By MarketsFarm

WINNIPEG, July 14 (MarketsFarm) – The following is a glance at the news moving markets in Canada and globally.

– The civil war in Libya continues to ramp up as the rebel Libyan National Army (LNA) asked Egypt to directly intervene following a series of setbacks. Egypt, along with Russia and the United Arab Emirates, supports the LNA. The Government of National Accord (GNA) is the internationally recognized government of Libya and its forces recently pushed back the LNA with assistance from Turkey. Fighting has now centered on Sirte, the coastal city said to be the gateway to Libya’s main export terminals.

– Medicago announced it began trials for a COVID-19 vaccine on Monday. The Quebec-based company warned against unreasonable expectations of the vaccine, stressing it’s only the first round of trials and the process could take years. “To assume that we can have, in 18 months, the solution to a pandemic that comes around once in a generation, is naïve,” stated Medicago President and CEO Dr. Bruce Clark to Bloomberg News. The first trial is focusing on 180 healthy people between the ages of 18 and 55 years.

– China continues to increase its global imports as the country recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, said the General Administration of Customs on Tuesday. China’s imports of crude oil between January and June were up nearly 10 per cent at 269 million tonnes. Also for the same time frame, natural gas imports increased more than three per cent at 48.4 million tonnes, and soybeans were up almost 18 per cent at over 45 million tonnes. As well, pork imports rose 140 per cent at 2.1 million tonnes, iron ore was up more than 9.5 per cent at 547 million tonnes, and coal increased nearly 13 per cent at 174 million tonnes.