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A continuing decline in sales of COVID-19 products clips revenue at Pfizer

Pfizer lost more than $2 billion in the third quarter as an expected COVID-19 product sales decline clipped revenue.

Sales of the drugmaker's COVID treatment Paxlovid and the vaccine Comirnaty slid 97% and 70%, respectively, as Pfizer, like its competitors, switched to selling on the commercial market instead of to governments.

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War plunges Israel's agricultural heartlands into crisis

The soldiers guarding Avi Chivivian's organic vegetable farm in southern Israel must first scour every corner of his fields for militants before they give him the all clear: He has six hours to work.

It's potato planting season for the farms of southern Israel, a region near the Gaza border that the Agriculture Ministry calls the country's "vegetable barn" because it supplies at least a third of Israel's vegetables. But Chivivian — one of the few remaining farmers in the area since the brutal Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants — no longer lives by the harvest cycle. He's on the military's timetable.

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Israel's economy recovered from previous wars, but this one might hit harder

Just last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted a new era of peace and prosperity in the Middle East, based on growing acceptance of Israel within the region.

Today, with the Israel-Hamas war in its fourth week, that vision is in tatters.

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Oil prices could reach 'uncharted waters' if Israel-Hamas war escalates

The World Bank reported Monday that oil prices could be pushed into "uncharted waters" if the violence between Israel and Hamas intensifies, which could result in increased food prices worldwide.

The World Bank's Commodity Markets Outlook found that while the effects on oil prices should be limited if the conflict doesn't widen, the outlook "would darken quickly if the conflict were to escalate."

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Lebanon court orders Carlos Ghosn out of Beirut home

A Lebanese judge has decided to evict former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn from his luxury home, a judicial official said Saturday, four years after an investment firm accused him of "trespassing."

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Trading on Wall Street mixed as Middle East conflict pushes oil higher

Premarket trading is mixed on Wall Street, but oil prices are moving higher after U.S. fighter jets launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Israeli military said its troops and tanks had briefly entered Gaza for a second time.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% before the bell.

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Huawei reports higher revenue in Jan-Sep despite US sanctions

Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies said its revenue edged higher in the first three quarters of the year, even as it grappled with U.S. sanctions that have hindered both its sales and its purchases of advanced technology.

The Shenzhen-headquartered firm said Friday that it generated 456.6 billion yuan ($62.4 billion) in revenue for the first nine months of the year, an increase of 2.4% compared to the same period last year.

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Europe's central bank to halt rate hikes as Mideast war threatens economy

The European Central Bank is ready to leave interest rates unchanged Thursday for the first time in over a year as the Israel-Hamas war spreads even more gloom over already downbeat prospects for Europe's economy.

It would be the bank's first meeting with no change after a torrid pace of 10 straight increases dating to July 2022 that pushed its key rate to a record-high 4%. The ECB would join the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England and others in holding borrowing costs steady — albeit at the highest levels in years — as inflation has eased.

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Israel-Hamas war could threaten Lebanon's already fragile economy

Economic crises are rippling through the countries bordering Israel, raising the possibility of a chain reaction from the war with Hamas that further worsens the financial health and political stability of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan and creates problems well beyond.

Each of the three countries is up against differing economic pressures that led the International Monetary Fund to warn in a September report that they could lose their "sociopolitical stability." That warning came shortly before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering a war that could easily cause economic chaos that President Joe Biden and the European Union would likely need to address.

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Israel-Hamas war already hitting regional economies

The raging war between Israel and Hamas is already battering the economies of nearby countries, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund told a Saudi investor forum on Wednesday.

Israel's neighbors are feeling the effects, especially those that rely on tourism, Kristalina Georgieva said at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

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