KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Ministry of Health (MoH) registered yesterday 1,017 additional COVID-19 cases over a 24-hour span, increasing the total number of infections to 180,505, while five fatalities were recorded, raising the death toll to 1,019, as the percentage of overall recoveries out of total infections showed a 93.3 percent survival rate. 

LONDON: Britain must use next month’s budget to extend coronavirus financial support measures and tackle inequalities exacerbated by the COVID crisis before a gradual withdrawal as the virus lockdown is eased, analysts urged yesterday. 

SINGAPORE: Singapore yesterday unveiled a fresh multi-billion-dollar package to help pandemic-battered businesses and fund a vaccination drive, as part of the city-state’s annual budget. 

TOKYO: David Abel and his wife Sally might have had the cruise from hell last year on the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess, but they can’t wait to get back to sea. A year after the ill-fated ship went into quarantine off Japan, the cruise industry is hoping passengers like the Abels will help steer them to calmer waters. 

LONDON: Bitcoin soared above $50,000 for the first time yesterday as an increasing number of corporate heavyweights back the world’s most popular virtual currency. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Ministry of Health (MoH) registered yesterday 964 additional COVID-19 cases over a 24-hour span, increasing the total number of infections to 179,488, while five fatalities were recorded, raising the death toll to 1,014. 

KUWAIT: Forty-five hotels applied for registration on the “Kuwait-Mosafer” platform, as institutional quarantine is required at 3-, 4- or 5-star hotels from Feb 21 for all citizens and expats arriving in Kuwait for seven days at their expense, Al-Anbaa Arabic daily reported yesterday quoting official sources at the Kuwait Hotel Owners Association. 

OSLO: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s biggest investors, wants to see more diversity, especially gender equality, on the boards of the companies in which it invests, a document published yesterday showed.

ALGIERS: Shuttered assembly plants, jailed bosses, laid-off workers. Algeria’s once ambitious plans to create a flagship auto industry have turned into a fiasco. The country’s recent years of political turmoil have also seen its foreign joint venture factories close and cronies of its ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika end up behind bars.