1.In his first foreign policy speech since taking office, US President Joe Biden announced three decisions: (1) the United States will end its support for Saudi offensive attacks in Yemen; (2) suspend the withdrawal of troops from Germany; and (3) increase the number of refugees accepted by the United States. 

2.Forbes released a list of the top 50 global blockchain companies in 2021, including Baidu, Ant Group, Ping an Group, Tencent, China Construction Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. American companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Citigroup and MasterCard fell off the list. 

3.World Gold Council: after two consecutive months of net gold ETF outflows in November and December 2020 (a total of 148.8 tons), global gold ETF inflows reached again in January 2021, with inflows of 13.8 tons (about US $1 billion, an increase of 0.4 per cent in assets under management). Currently, global gold ETF assets under management amount to 3765 tons ($226 billion), just 4 per cent below the record of 3915.8 tons ($244 billion) set in early November.

4.The British government has convened a number of companies to discuss how to levy an online business tax. A tax is proposed on retailers and technology companies whose profits soared during COVID-19 ‘s epidemic, and an one-off “excess profits tax” is also being worked out. Plans for taxation may be made public in the second half of 2021.

5.French Federation of Beauty Enterprises: in 2020, China became the largest exporter of French beauty products for the first time. In 2018, China was only the seventh largest exporter of French beauty makeup, rising to fourth in 2019. In 2020, French cosmetics exports totaled 15.7 billion euros, down 11.8 percent from the same period in 2019. At the same time, cosmetic sales to China from France rose 20.7% from a year earlier.

6.Korea Customs Office: in 2020, South Korea’s cosmetics exports increased by 16.1% compared with the same period last year, to US $7.57517 billion. Exports to China increased by 24.5% year-on-year to US $3.81 billion, while exports to the United States, Japan and Vietnam increased by 21.6%, 59.2% and 18.0%, respectively. China’s share of South Korea’s cosmetics export market increased to 50.3% from 46.9% in 2019.

7.On February 7, Congolese health officials confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo. A woman died of Ebola on Feb. 3, after feeling unwell for several days, then went to the clinic for testing and then to the hospital for treatment, but she died before the test results came out. At present, the government is tracking every contact to control the outbreak. 

8.On Feb. 8, the Washington State Hospital Association revealed that tens of thousands of N95 masks purchased by local hospitals and associations were fake, about 300000. Casey Shaw, president and chief executive of the Washington State Hospital Association, said they had notified hospitals to release the batch numbers that had been detected as fake masks in order to remove them from the stockpile. 

 9.According to the news on February 8th, with the spread of novel coronavirus, the earth also produced a lot of COVID-19 garbage. An international environmental group estimates that 1.56 billion masks will flow into the ocean in 2020, posing a threat to marine life. Last September, zoologists found a dead penguin off the coast of Brazil and found a complete N95 mask in its stomach.