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Biden: Trump should not receive intelligence briefings due to his 'erratic behavior'
Tianwen1 probe sends back its first picture of Mars
Myanmar: Australian adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, Sean Turnell, 'being detained'
Star buys: celebrities send meteorite prices into orbit
Biden cancels Houthi terror designation, restoring Yemen aid
ICC rules it can investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine despite Israeli objections
US prosecuting Ghislaine Maxwell only because Epstein is dead, lawyers say
UK quietly expelled Chinese spies who posed as journalists
Christopher Plummer, Sound of Music star and oldest actor to win an Oscar, dies aged 91
Wallet lost in Antarctica turns up in California 53 years later
Coronavirus live: Boris Johnson says 'still early days' to talk about lifting restrictions; Russia reports 16,627 cases
Virtual reality tourism ready for takeoff as travellers remain grounded
‘It is only now I realise the toll the pandemic has taken’: a letter from the other side of Covid
Top surgeon joins drive to encourage BAME people to have Covid vaccine
‘Hugging is like medicine, it gives us hope’: friends and lovers on the joy of touch
Is big tech now just too big to stomach?
Blind date: ‘There were a few awkward silences’
Conservative world of sumo slow to take action on concussion
Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki has embraced normalcy – is it working?
Why does writing about motherhood provoke so much rage?
Grenfell survivors say inquiry witnesses must not give evidence 'from sofas'
US return to the world stage presents huge opportunity for Britain
UN-sponsored talks produce interim government for Libya
Seditionaries: FBI net closes on Maga mob that stormed the Capitol
Townsville police condemn vigilante action after death of 22-year-old woman
New Zealand's Māori tribes deserve recognition for their part in vanquishing Covid-19 | Morgan Godfery
New Zealand's Waitangi Day 2021 celebrations – in pictures
Kamala Harris uses casting vote to pass Covid relief budget resolution – video
Myanmar coup protesters – in pictures

Biden: Trump should not receive intelligence briefings due to his 'erratic behavior'

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 05:34 PM PST

Biden says predecessor shouldn't have access to briefings, which are traditionally offered to presidents even after leaving office

Joe Biden has said that he doesn't believe his predecessor, Donald Trump, should have access to any intelligence briefings due to his "erratic behavior".

Tianwen1 probe sends back its first picture of Mars

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 07:13 PM PST

Chinese spacecraft aiming to enter orbit in days before putting down lander and rover months later

China's Tianwen-1 probe has sent back its first picture of Mars, the Chinese space agency has said, as the mission prepares to touch down later this year.

The spacecraft, launched in July around the same time as a US mission, is expected to enter Mars orbit around 10 February.

Myanmar: Australian adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, Sean Turnell, 'being detained'

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:06 PM PST

Economist from Macquarie University tells Reuters news agency 'I am fine and strong and not guilty of anything'

Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, has told the news agency Reuters that he is being detained, days after the Burmese leader was arrested in a military coup.

"I guess you will soon hear of it, but I am being detained," he said. "Being charged with something, but not sure what. I am fine and strong, and not guilty of anything," he said in a message, with a smile emoji. It was not subsequently possible to contact him.

Star buys: celebrities send meteorite prices into orbit

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:00 PM PST

Elon Musk, Steven Spielberg and Nicolas Cage among those who collect rocks that can cost millions

They really are from out of this world, and the prices are astronomical. For those who have everything they need on Earth, what they now want is a little bit of space. Meteorites are attracting the attention of celebrity collectors who have pushed the price of the rocks – which have hurtled through space for hundreds or even thousands of year before crashing into this planet – tenfold over the past decade.

More than 70 of the most spectacular meteorites ever found will go under the hammer at Christie's auction house next week in a sale that is expected to generate millions of pounds. Included in the Deep Impact auction are meteorites embedded with gem stones and others have suffered such an impact from blasting through the atmosphere at up to 160,000mph that they resemble sculptures by Alberto Giacometti or Henry Moore.

Biden cancels Houthi terror designation, restoring Yemen aid

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 09:48 PM PST

UN welcomes reversal of Trump-Pompeo order as state department says it is purely to alleviate 'world's worst humanitarian crisis'

The United States has said it intends to revoke the terrorist designation of the Houthi movement in response to Yemen's humanitarian crisis – reversing one of the most criticised last-minute decisions of the Trump administration.

