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Prince Harry's memoir "Spare" officially went on sale Tuesday. Here are some notable details: Harry claims his older brother Prince William attacked him during an argument about his wife Meghan and knocked him to the floor. Harry refers to William as "my beloved brother, my arch-nemesis".He writes that he was desperate for William's company after their mother Diana died but that his brother disowned him when Harry started at the same senior school, Eton College.Spare is the fastest-selling non-fiction book ever in the UK, Sky News reported, citing the publisher, saying it had recorded a sales figure of 400,000 copies so far across hardback, ebook and audio formats.Sky cited Transworld Penguin Random House as saying that the book was "exceeding even our most bullish expectations"Harry also recounts a childhood fight in the back of a car driven by their father, the future King Charles III. He orders William to get out and ride in a separate car driven by bodyguards."Behind us, I could just make out the future King of England, plotting his revenge," the memoir states.Charles pleaded with his sons to stop fighting at a meeting after the funeral of his own father, Prince Philip, in April 2021."Please, boys -- don't make my final years a misery," he told them, according to the memoir.

Suspected warlord Gibril Massaquoi appeared yesterday in a Finnish appeals court accused of atrocities in Liberia’s civil war following his acquittal last year by a lower court.The appeal is taking place in the Finnish city of Turku, 170 kilometres west of Helsinki.Massaquoi, who moved to Finland in 2008, is accused of murder, abuse and war crimes. The prosecution wants the court to take a fresh look at what it says amounts to a credible witness account in a case involving atrocities that date back almost two decades.“That is, what can be expected of the witness, taking into account, for example, the length of time that has elapsed and the traumatic nature of the events,” state prosecutor Tom Laitinen said. According to Laitinen, traditional rules relating to, for example witnesses’ ability to identify suspects, can not be applied without taking the particularities of the case into account.The defence argued that when it comes to serious offences such as murder and rape, which can carry a life sentence, the burden of proof should not be lowered. In previous proceedings in the district court, Massaquoi’s defence highlighted numerous inconsistencies and contradictions relating to the timings and locations of atrocities from witness accounts. Massaquoi’s lawyer Paula Sallinen noted “there are many other things that can affect the way people’s stories change between two hearings” other than just being traumatised. “We cannot say that when the testimony has changed, it is an indication that the person has been traumatised.”The defence stressed that the district court found “reasonable doubt” as to Massaquoi’s guilt.For some of the alleged events, there was “such strong evidence” the court considered it “established that the client was nowhere near the scene of the events,” said Kaarle Gummerus, another lawyer representing Massaquoi.The prosecution intends to present new evidence for the appeal and the defence will call new witnesses.The first day of the trial included presentations of the case by both parties. The Turku appeals court said it would also move to hear witnesses in Liberia in February and then from witnesses in Sierra Leone in May, before returning to Finland by June 5.In April 2022, a Finnish district court ruled that the prosecution had “not proven with sufficient certainty” that Massaquoi had been involved in the crimes, which occurred in the later years of Liberia’s second civil war.The impoverished west African state was plunged into a first war from 1989-1998, followed by a second from 1999-2003. As many as a quarter of a million people are believed to have died.Massaquoi was arrested in Finland in 2020 after a rights group investigated his war record, and was held in custody for around two years pending the trial.The district court ordered his release in February pending the April verdict, when he was acquitted. Finnish prosecutors appealed the verdict.Massaquoi was a senior commander of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a Sierra Leonean rebel group that fought in Liberia. He denies all the charges, arguing he was not in Liberia when the alleged offences took place.

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit deep under the ocean off Indonesia and East Timor early Tuesday, injuring at least one person after rattling nearby islands, damaging homes and forcing residents to flee in panic. The epicentre of the quake was 427km south of the Indonesian island of Ambon at a depth of 95km, the US Geological Survey reported. Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said the tremor was felt on the eastern islands of Timor, the Maluku archipelago and Papua. It reported some aftershocks at a magnitude of 5.5. “I was in bed, then I felt a little shake. I woke up and found out that many of my friends felt it too,” Hamdi, an Indonesian in Ambon, told AFP. The country’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) said at least 15 homes and two schools had been damaged in the Tanimbar Islands. The strongest jolt was felt in Saumlaki, the archipelago’s biggest town with a population of 8,000 people, it said. “For casualties, the local disaster agency reported one person was injured. The jolt was felt strongly (in Tanimbar) between three to five seconds,” BNPB spokesperson Abdul Muhari said in a statement Tuesday. “People were panicking and fled their homes.” Pictures shared by the agency showed damage to homes in several villages in Southwest Maluku Regency. In one village, the roofs and walls of several damaged houses had collapsed. Debris and household items were scattered on the ground. The quake caused light poles to sway and sent residents running out of buildings and onto streets in Tual, a port in the Maluku archipelago, videos posted by users on Twitter showed. The Indonesian geophysics agency warned about a potential tsunami initially, and then lifted the warning. The quake was felt as far as Darwin, capital of Australia’s Northern Territory, where at least 1,000 people reported it to the Australian Geoscience agency. “Sustained vigorous shaking here in #Darwin just now from what looks to be a pretty serious #earthquake to our north,” user @OreboundImages tweeted. “Could hear the earth rumbling,” another Darwin resident posted on the EMSC website. “Was huge! Went on for ages, whole house was really shaking,” still another Darwin resident noted. Video posted by Twitter users in Darwin showed water in glasses and pitchers sloshing from side to side. Indonesia experiences frequent seismic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide. On November 21, a 5.6-magnitude quake hit the populous West Java province on the main island of Java, killing 602 people. A major earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, 2004, set off an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people as far away as Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. That powerful 9.1-magnitude quake triggered 100-foot waves that hit the shore of Banda Aceh on Sumatra.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he had revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of Viktor Medvedchuk, once seen as Russian leader Vladimir Putin's top ally in Kyiv and accused of high treason.Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was handed over to Russia in a prisoner exchange last September, was stripped of his citizenship along with three others, Zelensky said in his daily address.

