British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is setting out a tough opening gambit Monday in negotiations with the European Union, saying the UK will walk away without a free-trade deal rather than agree to follow rules set by the 27-nation bloc.
Just 60 hours after Britain left the EU, the first country ever to do so, Johnson is digging in his heels about future relations. In a speech to business leaders and international diplomats in London, Johnson plans to say we want a free trade agreement, but not at any cost.
The choice is emphatically not 'deal or no-deal,' Johnson plans to say, according to extracts released by his office.
The question is whether we agree a trading relationship with the EU comparable to Canada's  or more like Australia's. Australian-style trade would mean a panoply of new tariffs and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its near neighbour and biggest trading partner.
Across the Channel, chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier said the European Union will link any ..

UK's Johnson talks tough on trade; EU demands fishing rights

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A dozen people were injured in the central Swiss city of Luzern Monday, when a train sped into the station and slammed into a buffer, police said.
No one was seriously wounded in the accident, but 12 passengers on the train suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospital, regional Luzern police said.
It remained unclear why the driver of the train, travelling from Zurich, had failed to slow down when entering the Luzern station -- its final destination -- at around 10.00 am (0900 GMT), police said.
"The train was going too fast and couldn't stop," police spokesman Christian Bertschi told AFP, adding that an investigation had been opened into the incident.

12 hurt as train hits buffer at Swiss station: police

The World Health Organization said Monday it was working around the clock with internet and social media giants to combat widespread misinformation surrounding the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of the dangers posed by "the spread of rumours and misinformation"as China saw a surge in deaths and infections from the highly contagious virus.
"We have worked with Google to make sure people searching for information about coronavirus see WHO information at the top of their search results," Tedros said in opening remarks to the UN health agency's Executive Board meeting in Geneva.
"Social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Tencent and Tiktok have also taken steps to limit the spread of misinformation," he said.
His comments were interrupted by a fit of coughing, but the WHO chief assured the assembly that there was no need to worry: "It is not corona." He spoke as the death toll in China surged above 360, surpassing the number of ...

WHO launches campaign against China virus misinformation

Hundreds of residents of a remote Indonesian island protested Monday at the government's decision to use it to quarantine evacuees from the Chinese city at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.
Indonesia has evacuated 237 citizens and one foreign national, married to an Indonesian, from Wuhan.
The evacuees, mostly students, landed Sunday and will be quarantined for 14 days on Natuna island, which lies between Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia.
"The government's decision to quarantine Indonesians who returned from China has made people feel uneasy, so we strongly reject it," Fadillah, one of the protesters who like many Indonesians goes with one name, told AFP.
The protesters, wearing green surgical masks, demonstrated in front of the local parliament building, demanding the local authorities relocate the evacuation centre away from a residential area.
"Whatever the reason and the explanation, we don't believe it. We believe this virus is very dangerous for people in Natuna," ...

Indonesians protest use of island for virus quarantine

China on Monday accused the US of spreading "panic" through its actions like travel bans and evacuation of diplomats and said there was no "substantial help" from Washington to contain the virus that has killed 361 people and infected 17,205 others in the country.
The deadly virus - first emerged in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province - has spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK.
Joining a growing list of nations to impose travel restrictions, the US has announced a 14-day travel ban on all visitors from China, regardless of their nationality. The US citizens arriving from China's virus-hit Hubei province will have to undergo a 14-day mandatory quarantine on arrival, while those travelling to other parts of China will face screening and monitoring.
A CNN report said the mandatory quarantine is the first time the US has issued such an order in 50 years.
"What the US has done could create and spread panic," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ...

China accuses US of spreading global 'panic' over coronavirus

The European Union will offer Britain a close post-Brexit trading relationship but demand tough terms on fisheries and a level playing field for businesses, chief negotiator Michel Barnier said Monday.
"We are ready to offer a highly ambitious trade deal as the central pillar of this partnership, including zero tariffs," Barnier said, but warned Brussels would not accept "unfair competitive advantages".
Barnier was unveiling his negotiating mandate ahead of talks with Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government on the EU's future relations with Britain after the post-Brexit transition period.
Separately, his boss, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said the talks should stick to what had already been agreed in a pre-Brexit political declaration between the two sides.
"There will be no surprises. We outlined with the UK already the future parameters we will have in our negotiations in the withdrawal agreement," she said.
Johnson was expected to present Britain's ...