The reversal, confirmed by the state department, comes a day after Joe Biden declared a halt to US support for the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

ICC rules it can investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine despite Israeli objections

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 01:59 PM PST

Palestinian Authority welcomes ruling that could see prosecution of Israeli officials and military as well as Hamas figures

The international criminal court has announced that it has jurisdiction in Palestine, clearing its chief prosecutor to investigate alleged atrocities despite fierce Israeli objections.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the ruling and said the country would "protect our citizens and soldiers in every way from legal persecution".

US prosecuting Ghislaine Maxwell only because Epstein is dead, lawyers say

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:43 AM PST

British socialite's lawyers seek to dismiss or narrow the case and say US has 'sought to substitute our client for Jeffrey Epstein'

Lawyers for the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell have accused the US government of prosecuting her for aiding Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuses only because Epstein is dead and they want to hold someone else responsible.

UK quietly expelled Chinese spies who posed as journalists

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:32 AM PST

MI5 concluded three Beijing security ministry employees used cover of working for Chinese press agencies

Britain quietly expelled three Chinese spies last year who it said were posing as journalists, it has emerged, as tensions flare between the two countries over a range of media issues.

The intelligence agency MI5 concluded the three worked for China's powerful Ministry of State Security (MSS) but had been using the cover of working for the country's press agencies.

Christopher Plummer, Sound of Music star and oldest actor to win an Oscar, dies aged 91

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:01 AM PST

Veteran and respected Canadian actor had a career stretching back to the 1950s, but won his Oscar for best supporting actor for Beginners in 2011

Christopher Plummer, the dazzlingly versatile Canadian actor whose screen career straddled seven decades, including such high-profile films as The Sound of Music, The Man Who Would Be King and All the Money in the World, has died aged 91.

His family confirmed the news, saying he died peacefully at home in Connecticut with his wife of 53 years, Elaine Taylor, by his side.

Wallet lost in Antarctica turns up in California 53 years later

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 08:07 PM PST

Paul Grisham forgot he lost it until rediscovery during demolition work at McMurdo base

Paul Grisham's wallet was missing for so long at the bottom of the world he forgot all about it. Fifty-three years later the 91-year-old San Diego man has it back along with mementoes of his 13-month assignment as a US navy meteorologist on Antarctica in the 1960s.

"I was just blown away," Grisham told the San Diego Union-Tribune after the wallet was returned on Saturday. "There was a long series of people involved who tracked me down and ran me to ground."

Coronavirus live: Boris Johnson says 'still early days' to talk about lifting restrictions; Russia reports 16,627 cases

Posted: 06 Feb 2021 01:56 AM PST

Greece becomes latest EU nation to limit vaccine; Israel, Lebanon ease lockdowns; all contacts of Melbourne hotel quarantine worker, who contracted UK strain and put Australian Open at risk, test negative. Follow live

9.56am GMT

Reuters reports that Beijing has approved Sinovac Biotech's vaccine.

Sinovac Biotech said on Saturday that its unit's Covid-19 vaccine has been formally approved for use by the general public by China's medical products regulator.

It marks the second Covid-19 vaccine green-lighted for public use in China, after a shot developed by a Beijing institute affiliated to state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) was approved in December.

9.04am GMT

Scientists are helping to "second guess" future mutations of Covid-19 in order to create new potential vaccines, the chairman of the UK vaccines taskforce, Clive Dix, has said. Asked whether it was possible to produce a vaccine that was comprehensive at tackling new mutations, he told BBC Radio 4's Today:

Yes, absolutely. The UK is properly at the forefront of surveying all of these variants. We have actually sequenced nearly 50% of all the virus that has been sequenced in this pandemic at the Sanger centre in Cambridge.

Taking that data and having scientists look very seriously at what's emerging – where the mutations are occurring, what they might do to the protein – we can kind of second guess some mutations that haven't even occurred yet and we can go ahead and make those.

Of course – when it will occur and whether it will occur is one thing. That's what happened with flu, we get these pandemic threats with flu. We should learn from flu ... I believe this virus will be very similar – it will last a long time, it will be travelling around the world in different places, it will be endemic in certain countries and we need to do that work, yes.

I think there is the possibility but we will be ahead of the game. We're not going to wait for it to happen – we now have capabilities in the UK to be responsive and that capability won't just be for the use of the UK of course. Once we've done it, it will actually help the whole world because it will be part of that whole surveillance and reaction.

Virtual reality tourism ready for takeoff as travellers remain grounded

Posted: 06 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST

Experts say pandemic could provide watershed moment for technology, potentially leading to more sustainable tourism

With globe-trotting banned in the pandemic, increasing numbers of people are turning to virtual reality to relieve pent-up demand for travel.

Escapism from the sofa through a growing range of VR travel experiences is whetting appetites for post-pandemic holidays and could be a watershed moment for the technology in tourism, say analysts.