Britain said yesterday Russia had probably captured most of a salt mining town in eastern Ukraine where Kyiv accused Moscow of sacrificing wave upon wave of soldiers and mercenaries in a horrific and senseless battle over wasteland.The British Defence Ministry said Russian troops and fighters of Wagner, a mercenary company run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin, “are likely in control of most of the settlement” of Soledar after four days of advances.If confirmed, it would be Russia’s most substantial gain since last August, after a series of humiliating retreats throughout much of the second half of 2022. Russian forces have been fighting for months to capture the nearby larger city of Bakhmut, a few kilometres to the southwest.But any victory would come at a massive cost, with troops from both sides having taken heavy losses in some of the most intense combat since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago. Kyiv has released pictures in recent days showing what it says are scores of Russian soldiers strewn dead in muddy fields.Moscow says capturing Bakhmut would be a major step to taking full control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, one of four provinces it claimed to have annexed two months ago.Russia’s defence ministry did not mention either Soledar or Bakhmut in a media briefing on Monday.“Russia’s Soledar axis is highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication,” the British defence ministry said in a short daily intelligence briefing.In an overnight address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Soledar was “difficult”, but said Ukrainian defenders had bought more time by holding on, and Kyiv would eventually drive Russians out of the entire eastern Donbas industrial region.“And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost: the whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” he said. “This is what madness looks like.”Near Bakhmut, a team of Ukrainian soldiers was firing volleys of shells from a heavy anti-aircraft gun at what they said were Russian ground positions, across a barren snowy field.Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces, said the Russians were deploying their best Wagner fighters at Soledar, which had been struck 86 times by artillery over the past 24 hours.He compared Russian tactics to World War One: throwing large numbers of men into ground battle and absorbing heavy losses.“This is basically not a 21st-century war,” he said.

Nato and the EU vowed yesterday to bolster their backing for Ukraine to fight off Russia’s invasion and ramp up cooperation between Europe and the US-led alliance.Longstanding designs by Nato and EU to forge greater cooperation have gained impetus from the West’s support of Ukraine.“We must continue to strengthen the partnership between Nato and the European Union. And we must further strengthen our support to Ukraine,” Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said after signing a joint declaration with the EU’s top officials.Countries in Nato and the EU — which share 21 members — have funnelled billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv that have helped it push back Moscow’s forces.The United States, Germany and France have announced they will now also supply Ukraine with armoured fighting vehicles — but Kyiv has pleaded for modern heavy tanks to be sent as well.“I think that Ukraine should get all the necessary military equipment they need and they can handle to defend the homeland,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “This means of course, advanced air defence systems, but also other types of advanced military equipment, as long as it is necessary to defend Ukraine.”Stoltenberg said Kyiv’s Western backers will meet next week with Ukraine’s defence minister “to discuss exactly what types of weapons are needed and how can allies provide those weapons”.“This is not only about adding more systems, more platforms, more weapons, but also ensuring that the platforms, the weapons we have already provided, are working as they should,” he said.Moscow’s attack on Ukraine has upended the European security order and spurred calls for the EU and Nato to work more closely together to protect the continent.The two organisations agreed that Nato, backed by the military might of the United States, remains the bedrock for Europe’s security despite attempts by the EU to boost its role in defence.“Our declaration makes clear that Nato remains the foundation of collective defence and remains essential for Euro-Atlantic security,” Stoltenberg said.“It also recognises the value of a more capable European defence that contributes positively to our security and is complementary to and interoperable with Nato.” European Council President Charles Michel agreed that Nato remained fundamental to defending the EU, but insisted a push spearheaded by France for greater European “strategic autonomy” was not dead.“Making Europe stronger makes Nato stronger, because strong allies make strong alliances,” Michel said.The efforts to expand the EU’s role in defence have sparked warnings it could overlap with Nato and worries from eastern European members who do not want to water down Washington’s position as their major security guarantor.Nato and the EU have for years been talking about improving their coordination and yesterday’s joint declaration was the third cooperation pledge agreed since 2016.The latest version had originally been envisioned to come out in 2021, but was redrafted after the start of the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine in February.The two sides have worked together to bolster their cyber defences and improve infrastructure to shift troops more swiftly around Europe.They now say they want to step up joint work on protecting critical infrastructure, addressing challenges in space, and tackling misinformation.