EU offers UK 'ambitious trade deal', with conditions

The World Health Organisation is working with Google to ensure that people get facts from WHO first when they search for information about the new virus that recently emerged in China.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the opening of WHO's executive board meeting on Monday that social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Tencent and TikTok have also taken steps to limit the spread of misinformation and rumours about the virus and outbreak that first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December and has now spread to 23 other countries.
"To that end, we have worked with Google to make sure people searching for information about coronavirus see WHO information at the top of their search results," he said.
Pausing on a couple of occasions to cough, clear his throat, and drink water, Tedros  who visited China and met with President Xi Jinping to discuss the outbreak last week  quipped: "Don't worry: It's not corona", prompting laughter.
Since the outbreak ...

WHO working with Google to combat virus misinformation

A flight carrying evacuees from the epicentre of the deadly China virus outbreak landed in Australia late Monday ahead of a 14-day quarantine at a notorious offshore immigration detention centre.
The Qantas charter flight carrying 243 passengers -- including 89 children -- touched down at an Air Force base near the remote Western Australian town of Exmouth.
The Australian citizens and permanent residents on board were due to be flown in smaller planes to Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the flight was late leaving Wuhan due to a "very intensive process to manage the immigration and boarding arrangements" that also included medical checks.
Passengers will be quarantined for at least 14 days in an immigration detention centre which gained notoriety as the venue where asylum seekers who attempted to reach Australia by boat were detained.
Officials say the evacuees will be held separately from a Sri Lankan family of four ...

Australia virus evacuees head for island quarantine

Hong Kong announced it was closing all but two land crossings with the Chinese mainland on Monday to slow the spread of a deadly new coronavirus as medics staged strikes calling for the border to be completely sealed.
The semi-autonomous financial centre has 15 confirmed cases of the disease, most brought from the mainland where the epidemic began and has so far killed more than 360 people.
On Monday afternoon city leader Carrie Lam said all land crossings would be closed at midnight except for two bridges, the first connecting Hong Kong to Shenzhen and the second linking it with Zhuhai and casino hub Macau.
The city's airport -- one of the world's busiest -- would remain open to mainlanders, although there are already restrictions on people from central Hubei province where the epidemic began.
Lam said the latest closures -- which came after four crossings were shuttered last week -- would reduce the number of Chinese mainlanders and allow officials to focus resources on two land ...

Hong Kong shuts most China crossings over virus as medics strike

The UK pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said Monday it was joining a global race to develop a vaccine for a new strain of a deadly coronavirus that has killed more than 360 people.
The UK government also pledged USD 20 million in funding for research at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) - a civil group formed at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2017.
GSK said its work will complement the four projects already being funded through CEPI to develop a vaccine for the deadly China strain.
"Our (vaccine) adjuvant technology has previously been used successfully in the pandemic flu setting," GSK Vaccine chief medical officer Thomas Breuer said in a statement.
"It enables using only small quantities of the vaccine antigen which allows the production of more doses of the vaccine -- a crucial advantage in a pandemic." Adjuvant are agents that boost a body's response to vaccine or other treatment.
The World Health Organization has declared a global virus ..

Britain's GSK joins race to develop China virus vaccine

A leaked recording of an exchange between an Iranian air-traffic controller and an Iranian pilot purports to show that authorities immediately knew a missile had downed a Ukrainian jetliner after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard, despite days of denials by the Islamic Republic.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the recording's authenticity in a report aired by a Ukrainian television channel on Sunday night.
In Tehran on Monday, the head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, acknowledged the recording was legitimate and said that it was handed over to Ukrainian officials.
After the Jan 8 disaster, Iran's civilian government maintained for days that it didn't know the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had shot down the aircraft.
The downing of the jetliner came just hours after the Guard launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing US forces in ...

