Ukraine war: Zelensky tells Russians - Putin is destroying you - BBC

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By Robert Greenall

BBC News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told Russians that their leader is destroying their country.

Speaking after Vladimir Putin delivered a New Year addressflanked by people in military uniform, Mr Zelensky said the Russian president was hiding behind his troops, not leading them.

Saturday saw a day of deadly strikes across Ukraine, and Zelensky said Ukrainians would not forgive Russia.

At least one person died and dozens were injured in the attacks.

There were further missile strikes on Kyiv just hours into the new year on Sunday, officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The head of Ukraine's armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhny, said air defences had shot down 12 of 20 Russian cruise missiles on Saturday.

• Battlefield is deadlocked, Ukraine spy chief tells BBC

• Five ways Ukraine war could go in 2023

The attacks happened two days after one of the largest air strikes since the start of the war. Dozens of attacks in recent weeks have caused repeated power cuts.

Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, but Mr Putin has recently admitted hitting critical energy facilities.

In an address on his Telegram channel, Mr Zelensky said those who carried out Saturday's attacks were inhuman.

Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, he then attacked Mr Putin.

"Your leader wants to show you that he's leading from the front, and his military is behind him," he said.

"But in fact he is hiding. He's hiding behind his military, his missiles, the walls of his residences and palaces.

"He's hiding behind you, and he's burning your country and your future. No-one will forgive you for terror. No-one in the world will forgive you for that. Ukraine will not forgive."

Mr Zelensky later gave a new year's address to the Ukrainian people, thanking them for their "incredible" efforts in repelling Russian advances.

"We fight as one team - the whole country, all our regions. I admire you all. I want to thank every invincible region of Ukraine," he said.

Mr Putin also issued a new year address which was broadcast for each of Russia's 11 time zones as they saw in 2023.

The Russian leader tried to rally people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine, saying the country's future was at stake.

Reuters

In combative mood, Mr Putin said: "We always knew, and today it is confirmed to us yet again, that a sovereign, independent and secure future for Russia depends only on us, on our strength and will."

He presented the invasion of Ukraine's sovereign territory as "defending our people and our historical lands" and said "moral, historical rightness is on our side".

Mr Putin also accused the West of "provoking" Moscow to launch its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

"The West lied about peace. It was preparing for aggression... and now they are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia," he said.

Ukraine and the West reject Russia's claims about the start of the aggression.

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2023-01-01 02:37:01Z
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Former Pope Benedict XVI dies at 95 - BBC

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By Paul Kirby and Emily McGarvey

BBC News in London

Former Pope Benedict XVI has died at his Vatican residence, aged 95, almost a decade after he stood down because of ailing health.

He led the Catholic Church for less than eight years until, in 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.

Benedict spent his final years at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery within the walls of the Vatican.

His successor Pope Francis said he had visited him there frequently.

The Vatican said in a statement: "With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.

"Further information will be provided as soon as possible."

The Vatican said the body of the Pope Emeritus will be placed in St Peter's Basilica from 2 January for "the greeting of the faithful".

Plans for Pope Benedict's funeral will be announced in the next few hours, the Vatican said.

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The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, said Pope Benedict was "one of the great theologians of the 20th century".

In a statement he said: "I remember with particular affection the remarkable Papal Visit to these lands in 2010. We saw his courtesy, his gentleness, the perceptiveness of his mind and the openness of his welcome to everybody that he met."

"He was through and through a gentleman, through and through a scholar, through and through a pastor, through and through a man of God - close to the Lord and always his humble servant."

Although the former pontiff had been ill for some time, Vatican authorities said there had been an aggravation in his condition because of advancing age.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis appealed to his final audience of the year at the Vatican to "pray a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict", whom he said was very ill.

Born Joseph Ratzinger in Germany, Benedict was 78 when in 2005 he became one of the oldest popes ever elected.

For much of his papacy, the Catholic Church faced allegations, legal claims and official reports into decades of child abuse by priests.

Earlier this year the former Pope acknowledged that errors had been made in the handling of abuse cases while he was archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982.

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2022-12-31 09:39:14Z
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Covid: England to require negative test for arrivals from China - BBC

Reuters

Passengers arriving in England from China will have to provide a negative Covid test before they board a flight, ministers have confirmed.

It comes as several nations announced they would be screening travellers from China after cases surged following Beijing's decision to relax its zero-Covid policy.

China has said it will fully reopen its borders on 8 January.