‘It is only now I realise the toll the pandemic has taken’: a letter from the other side of Covid

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:36 PM PST

I moved from London to New Zealand, where the sense of normality is surreal

New Zealand doesn't exist. So goes the meme, an internet in-joke arising from the frequency with which the island nation is left off world maps, and amplified by the whimsical news stories that often emerge there. For instance: a city road was recently closed for an entire month to allow safe crossing for a family of sea lions. How is New Zealand even real? As a citizen, with a black-and-silver passport to prove it, I have caught myself asking that question since I arrived back here from London a month ago. How can this place – where you can hug your parents, go to bars with your friends, and live life more or less like it's 2019 – be only a flight away from the one I left behind?

I left London, where I'd been living since 2017, a few days before Christmas, just as coronavirus cases started rising again rapidly, and the government braced, too late, for another lengthy lockdown. "Getting out, are you," a man had said, eyeing my bags on the bus to the Piccadilly line. At each stop on my journey to Auckland, totalling three planes over nearly 24 hours, my phone had lit up with news of the rapidly deteriorating situation I'd just fled. Two weeks later, I was released from my government-managed quarantine hotel into New Zealand, where there had been no local transmission of coronavirus since November. It felt as if I had slipped into another world through the back of my hotel wardrobe.

Top surgeon joins drive to encourage BAME people to have Covid vaccine

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 11:00 PM PST

Barts trauma specialist Martin Griffiths, who had coronavirus himself, urges people to spread the message that the jab is safe

A leading surgeon who is known for his work in tackling knife crime is joining the fight to tackle vaccine hesitancy among black and other minority ethnic communities.

Martin Griffiths, a consultant trauma surgeon, is one of a team of clinicians who has stepped up to help the vaccination effort at Barts Health NHS Trust.

‘Hugging is like medicine, it gives us hope’: friends and lovers on the joy of touch

Posted: 06 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST

Longing for a cuddle? Newlyweds, siblings and housemates hug the people they can – and look forward to being close with those they miss

Is big tech now just too big to stomach?

Posted: 06 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST

The Covid crisis has turbo-charged profits and share prices. But are the big six now too powerful for regulators to ignore?

The coronavirus pandemic has wrought economic disruption on a global scale, but one sector has marched on throughout the chaos: big tech.

Further evidence of the industry's relentless progress has come in recent weeks with the news that Apple and Amazon both raked in sales of $100bn (£72bn) over the past three months – 25% more than Tesco brings in over a full year.

Blind date: ‘There were a few awkward silences’

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:00 PM PST

Julie, 27, customer engagement manager, and Michael, 29, project engineer

What were you hoping for?
To meet someone funny and interesting. If there was a romantic interest, that would have been a bonus.

Conservative world of sumo slow to take action on concussion

Posted: 06 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST

While football and rugby make adjustments, clashes of heads continue in Japan's national sport

The crack of two skulls colliding echoed around the sumo arena. One of the wrestlers returned to his starting position in the ring, apparently unfazed. But his opponent, Shonannoumi, was clearly in distress.

"Is he OK?" asked the TV commentator after Shonannoumi's leg buckled as he attempted to raise his 164kg (25st 11lb) frame from the ground. The referee and judges exchanged looks but with no ringside doctor to consult none seemed sure how to react.

Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki has embraced normalcy – is it working?

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:45 PM PST

Psaki is the most prominent face of an administration that has pledged to restore order and trust with the press – but there is also a fast chess game taking place

The blue door at the side of the White House podium slid open. "Hi everyone!" exclaimed Jen Psaki with a congeniality seldom heard in the briefing room in recent years.

The press secretary introduced Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, and stepped away from the podium only to hastily reach back for a face mask she had momentarily forgotten there. Warning reporters that their time with Sullivan was limited, she quipped: "I will be the bad cop as per usual over here."

Why does writing about motherhood provoke so much rage?

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:00 PM PST

The subject is guaranteed to attract a tsunami of bile, stemming from resentment, sexism and disgust

My friend E has written a book. "It's not as though it hasn't all been said before," she said. "I suppose the most interesting thing about it is how many times it can be said without anything changing."

I can't work out whether I've forgotten what my friends are like, or forgotten how to have a conversation, but this doesn't sound like E at all. It sounds sheepish, like she has stepped on a toe, or overshared, or fallen in some way beneath her standards (which are, granted, as complicated and precise as the laser alarm system in Mission: Impossible). But I've never heard that tone in her voice. Politically, she is a radical. Personally, she is more radical. You can't get a sheepish radical – it's a philosophical impossibility. It would be chased straight back into its pen by the dogs of convention.

