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PHOTO : REFERENCE

France on Thursday (Aug 13) prepared to beef up its military presence in the Mediterranean as tensions rose, prompting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to warn of a "heavy price" if a Turkish ship exploring for gas in disputed waters is attacked. Tensions between Paris and Ankara increased with the latest French announcement linked to an escalating row in the eastern Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece over gas reserves. France criticised its NATO ally Turkey over a drone strike this week in northern Iraq, while Erdogan accused French counterpart Emmanuel Macron of seeking to "bring back a colonialist structure" as he visited Lebanon after last week's catastrophic Beirut explosions. The United States meanwhile called for a rapprochement, describing France and Turkey as "incredibly important NATO allies"//AFP

PHOTO : REUTERS

Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on Thursday (Aug 13) that they will normalise diplomatic ties and forge a broad new relationship, a move that reshapes the order of Middle East politics from the Palestinian issue to the fight against Iran. Under the accord, which US President Donald Trump helped broker, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexation of areas of the occupied West Bank. It also firms up opposition to regional power Iran, which the UAE, Israel and the United States view as the main threat in the conflict-riven Middle East. Israel had signed peace agreements with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. But the UAE, along with most other Arab nations, did not recognise Israel and had no formal diplomatic or economic relations with it until now. It became the first Gulf Arab country to reach such a deal with the Jewish state. A joint statement said Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed had "agreed to the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates//Reuters

PHOTO : REUTERS

The World Health Organization said on Thursday, Aug 13, it saw no evidence of coronavirus being spread by food or packaging and urged people not to be afraid of the virus entering the food chain. WHO head of emergencies programme Mike Ryan told a briefing in Geneva that people should not fear food, or food packaging or processing or delivery of food, there is no evidence that food or the food chain is participating in transmission of this virus. And people should feel comfortable and safe. WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said China had tested hundreds of thousands of packages and found very few, less than 10, proving positive for the virus. Earlier, two cities in China said they had found traces of the coronavirus in imported frozen chicken wings from Brazil and on outer packaging of frozen Ecuadorian shrimp, raising fears that contaminated food shipments might cause a new outbreak//Reuters

PHOTO : MEDICALEXPRESS

With a coronavirus vaccine still months off, companies are rushing to test what may be the next best thing: drugs that deliver antibodies to fight the virus right away, without having to train the immune system to make them. As reported by APNews.com (12/8), antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs; they attach to a virus and help it be eliminated. Vaccines work by tricking the body into thinking there’s an infection so it makes antibodies and remembers how to do that if the real bug turns up. But it can take a month or two after vaccination or infection for the most effective antibodies to form//APNews