Starting
as a payments processor in 2004, Ant quickly built an empire by offering users
short-term loans credited within minutes, as well as selling insurance and
investment products.
China’s state-backed Economic Daily
newspaper said in a commentary that the IPO suspension showed regulators’
determination to protect the interests of investors and the most pressing
matter was for Ant to carry out “rectifications”.
“Ant may be just falling victim to their own
size and success,” said Alex Sirakov, senior associate at advisory firm
Kapronasia.
Ant apologized to investors for any
inconvenience, adding it would give further details on the suspension of its
Hong Kong listing and applications for refunds as soon as possible.
“We will properly handle the follow-up
matters in accordance with applicable regulations of the two stock exchanges.”
Alibaba said it would support Ant to adapt
and embrace the evolving regulatory framework.
CICC and China Securities Co, co-sponsors
for Ant’s STAR IPO, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. banks JPMorgan and Citigroup declined
to comment, while Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. The three Western banks are co-sponsors of Ant’s Hong Kong IPO along
with CICC.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-ant-group-ipo/china-slams-the-brakes-on-ant-groups-37-billion-listing-idUKKBN27J1OS?il=0
Winter
Watch.
The Arctic winter sea-ice expansion and
northern hemisphere snow cover. From around mid-October, the northern
hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually
expands back towards its winter maximum.
Over simplified, a rapid expansion of
both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving norther
hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the
ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record
Atlantic hurricane season.
Adding to this year’s winter concerns,
a developing La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific. While the La Nina effect
on the winter weather of western Europe is weaker than that of an El Nino
pattern, which tends to make for a milder winter, a La Nina pattern tends to
make for a colder winter.
The early take, Eur-Asia turned snowy
fast in mid-October. North America is now playing catchup. The Arctic sea ice
expansion is slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with
the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation will probably now speed up.
Which now seems to be happening in the Kara and Laptev Seas.
It is still too early to suggest a mild
western European winter ahead, but it is the way I’m leaning given the slowish
recovery of the Arctic sea ice.
US National Ice
Center.
https://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/
La Niña has developed Published 29 October 2020
La Niña has
developed and is expected to last into next year, affecting temperatures,
precipitation and storm patterns in many parts of the world, according to the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO). more
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/la-ni%C3%B1a-has-developed
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of
government except all the others that have been tried.
Sir Winston Churchill.
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Swing-State Hospital Cases Rise;
Europe Adds Curbs: Virus Update Bloomberg News November
3, 2020, 10:27 PM GMT Updated on November 4, 2020, 4:32 AM GMT
Hospitalizations have been soaring in key battleground states that could
decide the outcome of the U.S. presidential race, led by increased admissions
in Florida, Michigan and Ohio. With vote counting well underway, investors are
looking for a clear outcome that could signal another virus-related spending
bill. The rate of growth in U.S. infections has surpassed Morgan Stanley’s bear-case scenario .
The resurgent coronavirus also continues to batter Europe.
Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary suffered their deadliest days of the pandemic.
Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands are laying out new curbs, while French
fatalities rose by the most since April. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup
Inc. joined banking rivals in asking most employees in England to work from home until further notice
as the number of Covid deaths there and in Wales climbed 46% in a week.
Total cases in India, second to the U.S. in the number of
infections, rose to 8.31 million. In Australia, the state border between its
two biggest cities will reopen on Nov. 23 after the city of Melbourne ended a
lockdown last week.
Key
Developments: Global
Tracker : Cases surpass 47.2 million; deaths top 1.21 millionWHO, nations’ Covid response
hampered by politics, reviewer
says Contact tracers eye cluster-busting to tackle
Covid’s new surge Testing shows schools aren’t propelling virus
outbreaks Governors judged by Covid response as 11
states pick leaders Vaccine Tracker : Clinical trials restart in
hopeful signMore
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-03/n-y-s-cuomo-urges-vigilance-more-curbs-in-europe-virus-update?srnd=coronavirus
T-cell study adds to debate over
duration of COVID-19 immunity November 2,
20201:22 PM Updated 3 hours ago
LONDON (Reuters) - A small but key UK study has found that “cellular
immunity” to the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus is present after six months in
people who had mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 - suggesting they might have some
level of protection for at least that time.
Scientists presenting the findings, from 100 non-hospitalised COVID-19
patients in Britain, said they were “reassuring” but did not mean people cannot
in rare cases be infected twice with the disease.