Grenfell survivors say inquiry witnesses must not give evidence 'from sofas'

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 11:00 PM PST

Zoom hearings will not give traumatised members of community what they need, says Grenfell United

Key witnesses at the Grenfell Tower public inquiry must not be allowed to give evidence "from their sofas", survivors of the disaster have warned as hearings restart remotely over Zoom next week after a two-month Covid suspension.

With witnesses due to appear from Arconic, which made the combustible cladding, and the tower's owner, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Grenfell United said fully remote hearings meant traumatised members of the community would miss out on the catharsis of seeing figures with responsibility before the fire being held accountable in person.

US return to the world stage presents huge opportunity for Britain

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:35 PM PST

Analysis: From Yemen and the Middle East, to Russia and China, the UK has to step up diplomatically

Joe Biden's promise that the US is back on the world stage as an advocate of multilateralism holds huge opportunities for the UK so long as it steps up a gear diplomatically, uses its presidency of the G7 well and shifts its stance in the Middle East.

In the short term, Biden's promise to end support for offensive operations in Yemen has led to calls for the UK to suspend its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including from the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood, and the shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy.

UN-sponsored talks produce interim government for Libya

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:16 AM PST

Development prompts mixture of cynicism and hope Libya may be able to puts years of conflict behind it

UN-sponsored talks in Geneva have produced a new interim government for Libya, which aims to hold national elections later this year.

It is the first time the country has had a unified leadership in four years, and the new government will face severe challenges winning recognition both within the country and among some external actors.

Seditionaries: FBI net closes on Maga mob that stormed the Capitol

Posted: 06 Feb 2021 02:00 AM PST

A huge investigation has so far arrested 235 people, including far-right militants, members of the military – and otherwise unremarkable Trump fans

As prosecutors from the House of Representatives prepare to present their case against Donald Trump at his impeachment trial next week for incitement of insurrection, supporters who heeded his call on 6 January to "fight like hell" and went on to storm the Capitol Building are finding themselves in far greater legal peril.

The trial that kicks off in the US Senate on Tuesday could lead to a further vote that would permanently debar Trump from holding office in the future. By contrast, the mob of fervent Maga acolytes who broke into the US Capitol following an incendiary rally headlined by Trump could face prison for up to 20 years.

Townsville police condemn vigilante action after death of 22-year-old woman

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 10:19 PM PST

Police say a Holden Statesman 'aggressively' following a stolen Hyundai i35 hit a motorcycle head-on, leaving the rider dead

The death of a motorcyclist in Townsville has prompted police warnings about the dangers of continued vigilante action in the city.

Police said a grey Holden Statesman was "aggressively" following a stolen silver Hyundai i35 at speed late on Friday night in Thuringowa Central, in the city's south-west.

New Zealand's Māori tribes deserve recognition for their part in vanquishing Covid-19 | Morgan Godfery

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 09:00 AM PST

Māori memories of past epidemics meant iwi were instrumental in forcing Jacinda Ardern's government to act quickly

In the space of a few days in 2017 New Zealand's Labour caucus made Jacinda Ardern their leader. In the space of a month the country made her their prime minister, and in the space of a few years the rest of the English-speaking world would turn to her as a global leader. That might sound cliché, and in a small sense it is, but it captures the adoration and esteem in which large parts of New Zealand and the world hold Ardern. She has apparently committed to a social democratic programme of old, from public housing to subsidised tertiary education, and – more importantly – she has dealt successfully with the virus. Global business leaders and others rightly rate New Zealand's Covid-19 response as the best in the world.

But is it equally right to simply credit Ardern and her government for this success?

New Zealand's Waitangi Day 2021 celebrations – in pictures

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 07:03 PM PST

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern helps cook breakfast on the national holiday, which celebrates the signing of the treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840 by Māori chiefs and the British Crown

Kamala Harris uses casting vote to pass Covid relief budget resolution – video

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 07:25 AM PST

The US Senate has passed a budget resolution that allows for the passage of Joe Biden's $1.9tn (£1.4tn) Covid-19 relief package in the coming weeks without Republican support.

The vice-president, Kamala Harris, broke a 50-50 tie by casting a vote in favour of the Democratic measure, which sends it to the House of Representatives for final approval.

It marked the first time Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, had cast a tie-breaking vote after being sworn in as the first female vice-president on 20 January

Myanmar coup protesters – in pictures

Posted: 05 Feb 2021 04:41 AM PST

At least 30 people have been detained over pot-banging protests against a military coup as demonstrations gather pace