Brazilian police were questioning some 1,000 protesters yesterday, held in an overcrowded gymnasium in the capital after anti-government mobs sacked public buildings over the weekend, as the country’s new government worked to overcome the crisis.Most of the supporters of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro were detained on Monday as troops dismantled a camp in Brasilia from which demonstrators set off on Sunday to storm Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace.Protesters at the camp outside army headquarters had called for a military coup to overturn the October election in which leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated Bolsonaro, who made baseless suggestions of a rigged election.Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is running investigations of the “anti-democratic” protests, vowed in a speech yesterday to combat the “terrorists” calling for a coup.“Democracy will prevail and Brazilian institutions will not bend,” he said at the swearing-in of a new head of the federal police.Yet the challenge of carrying out such an enormous criminal investigation into a loosely organised protest movement in the first weeks of a new government was already beginning to show.Roughly 1,000 detainees from the protest camp were held for questioning at a police gymnasium where they slept on the ground, some wrapped in Brazilian flags, and complained to a Reuters journalist that they were being held indefinitely and poorly fed.They sang and took selfies, video posted on social media showed.Opposition Senator Marcos do Val, who has denounced the Brasilia riots as a blunder for the political right, told journalists outside the gym that many of those detained “are paying for being in the wrong place at the wrong time”.Around 200 other demonstrators were under arrest and awaiting charges in a penal facility for their role in Sunday’s rampage, which vandalised some of the capital’s most iconic buildings in the worst attack on Brazilian democracy in decades.Government lawyers asked Moraes to order cellphone carriers and social media platforms to store information that could place users in the areas of the rioting on Sunday as authorities try to identify the organisers and their financial sources.Investigations may also sprawl far beyond Brasilia.Pro-Bolsonaro militants discussed on social media their plans to disrupt highways and oil refineries to cause economic chaos in synch with their storming of the capital.Brazilian energy company Eletrobras is investigating whether the collapse of two transmission towers was related to Sunday’s violence in Brasilia, according to two sources familiar with the probe.Eletrobras did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Its subsidiary, Eletronorte, released a statement on Monday about a fallen tower connecting rural communities in northern Brazil to the central grid, with “signs of sabotage.”The violence has stunned Lula’s government, which has been in office for barely a week, and could delay economic policy announcements that were planned for this week by an administration eager to show results.Lula’s chief of staff, Rui Costa, said the government was back to work and policy decisions would be made on time.On Monday night, Lula, who took office on January 1, met the head of the Supreme Court, congressional leaders and state governors in a show of national unity to condemn the riots.They visited the ransacked Supreme Court building, which was the site most damaged by the pro-Bolsonaro rioters.Lula accused the rioters of trying to overthrow democracy and questioned why the army had not discouraged calls for a military coup.“People were openly calling for a coup outside the barracks, and nothing was done. No general lifted a finger to tell them they could not do that,” the 77-year-old president said.He accused some security forces of being complicit with rioters.The Brazilian army did not respond to a request for comment on Lula’s criticism.Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida 48 hours before his term ended, was admitted to a hospital in the US state.He told CNN Brasil that he may cut short his stay there due to his medical issues, returning to Brazil before the end of the month.His son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, denied yesterday that the former president was responsible for the riots.“Since the election result he’s been silent, licking his wounds, virtually incommunicado,” he said in the Senate.Public prosecutors have asked for a federal audit court to freeze the ex-president’s assets in light of Sunday’s vandalism, according to a report on the website of CNN Brasil – a move outside the traditional scope of that court.Yesterday Bolsonaro tweeted a photo showing himself in a hospital bed in Orlando, Florida, the southern US state where he travelled two days before the end of his term on December 31.He was stabbed in the abdomen in an attack that nearly claimed his life during his winning campaign in 2018, and has undergone multiple surgeries since.He tweeted that “Yesterday I had new adhesions” and was hospitalised “in Orlando/USA”.“Thank you for your prayers and messages for a speedy recovery,” the 67-year-old continued.See also Business Page 3

