Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau has made tax non-compliance in the real-estate market a major focus of his 2019 Budget.

On June 21, 2019, Canada ratified the BEPS multilateral convention, to introduce amendments to its network of tax treaties to prevent abuse.

The Canadian Government is consulting on draft legislative proposals to implement a number of tax measures announced in the 2019 Budget.

Mexico has completed its domestic ratification procedures in respect of the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the US and Canada.

The European Commission has released a paper recommending improvements to France's "inefficient" value-added tax system, including that the country do away with broadly applying reduced VAT rates.

The Indian Cabinet on August 24 approved the signature of a double tax agreement protocol with Cyprus that would tackle "round tripping" and base erosion and profit shifting.

On October 12, the Italian financial police said it had broke up a value-added tax fraud ring allegedly involved in transactions totaling EUR930m, through 180 companies in 15 European Union (EU) countries.

The European Union statistics agency, Eurostat, has released new figures concerning member states' tax revenue collections and their tax mixes for 2015.

The revised double tax avoidance agreement between India and Cyprus will take effect from April 1, 2017, India's Central Board of Direct Taxes has announced.

Twenty EU member states have reached a deal on the establishment of a new European Public Prosecutor's Office that will have the power to investigate and prosecute criminal cases affecting the EU budget.

Cyprus should consider reinstating the immovably property tax to boost revenues, the International Monetary Fund has said.

The Cypriot tax authority has extended until January 15, 2018, the deadline for multinational corporations to submit their notifications concerning country-by-country reporting for 2017. The deadline had been December 31.

The European Commission has released the 2017 edition of its survey of Tax Policies in the European Union, looking at the reforms undertaken by EU member states during the year.

Cyprus's Ministry of Finance says the island has signed a double tax agreement with Saudi Arabia with respect to taxes on income and for the prevention of tax evasion.

Cyprus's Department of Taxation said recently that it will accept only electronic payment for the main tax heads from June 1, 2018.

The Cyprus Tax Department has released a notice on the obligation on Cypriot constituent entities of multinational groups to file a CbC report in Cyprus where the ultimate parent entity files in a territory without an exchange of information arrangement with Cyprus.

The Cyprus Government has announced a number of extensions to tax return filing dates.

BDO, the accountancy and business advisory firm, has released a report into the rapidly growing issue businesses and governments face with fraud, including tax fraud.

Hong Kong on February 2, 2018, ratified an Ordinance to enable the territory to soon join the OECD's Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and thereby more simply and more broadly agree to exchange tax information with other countries' tax authorities.

On February 3, 2018, China's State Administration of Taxation set out new rules on the disallowance of tax treaty benefits where an entity fails to demonstrate it is the beneficial owner of Chinese assets from which passive income is derived.

HM Revenue and Customs has updated its value-added tax guidance for online marketplaces and for suppliers using them to sell to UK consumers.

China's State Council has announced a cut in value added tax rates as part of a CNY400bn (USD63bn) tax reduction package to stimulate growth.

Macau's Chief Executive has issued an order authorizing signature of the OECD Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information.

Three years on from the commitments made at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, the overwhelming majority of governments have not taken the necessary action to contain growing risks to the climate, says the OECD. It said, with emissions on the rise again, OECD governments need to get serious about shifting their economies to a low-carbon model and stop investing in carbon-intensive infrastructure.

The OECD Global Forum has released eight peer review reports, for Brunei, Macau, Switzerland, Barbados, the Seychelles, Liberia, Peru, and Tunisia, on the jurisdictions' efforts to adopt and comply with international tax standards on transparency and the exchange of tax-related information on request.

Ritalin and similar medications, commonly prescribed to patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also used by healthy people as a "study

French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is ready to offer the French authorities, millions of doses of Plaquenil containing hydroxychloroquine, to treat

There is low-quality evidence indicating that cannabinoids may be a safe alternative for a small but significant decline in subjective pain score when treating acute pain, reports a new study.

Medications being used to treat COVID-19 are known to cause prolongation of the QTc in some people. The QTc is an indicator of the health of the heart's electrical recharging system.

Paracetamol, the commonly used painkiller, when administered intravenously, lowers blood pressure. The mechanism underlying this dangerous side effect has been identified.

Daily dose of aspirin provided no benefit to study participants at either preventing dementia or slowing cognitive decline, stated study published in

Ovarian cancer cells become detached from their point of origin and shift using fats as an energy source, according to Benjamin Bitler, PhD, and CU Cancer

Heart and kidney patients should keep taking their drugs as inaccurate medical information has flooded social media and other channels, advised researchers.

Diabetic patients who stopped using aspirin three months post insertion of a coronary stent and then took the anti-platelet drug ticagrelor alone for

An investigational drug vericiguat offers new hope for patients with worsening heart failure, reports a new study. Patients with worsening heart failure

Asthma, allergy, arthritis patients using glucocorticoids on a routine basis are at high risk of getting infected with coronavirus, according to a new

A potential new vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has been announced by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists.

EIDD-2801, the new antiviral drug shows promise in reducing lung damage. Testing in mice is completed and it will soon enter to human clinical trials.

Improved outcomes of newer drug in some patients could be due to a more complete reversal of the effects of muscle relaxants used during surgery. The

Hydroxychloroquine shows weak evidence of its effectiveness against coronavirus in the new study. The drug has been identified by the US Food and

Scientists are working to collecting and using convalescent plasma to develop a passive immunization program to treat patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

The pandemic has suddenly changed the medication needs of masses with a clear preference being shown for respiratory, anti-diabetic, cardiac therapies.

No drug improves the clinical outcome of patients hospitalized with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 over supportive care, according to the study in iMed/i, a new medical journal published by Cell Press.

A promising new strategy for combating malaria, a mosquito-borne parasite that claims nearly a half-million lives each year has been discovered by researchers.

Synthetic corticosteroid drugs, when used for prolonged duration of time, increase adrenal gland inflammation in response to bacterial infection. Synthetic

X-ray CT scanning helps to quantify the tiny microstructures of individual particles from the drug products used for asthma at the nano-scale, according

Candidiasis treatment could be improved using new drug formulation. Specific chemical signal released from a bacterium can be used to improve the activity

The new review has described the growing skepticism regarding adoption of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients. The review is published in FASEB journal.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the experimental remdesivir (anti-viral medication) to treat COVID-19 patients.

In heart disease patients, taking evolocumab in addition to a statin to achieve extremely low levels of cholesterol do not show higher incidence of neurocognitive