Several countries, including the US, France and India, have imposed testing.

The Department of Health and Social Care said people travelling from China on direct flights from 5 January will be asked to take a pre-departure Covid test.

From 8 January, the UK Health Security Agency will also launch surveillance, which will see a sample of passengers arriving from China tested for the virus as they arrive.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the government was taking a "balanced and precautionary approach", adding the measures were "temporary" as officials assess the latest Covid data.

The testing requirement only applies to people flying to English airports, with the government saying that while there are no direct flights from China to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, it is working with the devolved administrations to ensure the policy is applied UK-wide.

• China must share Covid data, says WHO
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• Reality Check: Do restrictions on travel work against Covid?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on Beijing to share "real-time" information on Covid - including on deaths, hospitalisations and vaccinations.

The UN body said it was willing to offer support on data-sharing, adding that it was "understandable" that some countries were now imposing fresh restrictions.

China's foreign ministry said earlier this week that its "epidemic situation" overall was "predictable and under control".

The Chinese government is reporting about 5,000 cases a day, but analysts say such numbers are vastly undercounted - and the daily caseload may be closer to one million.

The true toll of daily cases and deaths in China is unknown as officials have stopped requiring cases to be reported, and changed classifications for Covid deaths.

The UK government said its decision was due to a "lack of comprehensive health information shared by China".

Spain, Israel and South Korea also announced on Friday that they will introduce testing requirements in response to the increasing number of infections in China.

Some scientists have questioned the approach of the UK and US - saying it is better to screen people once they have arrived. Italy and Spain have introduced post-arrival testing.

But not all countries have announced additional controls. Germany has joined Australia and Portugal in saying there will be no new rules yet.

Concerns over impact of testing

Prof Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the restrictions are unlikely to prevent new Covid variants reaching the UK and it was difficult to know what impact such a move would have here.

He told BBC News: "Trying to ban a virus by adjusting what we do with travel has already been shown not to work very well.

"We've seen that with the bans on travel from various countries during the pandemic, that hasn't stopped those viruses travelling around the world eventually."

But there is concern that more infections can provide more opportunities for the virus to mutate.

Countries that plan to test travellers say the policy will help spot worrying new variants early and prevent an influx of cases.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said testing visitors from China, Hong Kong and Macau was needed "to help slow the spread of the virus as we work to identify... any potential new variants that may emerge".

The government had also come under pressure from Conservative MPs who want a more robust response.

The new requirement for travellers from China to provide negative tests was welcomed by Tory MP Steve Brine, chairman of the Commons health and social care committee.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the move would reduce the number of passengers with infections, and help to identify new variants of the disease.

But he said the policy was not about trying to "ban a virus" - adding that ministers were not trying to repeat the "Beijing folly of an unattainable zero-Covid policy".

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2022-12-31 07:16:32Z
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'Strong possibility' Ukraine retakes all territory by end of 2023 - apart from Crimea - Sky News

Ukraine has a good chance to liberate all its territory - apart from Crimea - by the end of 2023, a military expert says.

Cities like Severodonetsk, Melitopol and even Mariupol could be liberated if Volodymyr Zelenskyy's forces keep up their counteroffensive success, according to former military intelligence officer Philip Ingram.

As we approach the end of a year that has seen Vladimir Putin's Russia invade its neighbour, causing untold destruction and bringing about the unprecedented return of war in Europe, Sky News looks at what could happen in Ukraine in 2023.

In the months since the February 24 invasion that saw Kremlin forces come within striking distance of Kyiv, Ukrainian defenders have reclaimed more than half of the land captured by Russia since the beginning of the war.

President Zelenskyy has insisted that his troops will eventually liberate all its territory, including areas in the Donbas and Crimea that have been occupied since 2014.

While experts remain split on whether that will ultimately be possible, Ukraine's forces have demonstrated their mettle and determination again and again on the battlefield.

The early days of the war saw the historic defence of the port city of Mariupol, in which a small band of troops held out for 82 days against appalling odds - buying crucial time for defence forces elsewhere to regroup and obtain Western weapons.

More on Ukraine

Related Topics:

More recently, stunning counterattacks in the east and south have sent Russian forces retreating from Kharkiv and Kherson.

Read more:
People 'risk freezing to death' amid attacks on power grid
Putin could use peace talks 'as excuse to rearm'

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So what could happen next year?

Former intelligence officer Mr Ingram says it could all depend on what Ukraine does in the next few weeks as it seeks to advance again.