Relentless storms ravaged California again yesterday, the latest bout of extreme weather that has left 14 people dead and prompted evacuation of a star-studded town home to Britain’s Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle.Fierce storms caused flash flooding, closed key highways, toppled trees and swept away drivers and passengers – reportedly including a five-year-old-boy who remains missing in central California – and authorities were bracing for more rain and snow to batter America’s most populous state.More than 230,000 California homes and businesses were without power as of early yesterday, according to tracking site Poweroutage.us.A fresh storm is set to pound the state with as much as 7” (18cm) of new rain in northern California today and “several more feet of snow” in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the US National Weather Service (NWS) said in a forecast yesterday.The NWS described an “endless onslaught of atmospheric river events” that is the most powerful storm system since 2005.The town of Montecito, a favourite of American entertainment royalty such as Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston, was expected to get up to 8” of rain in 24 hours – threatening dangerous mudslides on hills already sodden by weeks of downpours.Emergency authorities in the town 90 minutes from Los Angeles said anyone in the area should get out.“LEAVE NOW! This is a rapidly evolving situation. Please pay close attention to emergency alerts,” a fire department website said.An AFP reporter saw police roadblocks set up to prevent people from getting into the town, where several roads were flooded.Montecito town, whose multi-million dollar properties are perched in breathtaking California countryside, is particularly vulnerable to mudslides because it sits at the foot of a mountain range that was ravaged by fire five years ago.Hundreds of square miles of land were scorched in 2017 and 2018, denuding the hillsides of the vegetation that normally keeps soil in place.Devastating January 2018 mudslides in Montecito killed 23 people.“Over the last 30 days, Montecito has received 12-20+ inches of rain across the community, exceeding our yearly average of 17 inches,” Montecito Fire said on Twitter. “This cumulative, saturating rain puts the community at greater risk of flooding and debris flow.”It was not clear how many of the town’s residents, who also include Ellen DeGeneres, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry and Rob Lowe, had heeded the call to flee.The Montecito evacuation order came as California was being lashed by the latest in a parade of storms that have already killed 14 people – a toll which Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said is already “more lives than wildfires in the past two years combined”.In San Luis Obispo County authorities called off a search for a five-year-old boy as rushing waters were too dangerous for divers, Fox News reported, quoting a county official.The child, who fled with his mother from their car as it was inundated by flood waters, has not been declared dead.The mother was rescued.In Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, the fire department said it rescued 18 people on Monday from an island in the flooded Ventura River.The 4,000 residents in Planada, a community in Central California, started their morning yesterday with an order to evacuate their homes by the county sheriff’s office.“At this time our deputies are going to door to door to help residents evacuate,” the office said on Twitter, urging residents to head to the town’s Dollar General store where buses were ready to take them to a shelter.Swathes of the Golden State were under flood warnings as it struggled to cope with yet more rain on top of near-record downpours in recent weeks.“Two major episodes of heavy rain and heavy mountain snow are expected to impact California in quick succession during the next couple of days in association with two of the more energetic and moisture-laden parade of cyclones that are aiming directly” for the state, the NWS said.Last week Newsom declared a state of emergency and on Monday the White House greenlighted the use of federal funds for emergency operations in California.“We expect to see the worst of it still ahead of us,” Newsom told reporters.While heavy rain is not unusual for California during winter, these downpours are testing the state.They come as much of the western US is more than two decades into a punishing drought that has seen major increases in the frequency and intensity of wildfires.Scientists say human-caused climate change, brought about by the unchecked burning of fossil fuels, has supercharged these wild swings in weather.

The last eight years were the warmest on record even with the cooling influence of a La Nina weather pattern since 2020, the European Union's climate monitoring service said Tuesday.Average temperatures across 2022 -- which saw a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters made more likely and deadly by climate change -- make it the fifth warmest year since records began in the 19th century, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.Pakistan and northern India were scorched by a two-month spring heatwave with sustained temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), followed in Pakistan by flooding that covered a third of the country.France, Britain, Spain and Italy set new average temperature records for 2022, with Europe as a whole enduring its second hottest year ever, Copernicus said in an annual report.Heatwaves across the continent were compounded by severe drought conditions.European temperatures have increased by more than twice the global average over the past 30 years, with the region showing the highest rate of increase of any continent on the globe."2022 was yet another year of climate extremes across Europe and globally," said deputy head of the Copernicus climate change service Samantha Burgess in a statement."These events highlight that we are already experiencing the devastating consequences of our warming world."Large swathes of the Middle East, China, central Asia and northern Africa also saw unprecedented warmth averaged across the whole of 2022.- 'No sign of slowing' –China and western Europe reported negative impacts on agriculture, river transport and energy management related to weather conditions.Earth's polar regions also experienced record temperatures last year as well.The remote Vostok station deep in the interior of East Antarctica reached a relatively balmy minus 17.7C, the warmest ever measured in its 65-year history.At the other end of the globe, Greenland experienced September temperatures 8C higher than average, accelerating ice sheet loss that has become a major contributor to sea level rise.The hottest years on record globally so far are -- in descending order -- 2016, 2020, 2019 and 2017, according to Copernicus.The atmospheric concentrations of the two main greenhouse gases that drive global warming -- carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) -- also continued a decades-long climb to record levels.CO2 levels rose to 417 parts per million -- the highest level in over two million years. Methane rose to 1,894 parts per billion to levels not seen in 800,000 years."Atmospheric concentrations are continuing to rise with no sign of slowing," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service.

