Called Lunar-Cov19, the vaccine is developed by Duke-NUS Medical School and American pharmaceutical company Arcturus Therapeutics.
This Week's News Spotlight:
Singapore starts first human trials for COVID-19 vaccine | Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung erupts on Monday | ShopBack expands in Vietnam | Trade between ASEAN and Shaanxi hits almost 2.8 billion | Thai telco TOT launches satellite venture
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Singapore starts first human trials for COVID-19 vaccine - Yahoo News
The trial is being administered by SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit.
The vaccine, known as Lunar-Cov19, is jointly developed by Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School and American pharmaceutical company Arcturus Therapeutics.
Participants for this trial were aged between 21 and 55 years old. Results from the trial will be released in the last quarter of 2020.
Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung erupts on Monday - CNA
"The sound was like thunder, it lasted for less than 30 seconds," resident Fachrur Rozi Pasi told Reuters by phone.
Indonesian volcano Mount Sinabung erupted on Monday, August 10. The volcano is located on Sumatra island and has been rumbling since 2010. Its eruption in 2016 killed 7 people.
While there have been no reports of deaths or injuries, authorities have warned about the possibilities of lava flow.
The area around the volcano is a no-go zone, where there are no permanent inhabitants. However, small communities located in the vicinity have been covered with a layer of ash from Monday’s eruption.
ShopBack expands in Vietnam - Marketing Interactive
ShopBack has given out VND 4 billion in cashback to date.
ShopBack, a rewards and discovery platform, has launched its website and mobile app in Vietnam. ShopBack Vietnam has launched in beta since the end of 2019 and has since acquired more than 150 merchants and approximately 800,000 users.
Founded in Singapore in 2014, ShopBack rewards users with cashback on a variety of products and services. It has over 20 million users across the Asia Pacific region.
Trade between ASEAN and Shaanxi hits almost 2.8 billion - Phnom Penh Post
266 ASEAN firms have set up offices in Xi’an, Shaanxi’s provincial capital.
Trade between ASEAN and China’s Shaanxi province hit USD 2.6 billion within the first six months of 2020, which demonstrates a year-on-year growth of 66.3%.
ASEAN countries have become important markets for Shaanxi companies, particularly in terms of foreign investment and project contracting. Similarly, Shaanxi has become a foreign investment destination for ASEAN companies, who have a total investment of nearly USD 5.76 billion in the provincial capital of Xi’an.
ASEAN is China’s top trading partner for the first half of 2020, accounting for 14.7% of China’s foreign trade.
Thai telco TOT launches satellite venture - Bangkok Post
Telco infrastructure can take advantage of the LEO satellite network through signal transmission between satellites, TOT acting president Morakot Thienmontree said.
Thailand’s TOT, a state-owned telecommunications company, is collaborating with Mu Space Corp, a Thai satellite and space tech startup, to enter the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite business.
TOT and Mu Space’s collaboration will start with a joint study and “testing of program coding for server payload in rockets in a trial for signal transmission”.
LEO satellites can “beam internet all around the globe”. TOT has ambitious plans to diversify their revenue streams and create a global satellite business. Currently, LEO satellites are primarily operated by American company SpaceX and London-based OneWeb.