He told Sky News: "If their next counteroffensive is as successful as the two they have done already - and I see no reason why it shouldn't be - there's definitely a strong possibility that they have recaptured all the territory in mainland Ukraine by the end of the year.

"So I think 2023 will be a year of further Ukrainian counteroffensives and successes.

"I think at that point we will be discussing the potential of operations to recapture Crimea."

Mr Ingram said further Ukrainian successes would lead to an increase in dissent within Russia, perhaps putting the rule of President Putin at risk.

He said the recapture of Mariupol in particular would have a huge psychological impact.

However not all experts agree on this future for Ukraine over the next 12 months.

Image: The attack on the Kerch Bridge at Crimea was a major event in the war. Pic: AP

Supplies of Western weapons 'not a bottomless pit'

Retired Air Vice-Marshal Sean Bell argued that the West can only support Ukraine for so long, as weapons supplies dwindle and the resolve of some countries perhaps weakens amid high energy prices at home.

"When you look at the scale of the weapons that have been provided, there's not a bottomless pit," he told Sky News.

"It's very difficult militarily to see the West being able to sustain Ukraine for more than a year."

He said that while President Zelenskyy is publicly calling for the return of all territory, behind closed doors he may be talking "pragmatically" about the future.

"I think that's where you have great statesmanship, because if winning is about securing more territory then, yes, Putin's won.

"If Putin strategic aims are actually to halt the expansion of NATO, that has failed.

"If its aim is to restore Russia's greatness, that has failed. If it's to create a more powerful economy, that has failed.

"So depending on what metric we choose from a grand strategic perspective, it's very difficult to see this invasion being anything other than abject failure."

He said it could well be that a peace is ultimately brokered where President Zelenskyy blames the West for forcing his hand but privately accepts that it is the only way to stop further loss of life.

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2022-12-31 04:25:20Z
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Sunak demands negative Covid tests for all travellers from China - The Times

Rishi Sunak has ordered mandatory Covid tests for all travellers from China because of fears that Beijing cannot be trusted to reveal the full truth about its surging infections.

The prime minister stepped in amid frustration that the lack of reliable data was hampering efforts to track potential new and dangerous variants.

The Department of Health said that anyone on direct flights from China on or after January 5 will be asked to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test. From January 8 the UK Health Security Agency will sample test Chinese passengers.

Ministers including Mark Harper, the transport secretary, who led opposition to Covid restrictions from the back benches, had questioned the approach because scientists said that there was no evidence it would stop the spread

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2022-12-31 00:00:00Z
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The long journey to getting Trump's taxes released - BBC

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By Kayla Epstein

BBC News, New York

Former President Donald Trump's tax returns have been released, ending a bitter six-year long battle to gain greater insights into his finances.

The returns stretch from 2015 through 2020, covering Mr Trump's candidacy and time in the White House.

They give details of various entities through which he would have paid tax, including holdings companies and personal income.

The BBC is reviewing the documents.

Responding to Friday's release of thousands of pages of tax returns, Mr Trump's camp warned that the disclosure will lead to the US political divide becoming "far worse".

"The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it's going to lead to horrible things for so many people," his statement said.

Ever since his entry into politics, critics have been keen to get Mr Trump - whose foundational pitch to voters had been that his business success made him the best choice to run the country - to show what his wealth actually looked like.

He had steadfastly refused.

Democrats who control the House of Representatives and oversaw the release argued that it was a necessary act of oversight.

Representative Don Beyer, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee which released the documents, said on Friday that Mr Trump "abused the power of his office to block basic transparency on his finances and conflicts of interest which no president since Nixon has foregone."

The committee also found that the Internal Revenue Service - the US federal entity charged with tax collection - failed to audit Mr Trump during his first two years in office, and only began doing so after congressional oversight proceedings were started in 2019.

Here's what it took to get to the disclosures made public.

Trump defies tradition

For decades, presidential candidates and officeholders have released their tax returns to the public in the interest of transparency and accountability.

The longstanding tradition is "mainly about trying to ensure the public that the president is operating free of conflicts and entanglements, and taxes are sort of the window into the financial soul of someone," said Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

But Mr Trump "crashed all the norms," Mr Rosenthal said, by refusing to release his tax returns as a candidate when he ran for office in the 2016 presidential election.

His fierce insistence on the matter invited scrutiny and speculation among critics that he had something to hide - could it be that Mr Trump was not as rich as he claimed, some asked, or that he had paid less tax than he should?