India will demolish some buildings in a northern Himalayan town near its border with China after evacuating families in the past few days, an official said on Tuesday, as hundreds of homes have developed cracks in an area thronged by pilgrims.Experts and residents have long warned that large-scale construction in and around the town of Joshimath, including work for power projects by companies such as state-run NTPC , could lead to land subsidence.Nearly 700 houses in the town in the state of Uttarakhand have developed cracks and some 400 people have been moved to safer locations, authorities say."Six structures from across four wards have been found very unsafe," top district official Himanshu Khurana told Reuters. "We will demolish some unsafe buildings based on the recommendation and under the guidance of federal experts."Two buildings have already been scheduled for demolition, he said, but did not say when.Earlier, Khurana said work had been suspended on some border road projects as well as NTPC's Tapovan Vishnugad, a 520-megawatt hydropower plant.India's largest power producer, NTPC, says its tunnelling and other work cannot be blamed for the cracks in the town of about 17,000 people, which is a gateway to Hindu and Sikh shrines, besides drawing trekkers in parts of the Himalayas."There is no way the project is behind the subsistence," said a government official, adding that NTPC suspended tunnelling work in the area more than two years ago after a boring machine got stuck."Blasts in unavoidable circumstances had been carried out miles away from the population and the affected area," added the official, who sought anonymity in the absence of authorisation to speak to media.The tunnel concerned was a kilometre distant from the affected area and a kilometre underground, the official added.An NTPC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal that seeks damages for affected residents.Scientists' worry over the effect of climate change on the world's highest mountains was triggered after a 2021 flash flood in the district killed or left missing about 200 people, besides damaging two hydroelectric projects being built.One of them was the NTPC project.Joshimath resident Prakash Bhutiyal said cracks had developed in seven of the 11 rooms in a guesthouse he runs that also serves as his home.The family was waiting to be moved to a safer location, he added."Our family of nine has been forced to live in just one room," said the 50-year-old. "We have kept all our belongings in the open."

A World Health Organization committee will meet on January 27 to consider whether the Covid-19 pandemic still represents a global emergency, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, three years after it was first declared.WHO spokesperson Carla Drysdale confirmed the timing of the meeting at a Geneva press briefing. The Emergency Committee advises WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who makes the ultimate call on whether an outbreak represents a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern which is the U.N. agency's highest level of alert.Several leading scientists and WHO advisers say it may be too early to declare the end of the Covid-19 pandemic emergency phase because of high levels of infections in China which dismantled its zero-Covid policy last month.

China has told travel agencies in Japan that it has stopped issuing new visas for travel, three companies confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday, an apparent response to stricter measures for Chinese arrivals after their country freed up travel.Chinese authorities gave notice that they had stopped issuing all tourist and business visas to Japanese nationals, said an official of a Tokyo-based agency that focuses on Chinese travel, speaking on condition of anonymity.A spokesperson of China's embassy in Tokyo said it had no new information on visa policy, however, adding that any such updates would be posted on the embassy website.The move came soon after Japan toughened Covid-19 rules for travellers coming directly from China, prescribing a negative result of a PCR test taken less than 72 hours before departure, as well as a negative test on arrival in Japan.Earlier on Tuesday, China's embassy in Seoul said it had stopped issuing short-term visas for visitors from South Korea.

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it did not expect a surge of Covid-19 cases in China to "significantly impact" the situation in Europe."The ongoing surge in China is not anticipated to significantly impact the Covid-19 epidemiological situation in the WHO European Region at this time," Hans Kluge, WHO's Europe director, told a press conference.But, he stressed, "we cannot be complacent".China's hospitals have been overwhelmed by an explosion in cases since Beijing began unwinding hardline controls that had torpedoed the economy and sparked nationwide protests.The WHO's European region comprises 53 countries and includes Russia and countries in Central Asia.The regional director also said it was "not unreasonable for countries to take precautionary measures to protect their populations" but called for such measures "to be rooted in science, to be proportionate and non-discriminatory".More than a dozen countries have slapped fresh travel regulations on travellers from China.A group of European Union experts last week "strongly encouraged" the bloc's 27 member states to demand Covid tests from people on flights from China and conduct random tests on arrivals.Kluge also urged countries to step up surveillance efforts such as sequencing variants, noting that many had "greatly reduced" their capacities.