Ukraine: Recordings show Iran knew jetliner hit by a missile

The United Arab Emirates, a leading OPEC producer, announced Monday the discovery of huge gas reserves, saying the find would help the Gulf state achieve self-sufficiency.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) said about 80 trillion cubic feet (2.2 trillion cubic metre) of shallow gas resources were discovered between the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the largest of the seven-member UAE.
"This new discovery reinforces the nation's goal of achieving gas self-sufficiency, enabling major development projects," it said in a statement.
Leaders of Abu Dhabi and Dubai witnessed the signing of an agreement between ADNOC and Dubai Supply Authority for the exploration and development of the gas resources.
In November, Abu Dhabi announced new discoveries of seven billion barrels of oil to raise the UAE's total crude reserves to 105 billion barrels, the world's sixth largest.
It also announced the discovery of 58 trillion cubic feet of conventional gas, boosting total reserves to 273 trillion ...

UAE discovers trillions of cubic feet of shallow gas reserves

Turkish and Syrian troops traded deadly fire in Syria's northwest on Monday, further raising tension between Ankara and regime backer Moscow over the war-torn Idlib rebel enclave.
An air strike also killed at least nine civilians in the same area, where the latest government offensive has caused one of the nine-year-old Syrian conflict's worst waves of displacement.
The tit-for-tat shelling between Damascus and Ankara was the deadliest since Turkey deployed troops in Syria in 2016 and escalated tensions between the conflict's two top foreign brokers.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered rare criticism of Russia last week, accusing it of "not honouring" agreements to prevent a regime offensive on the northwestern region of Idlib.
The overnight exchange began with regime shelling on Turkish positions in Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
The attack killed four Turkish soldiers and wounded nine others despite previous ...

Turkey and Syrian regime in deadly flare-up

A man shot dead by the Scotland Yard after he went on a stab frenzy on a busy high street in south London was a convicted Islamist terrorist, with family links to Sri Lanka, who was recently released from prison after serving half of his sentence period for preparation of acts of terrorism, police said.
The Metropolitan Police said Sudesh Mamoor Faraz Amman, a 20-year-old British national with extended family in Sri Lanka, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS).
Amman was sentenced to three years and four months in prison in December 2018 after being charged with 10 terror-related offences. He was aged 18 that time.
Amman was released under licence last month. He was under surveillance.
"The suspect had been recently released from prison where he had been serving a sentence for Islamist-related terrorism offences. We are confident that this is an isolated incident that has been contained," said Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy D'Orsi on Sunday night.
Of the 10 

'Man shot dead in London stab frenzy was convicted Islamist terrorist with family links to Lanka'

A total of 180 Nepalis, mostly students, living in China have approached the country's embassy in Beijing, demanding their immediate evacuation as they fear contracting the novel coronavirus that has claimed over 360 lives and infected thousands of people in the neighbouring country.
The coronavirus outbreak, which originated in the central Hubei province in December, has killed 361 with 57 deaths reported on Sunday while the number of confirmed cases has climbed to 17,205. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China from the epidemic that has spread to 25 countries, including India, the US, the UK and Russia.
In China, all the deaths have been reported in Hubei Province - the epicentre of the virus outbreak. The virus was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on January 31.
"A total of 180 Nepali nationals, mostly students, currently living in 17 cities in China, including Wuhan of Hubei, have registered their names with the ...

180 Nepalis in China demand early evacuation as coronavirus death toll rises to 361

Two lawmakers in Sweden have nominated Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Jens Holm and Hakan Svenneling, who are both members of Sweden's Left Party, said Monday that Thunberg has worked hard to make politicians open their eyes to the climate crisis and action for reducing our emissions and complying with the Paris Agreement is therefore also an act of making peace.
The 2015 landmark Paris climate deal asks both rich and poor countries to take action to curb the rise in global temperatures that is melting glaciers, raising sea levels and shifting rainfall patterns. It requires governments to present national plans to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Thunberg, 17, has encouraged students to skip school to join protests demanding faster action on climate change, a movement that has spread beyond Sweden to other European nations and around the world. She founded th e ..

