Friday 8 January
Daily News Briefing
- Covid: England and Scotland arrivals will need negative test result
- Third Covid vaccine set for UK approval next week but arrival delayed by Brexit
- High street suffers worst December retail sales on record as online growth slumps
- Qatar Airways reroutes flights as Saudi Arabia lifts airspace ban
- China says US facing ‘internal collapse’ after pro-Trump riot
- Indonesia frees cleric linked to Bali bombing
- US Capitol Police Overrun by Mob After Declining Help
- The Wanted’s Tom Parker says brain tumour has ‘shrunk significantly’
- Australia v India – Tourists lose both openers in reply to 338
Demand for temporary staff increasing due to business uncertainty – Sky Business
Elon Musk overtakes Jeff Bezos to become world’s richest person – CityAm
Brexit: Problems grow at UK ports with backlogs and delays – BBC News
London hospitals admitting 800 Covid patients every day – FT News
Trump speech today – vows ‘smooth’ transition of power as but doesn’t acknowledge defeat
WTX News says Donald Trump’s speech today indicated for the first time that he is ready to move on. He promised a smooth transition to Joe Biden and acknowledged his presidency was ending as calls grew for his removal from the Oval Office for encouraging a mob attack on the US Capitol.
With pressure mounting in Washington for his early removal and impeachment from the Oval Office, over his supporters who rampaged through the U.S. Capitol last night. Forcing the U.S. President Donald Trump to break his silence on Thursday where he indicated he is giving up his petulant resistance to cling to hold onto the presidency and committed himself to an orderly transfer of power to Democrat Joe Biden, who will be sworn in as the 46th president on Jan. 20.
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Covid: England and Scotland arrivals will need a negative test result
BBC News says all international passengers will soon have to provide a negative Covid-19 test result before travelling to England or Scotland.
Arrivals, including UK nationals, will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are in.
The new measures are expected to come into effect in England early next week, and “as soon as possible” in Scotland.
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Third Covid vaccine set for UK approval next week but arrival delayed by Brexit
The Guardian says a third Covid vaccine is likely to be approved for use in Britain next week but it will not be available until April because of Brexit.
Britain has ordered 7m doses of the Moderna vaccine. But UK authorisation will not help the government towards its goal of vaccinating the most vulnerable by mid-February.
The Moderna vaccine is similar to the Pfizer/BioNTech version and has produced equally strong results in late-stage clinical trials, with efficacy of 94%. However, it was not part of the portfolio of vaccines bought by the UK until those results were released.
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High street suffers worst December retail sales on record as online growth slumps
CityAM says December retail sales were negative for the first time on record in 2020, with online purchases slumping to the lowest level since the pandemic began, in the latest blow to the UK high street.
Online sales were at their lowest level since March, increasing by 62 per cent on the previous year, and were unable to mitigate against the impact of physical store closures.
The latest analysis, published this morning, showed that total like-for-like sales declined 1.6 per cent last month, from a strong base of 6.6 per cent growth in December 2019.
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Qatar Airways reroutes flights as Saudi Arabia lifts airspace ban
Arab News says Qatar Airways has started to reroute some of its flights to pass through Saudi Arabia’s airspace, as the Kingdom reopens its air borders with the Gulf state, Al-Arabiya TV has reported.
The first flight to pass through Saudi airspace after the announcement was a Doha-Johannesburg trip on Thursday night.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt had severed relations with Qatar in June 2017 over terrorism concerns.
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China says US facing ‘internal collapse’ after pro-Trump riot
Aljazeera says the assault on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump reflects a failure of leadership, as well as the deep divide running through American society, editorials in China’s state media said on Friday.
Hundreds of supporters of Trump besieged the Capitol on Wednesday in what Nancy Pelosi described as “an armed insurrection against America”.
The Global Times, the newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, described the riots as a sign of “internal collapse” that could not easily be reversed.
“The unprecedented mob in the Capitol, a symbol of the US system, is the result of the US society’s severe division and the country’s failure to control such division,” it said.
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Indonesia frees cleric linked to Bali bombing
TRT World says a cleric linked to the Bali nightclub bombings was freed from prison, stirring grief and anger among victims nearly two decades after more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists, were killed in Indonesia’s worst terror attack.
Abu Bakar Bashir, 82, is seen as the spiritual leader of terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was responsible for the massive blasts that ripped through a pair of packed bars in October 2002.
The firebrand preacher was released after completing an unrelated jail term for helping fund militant training. But he has long been suspected of involvement in the horrific holiday island bombings, which came just a year after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
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US Capitol police overrun by mob after declining help
VOA says law enforcement officials in charge of protecting the U.S. Capitol repeatedly declined offers of additional assistance ahead of Wednesday’s protest-turned-riot that forced lawmakers to take shelter, delaying certification of the results of the country’s presidential election.
The allegations, from defense and military officials, come a day after large crowds of extremists supporting Donald Trump pushed past barricades and members of the Capitol Police to rampage through the building.
“There was tremendous confusion coming out of the Capitol,” said Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.”Clearly the Capitol Hill police, their capability was being overrun,” he added. “It was very hard to get to the adequate read of the disposition of their officers, how we could tie in with them.”
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Roundup:
US in crisis
How a security lapse allowed pro-Trump protesters to invade US Capitol – Read on
How America’s biggest political divisions have shaped the country – Read on
Trump concedes to Biden, condemns Capitol riot – Read on
Some at US Capitol Riot Fired After Internet Detectives Identify Them – Read on
Cabinet Secretaries Chao, DeVos Resign, Citing Trump-Fueled Violence on Capitol Hill – Read on
As US Reels From Capitol Violence, Russia Enjoys the Show – Read on
Shocking, disgraceful and worrying: World reacts to US Capitol Hill riots – Read on
US Opens Criminal Probe Into Assault on Capitol
U.S. law enforcement authorities have opened a criminal investigation into Wednesday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters, enlisting hundreds of investigators to identify and arrest the perpetrators, officials announced Thursday. – VOA
Last year was Europe’s warmest ever, 0.4°C hotter than the previous record in 2019
Europe saw its warmest ever year in 2020, 0.4°C warmer than the previous record in 2019, according to the EU’s climate monitoring service. The latest data released from Copernicus also showed that 2020 was on par with the warmest year ever recorded – 2016 – marking the end of the warmest decade on record. – Euronews
Ghanaian president Nana Akufo Addo sworn in for a 2nd term
Nana Akufo-Addo was on Thursday sworn in for a second term as Ghana’s president. It comes a day after a brawl between rival politicians in parliament during the election of the speaker. Soldiers were briefly deployed after the unusual scenes in one of Africa’s most stable democracies. – Africanews