After months of anticipation and a blanket publicity blitz, Prince Harry's autobiography "Spare" went on sale Tuesday as royal insiders hit back at his scorching revelations.The royal family led by King Charles III and his heir, Harry's elder brother William, have maintained a studied silence as painful details from the book and a round of pre-publication TV interviews have piled up.But palace insiders quoted in the UK press said the Duke of Sussex had crossed a line in attacking Queen Consort Camilla, Charles' second wife following the death of Princess Diana, William and Harry's mother."It is impossible for him to return (to Britain) in these circumstances," an insider said, as other sources accused Harry of betraying both his father and brother.The book opens with an epigraph drawn from US author William Faulkner -- which Harry writes he found on the website BrainyQuote.com."The past is never dead. It's not even past," it says, setting the stage for 416 pages of ghost-written prose dominated by Harry's trauma over Diana's death, score-settling with his family and hatred of the British media.Some UK bookshops staged Harry Potter-style midnight openings for the biggest royal publication since the late princess of Wales collaborated with Andrew Morton for "Diana: Her True Story" in 1992.Staunch royalist Caroline Lennon, 59, was the only person in line outside another London bookshop before it opened on Tuesday -- outnumbered by a scrum of reporters."I love the royal family, all of them, but I like Harry too," the Londoner said."I don't like this war thing going on between them and I want to hear what he has to say."I also bought the audiobook so I will be able to listen to his voice," she added, as both the print and audio versions topped Amazon UK's sales chart.The contents of the memoir, which will be available in 16 languages as well as the audiobook, have already been widely leaked after copies mistakenly went on sale early in Spain.

South Korea posted the first current account deficit in three months in November of US $620 million, swinging back from a surplus of $880 million a month earlier, as exports sharply dwindled amid growing worries over a global economic recession.It marked the first deficit in three months and also represented a setback compared with the same month a year earlier when the country logged a surplus of $6.82 billion.During the January-November period, the country's cumulative current account surplus stood at $24.37 billion, sharply down from a surplus of $82.24 billion tallied in the same period a year before, data from the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed.The deficit came as exports dwindled amid growing worries over a recession prompted by aggressive monetary tightening in major countries and stringent coronavirus curbs in China, one of the country's largest markets.South Korea exported $52.32 billion worth of goods and services in November, down 12.3 percent from a year earlier. Semiconductor sales, among other things, fell 28.6 percent on-year in November, customs-cleared data showed.By destination, exports shipped to China plunged 25.5 percent on-year in November as Beijing's strict antivirus curbs hampered access to the world's most populous market.Imports, meanwhile, inched up 0.6 percent on-year to $53.88 billion in the month. This caused the goods balance to post a deficit of $1.57 billion in November, the second straight shortfall in the area. It also swung back from a surplus of $6.07 billion a year earlier.

The French government is set to announce its proposals for overhauling the pension system on Tuesday, in a potentially explosive reform fraught with danger for President Emmanuel Macron.With his oft-repeated belief that the French "need to work more", Macron has doggedly insisted since his rise to power in 2017 that the pension system must be streamlined.But having called off his first attempt in 2020 in the face of protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, the 45-year-old centrist put the issue at the heart of his successful campaign for a second term in April last year.As well as simplifying the system and removing privileges enjoyed by workers in some sectors of the economy, the reform will aim to raise the retirement age from its current level of 62 -- most likely to 64."On the whole, the idea of the reform is not supported by the public, even though some can understand that if we live for longer then we might need to work for longer," Bruno Cautres, a political expert at Sciences Po university in Paris, told AFP.All of France's trade unions and most of the country's opposition political parties are preparing for battle, seeing the struggle as a way of protecting the country's social system and undermining Macron's position.The former investment banker lost his parliamentary majority in legislative elections in June in a major setback.He has made pension reform one of the main planks of his plans for domestic reform during his second term."If Emmanuel Macron wants to make it the mother of reforms... for us it will be the mother of battles," warned the head of the hard-left FO union, Frederic Souillot, over the weekend.Street protests and strikes appear inevitable, with Macron's last attempt resulting in the longest public transport stoppage in Paris in three decades.Yellow Vests II?Of greater concern to the government is the risk of spontaneous protests of the sort seen in 2018 when people wearing fluorescent yellow safety jackets began blocking roads, sparking what became known as the "Yellow Vest" revolt.The often violent display of defiance struck fear into the heart of government, leading Macron to promise a gentler, less authoritarian style of governing."I don't see another 'Yellow Vest' crisis happening," Cautres told AFP, even though he said the national mood was one of "pessimism, fatalism and anger" and a sense that "we're permanently in crisis."Some in government are banking on the country acquiescing to a change that is widely disliked but viewed as inevitable, particularly given that most of France's neighbours have hiked the retirement age to 65 or beyond."There's a form of fatalism," an aide to Macron told AFP recently on condition of anonymity. "We're going to go through with it and people know it."The government has also watered down some of its proposals, with the retirement age likely to be 64 instead of the 65 proposed by Macron.There will also be a proposed rise in the minimum pension to 1,200 euros ($1,280) a month and greater provision for people who have not worked continuously, such as parents who took career breaks to care for children.'President of the rich'Critics see the changes as retrograde and unnecessary, even though official forecasts show the system in deep deficit in the coming decades because of the gradually ageing population."In 2023, will Emmanuel Macron be out of step with the era and shine as the president of the rich?" leftwing French economist and author Thomas Piketty asked in Le Monde newspaper on Sunday.He said the reform might save the state up to 20 billion euros a year, but "the problem is that these 20 billion will weigh down entirely on the poorest" by extending their working lives.As well as contending with strikes and protests, Macron's government will also need to cut a path through the stormy parliament where the ruling party and its allies are in a minority.Support for the legislation from the rightwing Republicans party is expected to be necessary.Without it, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne would have to use a constitutional power known as article 49.3 which enables her to ram through legislation without a vote.But such a move would almost certainly lead to a confidence vote, which, if all the opposition parties united, could bring down the government.Borne will unveil the outlines of the proposed law at 5:30 pm (1630 GMT) and will speak on French TV later in the evening.