Teenage climate activist nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Wild grey seals can clap their flippers underwater during the breeding season, as a show of strength that warns off competitors, and advertises to potential mates, a study based on video footage has found.
This is the first time a seal has been seen clapping completely underwater using its front flippers, according to the study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.
"The discovery of 'clapping seals' might not seem that surprising, after all, they're famous for clapping in zoos and aquaria," said lead study author, David Hocking, from Monash University in Australia.
"But where zoo animals are often trained to clap for our entertainment -- these grey seals are doing it in the wild of their own accord," Hocking said.
The research is based on video footage collected by naturalist Ben Burville, a visiting researcher at Newcastle University in the UK.
The footage -- which took Burville 17 years of diving to catch on film -- shows a male grey seal clapping its paw-like flippers to .

Grey seals clap underwater to communicate: Study

Cruise lines worldwide will deny boarding to passengers and crew who have recently travelled to China, the global Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) said Monday, as fears grow over the deadly new coronavirus.
"CLIA Members have suspended crew movements from mainland China and will deny boarding to any individual, whether guest or crew, who has travelled from or through mainland China within the previous 14 days," the body's Hamburg office said in a statement.
CLIA represents the world's best-known cruise lines, including TUI, AIDA, MSC and Carnival Cruises.

Cruise ships to ban recent China visitors: global industry body

Critically ill Yemenis in need of medical care are to be flown out of rebel-held Sanaa on Monday, an airport official said, under a United Nations humanitarian evacuation plan for the war-torn country.
The internationally recognised government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, has been fighting the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels since 2014, when the rebels seized control of the capital.
In November, the coalition -- which controls Yemen's airspace -- said that patients needing medical care would be allowed to be flown out of Sanaa, which has been closed to commercial flights since 2016.
"Patients and families are due to arrive in Sanaa airport at 12:30 local time (0930 GMT), and the aircraft is expected to leave today," a Huthi official at the airport told AFP.
The Huthis on Sunday criticised the evacuation plan as inadequate for the needs of thousands of people in urgent need of treatment.
"The World Health Organization said it will transport via a small UN plane only seven ...

UN medical evacuations to begin from Yemen's rebel-held Sanaa

The EU and Britain open hostilities in Brexit's next bruising chapter on Monday, laying down red lines for a post-divorce future following the UK's dramatic exit from the bloc.
Europe's chief negotiator Michel Barnier will formally announce his ideas for new ties in Brussels, with trade the most pressing issue, while Johnson will firmly make his case in a speech in London.
According to the prime minister's office, Johnson will come out swinging against the EU, saying that Britain has no more reason to meet EU standards than the EU has to meet British ones.
"There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment, or anything similar," Johnson will say, according to Downing Street.
"The UK will maintain the highest standards in these areas -- better, in many respects, than those of the EU -- without the compulsion of a treaty and it is vital to stress this now."
There will be just 11 months to ...

Barnier and Johnson clash over post-Brexit ties

Hong Kong confirmed Monday it plunged into recession in 2019, suffering its first annual contraction in a decade as the city buckled under the twin pressures of the US-China trade war and months of furious pro-democracy protests.
The data was released as the semi-autonomous city begins the lunar new year facing another economic crisis -- the outbreak of a deadly new coronavirus strain which began on the Chinese mainland and is compounding Hong Kong's economic woes.
Last year was the worst for Hong Kong's growth since 2009, when the financial hub was hit hard by the global financial crash.
The crisis was initially sparked by the trade war between Beijing and Washington, hitting the export-heavy economy.
But the hard times were made worse by months of seething and often violent protests seeking greater democracy and police accountability.
Official figures released on Monday showed Hong Kong's gross domestic product shrank 1.2 percent on-year for 2019.
The fourth quarter -- which ...

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