“While our findings cause us to be cautiously optimistic about the
strength and length of immunity generated after SARS-CoV-2 infection, this is
just one piece of the puzzle,” said Paul Moss, a professor of haematology at
Britain’s Birmingham University who co-led the study.
“There is still a lot for us learn before we have a full understanding
of how immunity to COVID-19 works.”
Experts not directly involved with the study said its findings were
important and would add to a growing body of knowledge about potential
protective immunity to COVID-19.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed by other experts but was
published online on bioRxiv, analysed the blood of 100 patients six months
after they had had either mild or asymptomatic COVID-19. It found that while
some of the patients’ antibody levels had dropped, their T-cell response -
another key part of the immune system - remained robust.
“(Our) early results show that T-cell responses may outlast the initial
antibody response,” said Shamez Ladhani, a consultant epidemiologist at Public
Health England who co-led the work.
The study also found the size of T-cell response differed, and was
considerably higher in people who had had symptomatic COVID-19 than those who
had no symptoms when infected.
The researchers said this could be
interpreted in two ways: It is possible that higher cellular immunity might
give better protection against re-infection in people who had symptoms, or
equally, that asymptomatic patients are better able to fight off the virus
without the need to generate a large immune response.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-immunity-tcells/t-cell-study-adds-to-debate-over-duration-of-covid-19-immunity-idUKKBN27I1LK
Next, some vaccine links
kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines . https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY
Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford
Website . https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource
centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Covid19info.live
https://wuflu.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
'Transparent solar cells' can
take us towards a new era of personalized energy Scientists
design novel transparent solar cells using thin silicon films, with efficient
power generation Date: November 2, 2020
Source: Incheon National University
Summary: Solar power has shown immense potential as a
futuristic, 'clean' source of energy. No wonder environmentalists worldwide
have been looking for ways to advance the current solar cell technology. Now,
scientists have put forth an innovative design for the development of a
high-power transparent solar cell. This innovation brings us closer to
realizing our goal of a sustainable green future with off-the-grid living.
Today, the imminent climate change crisis demands a shift from
conventionally used fossil fuels to efficient sources of green energy. This has
led to researchers looking into the concept of "personalized energy,"
which would make on-site energy generation possible. For example, solar cells
could possibly be integrated into windows, vehicles, cellphone screens, and
other everyday products. But for this, it is important for the solar panels to
be handy and transparent. To this end, scientists have recently developed
"transparent photovoltaic" (TPV) devices -- transparent versions of
the traditional solar cell. Unlike the conventionally dark, opaque solar cells
(which absorb visible light), TPVs make use of the "invisible" light
that falls in the ultraviolet (UV) range.
Conventional solar cells can be either "wet type" (solution
based) or "dry type" (made up of metal-oxide semiconductors). Of
these, dry-type solar cells have a slight edge over the wet-type ones: they are
more reliable, eco-friendly, and cost-effective. Moreover, metal-oxides are
well-suited to make use of the UV light. Despite all this, however, the
potential of metal-oxide TPVs has not been fully explored until now.
To this end, researchers from Incheon National University, Republic of
Korea, came up with an innovative design for a metal-oxide-based TPV device.
They inserted an ultra-thin layer of silicon (Si) between two transparent
metal-oxide semiconductors with the goal of developing an efficient TPV device.
These findings were published in a study in Nano Energy , which was made
available online on August 10, 2020 (ahead of the scheduled final publication
in the December 2020 issue). Prof Joondong Kim, who led the study, explains,
"Our aim was to devise a high-power-producing transparent solar cell, by
embedding an ultra-thin film of amorphous Si between zinc oxide and nickel
oxide."
This novel design consisting of the Si film had three major advantages.
First, it allowed for the utilization of longer-wavelength light (as opposed to
bare TPVs). Second, it resulted in efficient photon collection. Third, it
allowed for the faster transport of charged particles to the electrodes.
Moreover, the design can potentially generate electricity even under low-light
situations (for instance, on cloudy or rainy days). The scientists further
confirmed the power-generating ability of the device by using it to operate the
DC motor of a fan.
Based on these findings, the research team is optimistic that the
real-life applicability of this new TPV design will soon be possible.
More
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201102173239.htm
“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect
for the law.”
Sir Winston Churchill.
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