Many Alpine ski resorts have closed or partially shut because of the lack of snow and high temperatures as Europe has seen what experts have said is "extreme" warm winter weather.Here is a look at the impacted regions.AustriaWhile the Alps have seen some snow starting to fall again, in Austria dozens of the country's hundreds of ski resorts have closed, and many others have had to reduce services as of the weekend.Bookings have been stable, according to Walter Veit, president of the Austrian Hotelier Association, which represents mostly high-end hotels, but may slump more than usual in January due to the warm weather.Resort operators say they have seen fewer day trippers, while some have reduced ski pass prices to make up for the closed slopes.FranceLess than half of all slopes were open as of last week, according to Domaines Skiables de France, a professional body which groups 250 ski lift operators across the country.Several winter sport events have also been cancelled, postponed or moved because abnormally warm temperatures have stripped mountain slopes of their snow covering.In the Alps, the Tignes resort has been forced to cancel the Andros Trophy, a car and motorbike race on ice, on January 13 and 14.In Contamines, further north along the Swiss border, the Telemark World Cup due to be held this month has been postponed to February.In Chatillon-de-Michaille, a dog sled race called the Retordica due to be held this weekend has been cancelled.ItalyIn central Italy, ski resorts have closed with tourist operators from affected regions appealing to the government to find a solution. They have called for help with ski instructors out of work and cancelled hotel reservations.SwitzerlandIn Switzerland, about half of ski stations had to close fully or partially, especially smaller ones at lower and medium altitudes, as of last week.Tourism officials said bookings in the mountains were the same as during the festive season last year, though day trips to the mountains were down eight percent.Turnover of ski lift companies dropped nine percent year-on-year because of the mild weather, according to the organisation which represents 350 of the 500 ski lift operators in Switzerland.

Brazilian security forces cleared protest camps yesterday and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned “acts of terrorism” after a far-right mob stormed the seat of power in the capital, in chaotic scenes that triggered global shock.Hundreds of soldiers and police mobilised to dismantle an improvised camp outside the army’s headquarters in Brasilia where some 3,000 supporters of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro had set up tents – used as a base for the sea of protesters who ran riot inside the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court for around four hours on Sunday.Pro-Bolsonaro truckers, who have caused havoc on Brazil’s highways for weeks, meanwhile held more protests through the night.A toll road operator for the BR 163 highway that cuts through Brazil’s top grain-producing state Mato Grosso reported several blockades that were cleared by dawn.Police said blockages on another highway in Parana state were also cleared.“There are still people trying to block roads and access to oil refineries,” presidential spokesman Paulo Pimenta told reporters.Lula, who took office on January 1 after a bitterly divisive election win over Bolsonaro, meanwhile returned to work in the pillaged presidential palace, where AFP reporters saw the wreckage that remained of the previous day’s havoc: trashed artwork and offices, shattered windows and doors, broken glass strewn across the floor, and puddles of water left by the sprinkler system after rioters set fire to a rug.Lula, the 77-year-old veteran leftist who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, joined the leaders of both houses of Congress and the chief justice of the Supreme Court in condemning what many called the South American country’s version of the Capitol riots in Washington two years ago.“The three powers of the republic, the defenders of democracy and the constitution, reject the terrorist acts and criminal, coup-mongering vandalism that occurred,” they said in a joint statement.Large contingents of riot police meanwhile deployed to lock down the capital’s Three Powers Square, home to the iconic modernist buildings that serve as the headquarters of the three branches of government.Around 1,500 people were arrested at the pro-Bolsonaro protest camp, officials said.Many Brasilia residents were still in shock as they returned to their normal workday routines.“People have the right to express their opinions, but not destroy our national heritage,” 43-year-old resident Ionar Bispo told AFP.Condemnation continued to pour in from around the world, with Pope Francis criticising the unrest as a sign of “weakening of democracy” in the Americas.In a joint statement ahead of summit talks in Mexico City, US President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the attacks and said they “stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions”.Many drew the inevitable comparison to January 6, 2021, when supporters of then-US president Donald Trump invaded the Capitol in a violent, failed bid to stop Congress from certifying his election loss.Spain’s foreign minister said the attacks in Brasilia bore “traces of Trumpism”, and echoed condemnation from the United Nations and European Union.In a rare moment of unity with Western powers, Russia joined in, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters: “We condemn in the strongest terms the actions of the instigators of the riots.”Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for the US state of Florida – where Trump resides – on the second-to-last day of his term, condemned “pillaging and invasions of public buildings” in a tweet on Sunday night.However, the politician dubbed the “Tropical Trump” rejected Lula’s claim he incited the attacks, and defended the right to “peaceful protests”.Bolsonaro was later reportedly admitted to a hospital in Florida yesterday, a source close to his family said, adding that his condition was “not worrying”.Lula, who was in the southeastern city of Araraquara visiting a flood-hit region when the riot started, signed a decree declaring a federal intervention in Brasilia, giving his government special powers over the local police force to restore law and order in the capital.His government vowed to find and arrest those who planned and financed the attacks.As the violence unfolded, Brasilia Governor Ibaneis Rocha fired the capital’s public security chief, Anderson Torres, who previously served as Bolsonaro’s justice minister.Rocha was in turn suspended from his post for 90 days by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.The attorney-general’s office said it had asked the Supreme Court to issue arrest warrants for Torres “and all other public officials responsible for acts and omissions” leading to the unrest.It also asked the high court to authorise the use of “all public security forces” to take back federal buildings and disperse anti-government protests nationwide.Hardline Bolsonaro supporters have been protesting outside army bases calling for a military intervention to stop Lula from taking power since his election win.Lula narrowly won the October 30 run-off election by a score of 50.9% to 49.1%.Bolsonaro has alleged he is the victim of a conspiracy against him by Brazil’s courts and electoral authorities.

