestic violence, the national weather service and other niche providers. Facebook has endured years of criticism for its privacy practices, for a muscular presence so ubiquitous it has invited federal and state antitrust lawsuits, and for allowing disinformation and extremism to flourish on its feeds, undermining democracy. Most companies might walk softly amid all of that. Not Facebook.

“The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship … Read the rest

HANOI – Vietnam’s government said on Tuesday health workers, diplomats and military personnel would be among the first to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when the country starts its inoculation programme next month.

The Southeast Asian country with a population of 98 million said it will receive 60 million vaccine doses this year, including half under the WHO-led COVAX scheme.

In the first quarter of 2021, Vietnam aims to inoculate 500,000 medical staff and 116,000 others directly involved in the fight against the pandemic, the government said in a statement.

Vietnam was lauded globally for containing the virus for months using mass testing and strict quarantining, though has faced a recent new wave of infections.

Late last month, Vietnam approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use days after the country detected the first locally transmitted cases in nearly two months.

The government said previously it was in talks with Russian and … Read the rest

HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam received China’s Sinovac vaccine on Monday together with top officials at a live televised event to bolster public confidence ahead of the vaccine’s rollout in the global financial hub this week.

Sinovac is the first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine to be introduced in Hong Kong, ahead of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine set to arrive in the Chinese special administrative region before the end of February.

The city’s vaccine rollout has lagged other developed cities and is far behind mainland China which started last July.

Ms. Lam, dressed in a white t-shirt, was filmed receiving the first vaccine in a center set up at Hong Kong’s central library. Her cabinet ministers including Health Secretary Sophia Chan and Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung lined up … Read the rest

JERUSALEM – Israel reopened swathes of its economy on Sunday, with the government saying the start of a return to routine was enabled by a COVID-19 vaccination drive that has reached almost half the population.

Shops were open to all. But access to leisure sites like gyms, hotels and theatres was limited to people who have had both doses of the vaccine more than a week prior, or recovered from the disease with presumed immunity. Those people get “Green Pass” status displayed on a Health Ministry app.

Mask-wearing and social-distancing were still in force. Dancing was barred at banquet halls. Synagogues, mosques or churches were required to halve their normal congregation sizes.

Coming exactly a year after Israel’s first documented coronavirus case, Sunday’s easing of curbs was part of a government plan to open the economy more widely next month, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is up for reelection.

“We … Read the rest

Three years ago, Suh Kyung-bae was the second-richest person in South Korea. Today he’s barely Top 10, a stark reversal in a K-beauty boom known for minting billionaires, not breaking them.
Suh’s $3.6 billion fortune — down from roughly $8 billion in 2017 — is largely comprised of shares in his family’s cosmetics conglomerate, Amorepacific Group, which have fallen more than 40% from a mid-January high. The parent of brands like Innisfree, Laniege and Sulwhasoo, Amorepacific was struggling even before Covid-19, and the pandemic has ushered in a slew of lifestyle changes that have made cosmetics less central to women’s daily routines.

That’s brought a halt to the wealth created by the rapid rise in popularity of Korean beauty products and the deal-making frenzy that followed. From 2010 to 2014, foreign companies spent at least $215 million to acquire cosmetics firms there, according to a September report by Samjong KPMG. … Read the rest

LONDON, Dec 26 (Reuters) – China will overtake the United States to become the world’s biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the COVID-19 pandemic, a think tank said.

“For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China,” the Centre for Economics and Business Research said in an annual report published on Saturday.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China’s favour.”

The CEBR said China’s “skilful management of the pandemic”, with its strict early lockdown, and hits to long-term growth in the West meant China’s relative economic performance had improved.

China looked set for average economic growth of 5.7% a year from 2021-25 before slowing to 4.5% a year from 2026-30.

While the United States was … Read the rest