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U.N. plans aid for 154,000 besieged Syrians in next five days

The United Nations and partner aid organizations plan to deliver life-saving aid to 154,000 Syrians in besieged areas in the next five days, the U.N. Resident Coordinator in Damascus Yacoub El Hillo said in a statement on Sunday. Pending approval from parties to the conflict, the U.N. is ready to deliver aid to about 1.7 million people in hard-to-reach areas in the first quarter of 2016, he said. The U.N. estimates there are almost 500,000 people living under siege, out of a total 4.6 million who are hard to reach with aid, but it hopes that a cessation of hostilities that began on Friday night will bring an end to the 15 sieges.

HealthCare.gov signs up 6 million for Jan. 1 insurance

About 6 million people have signed up for health insurance on the website HealthCare.gov, including 2.4 million new customers, for coverage effective Jan. 1, 2016, the U.S. government said on Friday. HealthCare.gov sells subsidized insurance plans created as part of President Barack Obama’s national healthcare reform, often called Obamacare. Last year at this time, about 3.4 million people had signed up for these plans, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

British anti-slavery chief enlists Vatican in global pact to end slavery

By Chris Arsenault VATICAN CITY (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Britain’s anti-slavery commissioner received the backing of the Catholic Church on Saturday for a campaign to push for a global pact vowing to eradicate slavery in the next 15 years. Kevin Hyland, who took up the new role last year, is lobbying world leaders to support a commitment to end forced labor and slavery of all forms in a set of global development goals to be adopted at the United Nations in September. While slavery is illegal in every country on earth, an estimated 36 million people are trapped in modern slavery.

Experts urge $2bn global fund to develop antibiotics

The global pharmaceutical industry should set up a $2.0 billion (1.8-billion euro) global innovation fund to help kickstart research into developing more resistant antibiotics, experts said on Thursday. The report was by the British government appointed Review on Antimicrobial Resistance committee, which has warned that drug-resistant microbes could kill 10 million people a year worldwide by 2050. “We need to kickstart drug development to make sure the world has the drugs it needs,” the review's author, economist Jim O'Neill, told the BBC. O'Neill, who used to work at Goldman Sachs investment bank, has also warned that antimicrobial resistance — when bugs become immune to existing drugs — could cost $100 trillion in lost economic output.