An old Bollywood film song playing on loop exhorted travellers to keep walking as opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and an entourage marched through northern India’s Panipat city on a frigid morning last week, trailed by hundreds of people.Gandhi began walking the length of the country over 100 days ago from India’s southern tip, hoping to repair the battered image of his Congress party and take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Stopping to greet onlookers and holding public meetings, Gandhi plans to round off his march in northernmost Kashmir by January end.“Long live Rahul Gandhi,” Congress supporters shouted, as the scion of a dynasty that has given India three prime ministers marched through Panipat on his Bharat Jodo Yatra, or Unite India March.The 52-year-old with a thick salt-and-pepper beard, walks about 25km (15 miles) per day, stopping for the night in a trailer van that moves with him.Gandhi’s gruelling march that will cover about 3,500km (2,200 miles) is a throwback to the padayatras or foot journeys through the rural heartland by past leaders, including independence hero Mahatma Gandhi nearly a century ago.The two Gandhis are not related.This modern version of the march gives hundreds of thousands of people face time with a leader who has seemed distant and aloof in the past.Congress is hoping that the crowds Gandhi is attracting will translate into votes.“Now that he has hit the streets, people can see who he is,” said Dharamvir Arya, a 55-year-old farmer who had come to see Gandhi in Panipat. “If he remains in a bungalow, hidden, how will people know what he is like?”Polling agency CVoter, which has tracked Gandhi’s approval ratings in nine states – four of which will hold local elections this year – as part of nationwide monthly surveys of 30,000 respondents, found the Congress leader’s popularity has risen markedly in most states through which he has marched.In the southern state of Karnataka, which holds elections this summer, the percentage of respondents satisfied with Gandhi has jumped from 39% in January 2022 to nearly 58% immediately after the march passed through.The once-dominant Congress controls less than 10% of the elected seats in parliament’s lower house and has been decimated in two successive general elections by the BJP, most recently in 2019 under Gandhi’s leadership.Modi remains India’s most popular politician by a substantial margin and is expected to win a third victory in 2024.More than 60% of respondents across the country prefer Modi as prime minister to 30.3% choosing Gandhi, according to CVoter.Analysts say Gandhi’s public image is improving but it may not be enough for the flagging Congress to immediately convert that into electoral success.“To invest in Rahul Gandhi’s personal popularity is actually a fairly astute move,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research think tank in New Delhi.“Does it yield electoral dividends? That, I think, is unlikely,” Sircar said, pointing to the BJP’s superior organisational abilities and formidable election machinery.Gandhi declined interview requests from Reuters.Digvijay Singh, a senior Congress leader, admitted that the party had ceded space as an effective opposition, a function Gandhi’s march was now fulfilling.“It is important, it is crucial,” Singh told Reuters.Long seen by critics as a reluctant politician without the earthy skills to take on Modi, Gandhi’s cross-country march has also provided him a platform to hold the BJP to account on issues like communal polarisation brought by its muscular Hindu nationalist agenda, unemployment and inflation.“The aim is to stand up against the fear, hatred and violence that is being spread in the country,” Gandhi told reporters late last month. “I think the march has been quite successful till now, and it has achieved more than we expected.”

China successfully sent three new satellites into space from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan on Monday.The satellites, Shijian-23, Shiyan-22A and Shiyan-22B, were launched aboard a modified version of the Long March-7 carrier rocket and entered their planned orbits successfully, according to China's Xinhua News Agency.The Shijian-23 satellite is mainly used for scientific experiments and technical verification, while the Shiyan-22A and Shiyan-22B satellites serve the in-orbit verification tests of new technologies such as space environment monitoring.The launch was the 459th flight mission of the Long March carrier rocket series.