Supporters, meanwhile, backed his right to his privacy. After all, there is no legal requirement for a candidate to release their tax returns.

New York Times investigations

But over the course of his presidency and afterward, the public has gradually come to gain some insight into Mr Trump's personal tax history.

A great deal of those revelations come from an investigation published by the New York Times in 2020, which obtained two decades of Mr Trump's tax returns from before his time in office. The documents gave unprecedented insight into Mr Trump's businesses.

They revealed he paid little to no federal income taxes over that period, and that Mr Trump had reported in his tax filings that his businesses lost significant amounts of money - despite his public boasts of financial success. In 2017, the Times reported, Trump paid just $750 (£623) in federal income tax despite being a billionaire.

The New York Times reporting "calls into question whether he's a billionaire, or is there some trick he uses to avoid pay taxes, legal or not," Mr Rosenthal said.

Reuters

Taking the fight to the Supreme Court

Meanwhile, in Washington, Democrats began using their powers to conduct oversight of Mr Trump once they gained control of the House of Representatives in early 2019.

The Ways and Means Committee fought for three years to obtain Mr Trump's tax returns.

The fight went all the way to the US Supreme Court this year, and in November, the justices refused to block the release of Mr Trump's tax returns to the committee, thereby paving the way for their release.

On 21 December, the committee voted to release the tax returns they had obtained to the public, with the vote splitting along party lines.

• Trump tax returns will be made public, panel votes
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• Trump business losses sharply reduced his tax bill

Friday's release of the tax documents come mere days before Republicans are set to take over control of the House of Representatives, potentially signalling the end of any continued pursuit of looking into Mr Trump's finances for the foreseeable future.

It is possible that the US Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, could continue investigations.

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2022-12-30 23:59:09Z
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Covid: Why are some places testing Chinese arrivals? - BBC

AFP via Getty Images

By Fergus Walsh

Medical editor

When a country of 1.4 billion people suddenly ended its zero-Covid policy after nearly three years, there was little doubt what would happen.

Poor immunisation levels and little natural immunity meant an explosion of cases - just as China is about to lift restrictions on its citizens travelling abroad.

So now, some countries - wary of an influx of cases - are imposing Covid testing, and possible quarantine, on visitors from China.

The Covid wave hitting China is not due to some radical new variant, but Omicron in its different forms.

BF.7 and BQ.1 are both sub-lineages of BA.5, which itself is part of the Omicron "family" - more contagious, more infectious than any previous Covid strain.

But these Omicron sub-variants have all been widely detected outside China - including in the UK.

Omicron has been the dominant global variant for more than a year, but that does not exclude the possibility that a new variant of concern will emerge in future.

A key reason that many countries are imposing Covid checks on travellers from China is the lack of surveillance data coming out of the country. The more Covid that is circulating, the more chance there is for the virus to mutate.

But new variants can pop up anywhere - the UK, Brazil, South Africa and India have all been the likely origins of previous variants of concern.

So will the new Covid test restrictions make any difference?

Several countries are asking travellers from China to produce a negative Covid test in order to gain entry.

The US said this would "slow the spread" of the virus, while scientists worked to identify any potential variants that may emerge. But no-one is suggesting that this will stop Covid cases coming in.

Italy has gone further, and is imposing mandatory post-arrival PCR tests on travellers from China. Those that test positive will need to quarantine for several days.

This has the advantage of enabling genomic sequencing of the virus, and so aids the search for new variants. But it will also add to airport congestion.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that those travellers from China who have tested positive so far are carriers of "Omicron variants already present in Italy". Italy wants an EU-wide approach on the issue - but the EU's disease agency says, for many reasons, that is "unjustified".

In the UK, there is plenty of Covid about. Probably well over a million people a week are getting infected, either at work, home or socialising - in other words anywhere people gather. The latest ONS survey estimated that around 1 in 45 people had the virus earlier this month.

But most of the UK population is very well protected from severe illness, via a combination of vaccines and repeated natural infection.

That means Covid - while still a potential danger here - is no longer the threat it once was.

More on Covid in China

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• How many Covid cases are there in China?
• 'Everyone I know is getting a fever' - Covid hits China

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2022-12-29 22:42:49Z
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Andrew Tate detained in Romania over human trafficking case - BBC

Reuters

By George Wright

BBC News

Controversial online influencer Andrew Tate has reportedly been detained in Romania as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation.

Mr Tate - who was detained alongside his brother Tristan - had his house raided in the capital, