Talks to revive Iran nuclear deal resume; U.S. stays distant
Negotiators in Vienna resumed talks Monday over reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, with the United States taking part at arm’s length as in previous rounds since the Trump administration pulled out of the accord three years ago.
Hopes of quick progress were muted after a hard-line new government in Tehran led to a more than five-month hiatus in negotiations. But the European Union official chairing the talks sounded an upbeat note after the first meeting concluded.
“I feel positive that we can be doing important things for the next weeks,” EU diplomat Enrique Mora told reporters.
All participants showed a willingness to listen to the positions and “sensibilities” of the new Iranian delegation, Mora said. At the same time, Tehran’s team made clear it wanted to engage in “serious work” to bring the accord back to life, he said.
The remaining signatories to the nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — Iran, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain — convened at the Palais Coburg, a luxury hotel where the agreement was signed six years ago.
Glaxo aims for HIV cure by 2030 as it looks to post-split future
GlaxoSmithKline told investors it’s aiming to develop a cure for HIV by 2030, as the company outlines its future ahead of splitting in two next year.
“Our ultimate goal is always a cure of HIV,” Kimberly Smith, head of research and development at Glaxo’s HIV arm ViiV Healthcare, told investors in a presentation on the business Monday.
The goal was among several set out at the event, one of several investor briefings as the company prepares to spin off its consumer unit in 2022. Glaxo set out its long-term HIV pipeline and ambitions for shareholders, and tried to quell concerns over the patent expiration of one of its key HIV drugs, dolutegravir, in 2029. The drug the company is eyeing as a potential cure is set to go into human trials next year, Smith said.
Glaxo is under pressure to revive its fortunes after its share price languished for years and an inconsistent strategy left it far behind rivals, notably U.K. peer AstraZeneca.
Couple detained on plane after leaving Dutch quarantine
Dutch military police arrested a husband and wife Sunday who had left a hotel where they were being quarantined after testing positive for COVID-19 and boarded a plane to fly home to Spain.
A spokeswoman for the local security authority that covers Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said Monday that an investigation was underway into whether the couple had committed a crime and should be prosecuted.
“Quarantine is not obligatory, but we assume people will act responsibly,” spokeswoman Petra Faber said. “But there was a couple that wanted to go home and they tried to fly home. The Royal Marechaussee took them off the plane and handed them back to the local health authority.”
When authorities heard the couple had left the hotel, the head of the local security authority, Marianne Schuurmans, quickly signed an isolation order that empowered the Marechaussee police force to detain the couple.
Phil Saviano, key clergy sex abuse whistleblower, dies at age 69
Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower who played a pivotal role in exposing decades of predatory assaults by Roman Catholic priests in the United States, has died. He was 69.
Saviano’s story figured prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning film “Spotlight” about The Boston Globe’s investigation that revealed how scores of priests molested children and got away with it because church leaders covered it up. He died Sunday after a battle with gallbladder cancer, said his brother and caregiver, Jim Saviano. In late October, Phil Saviano announced on his Facebook page that he was starting hospice care at his brother’s home in Douglas, Massachusetts, where he died.
Commerce secretary urges boost in chip output, backing Biden’s EV goal
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Monday will make the case for more domestic production of semiconductors in a pitch aimed at the administration’s goal to have 50% of U.S. vehicles be electric by the end of the decade.
Raimondo will press Congress to pass legislation that would put about $52 billion toward U.S. chip manufacturing in a speech to the Economic Club of Detroit during a visit to the city that’s the capital of American auto manufacturing. Earlier Monday, she participated in a roundtable discussion on semiconductors with Michigan senators and representatives, among others.
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