Wednesday 18 November
- Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM’s green plan
- COVID-19: England’s ‘inadequate’ tier system ‘did not contain the spread of coronavirus’ say doctors
- 3 killed after Syria air defences repel ‘Israeli aggression’ over Damascus, Tel Aviv says it retaliated
- Global giants bring Mideast music into the pay-per-stream era
- Hong Kong police arrest three ex-lawmakers over May, June protests
- South Australia announces six-day ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown
- Trump fires head of US cybersecurity agency that refuted voter fraud claims
Concern over series of failures on £17bn Covid contracts
Read on FT
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British Airways to launch Covid testing trial for arrivals
Read on BBC Business
Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM’s green plan
BBC News says new cars and vans powered wholly by petrol and diesel will not be sold in the UK from 2030, Boris Johnson has said. But some hybrids would still be allowed, he confirmed.
It is part of what the PM calls a “green industrial revolution” to tackle climate change and create jobs in industries such as nuclear.
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COVID-19: England’s ‘inadequate’ tier system ‘did not contain the spread of coronavirus’ say doctors
Sky News says the tiered system introduced in England in an effort to fight Covid-19 is “inadequate” and “did not contain the spread of the virus”, according to the British Medical Association (BMA).
The BMA has also said it was “inconsistent” in the way it was applied, and that it must be “urgently revised” before the country exits its second lockdown on 2 December.
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3 killed after Syria air defenses repel ‘Israeli aggression’ over Damascus, Tel Aviv says it retaliated
RT News says several Syrian army soldiers have been killed after the country’s air defence systems responded to an Israeli attack near the capital, Damascus, Syria’s SANA news agency reported. Tel Aviv confirmed the raid.
The attack took place in the early hours of Wednesday as the city remained plunged in darkness.
“At about 3:11 am this day, the Zionist enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan on the southern region,” SANA reported, citing a military source.
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Global giants bring Mideast music into the pay-per-stream era
France24 says the Arab music industry — plagued by rampant piracy, free YouTube clips and dated channels — is the new target for global streaming giants intent on bringing the outmoded business into the digital era.
After their successes in Europe and the Americas, online platforms are looking to invest in emerging markets in the Middle East and North Africa, and capture their large populations of hyper-connected youth.
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Hong Kong police arrest three ex-lawmakers over May, June protests
TRT World says posts on the Facebook accounts of Ted Hui, Eddie Chu and Ray Chan say they have been arrested in relation to the incidents in the legislature’s main chamber. The trio separately disrupted legislative meetings on two occasions.
Police in Hong Kong have arrested three former lawmakers over May and June incidents in which foul-smelling liquid was thrown in the city’s legislature, an act police said was intended to cause harm.
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South Australia announces six-day ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown
Aljazeera says South Australia announced on Wednesday a six-day “circuit breaker” lockdown for the state’s nearly two million people, as it moved to contain a sudden surge in coronavirus cases that ended months with hardly any infections.
A series of wide-ranging restrictions will be imposed from midnight to allow a measure of “breathing space” for contact tracing, South Australia state Premier Steven Marshall said, after 22 cases of the virus were reported in Adelaide, the state’s capital.
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Trump fires head of US cybersecurity agency that refuted voter fraud claims
The Guardian says Trump has fired the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election and pushed back on the president’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
Trump fired Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), in a tweet on Tuesday, saying Krebs “has been terminated” and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was “highly inaccurate”.
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In Review
French President Emmanual Macron has labelled Western media as unfairly portraying France as ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobic’ – going as far as labelling some English-language media as “legitimising the violence.”
Macron has faced a backlash from the Muslim world for his perceived attacks on Islam after he backed the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad and claimed in a speech that Islam “is in crisis all over the world today.”
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France is losing its battle with Muslims, Islam and now the West: Emmanual Macron doubles down and pressures newspapers abroad, and Muslims at home, to buy into his narrative of secularism. – TRT World
Macron accuses English-language media of ‘legitimising’ violence in France: French president says concept of laïcité is misunderstood – The Guardian
The President vs the American Media: “Macron has some bones to pick with the American media: about our “bias,” our obsession with racism, our views on terrorism, our reluctance to express solidarity, even for a moment, with his embattled republic.” – The New York Times
Macron’s Mistaken Challenge To ‘Islam’: The French President’s deliberate collision with what he sees as ‘Islam’ is unlikely to be good for him or for France. – Outlook India
Letter: France is against ‘Islamist separatism’ — never Islam: From Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic – FT
On freedom of speech and ‘Islamist separatism’: Is Islam really against free speech? And does France really suffer from ‘Islamist separatism’, as Macron has charged? – Aljazeera
Fanatics have no right to censor critics. But neither does Emmanuel Macron: The French president’s response to Islam is shot through with hypocrisy and illiberalism – The Guardian
Coronavirus: France crosses 2 million cases mark: France became the first European country on Tuesday to record more than 2 million COVID-19 infections.
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Majority of EU population feel good about bloc, study finds – in the UK, 60% of respondents have a favourable view, the highest on record
Tigray fighting: Why has Ethiopia rebuffed calls to de-escalate?
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Five dead, many wounded in suicide bomb attack in Somalia – Suicide bomber detonates explosives at a Mogadishu restaurant frequented by dozens, in the latest al-Shabab-claimed attack.
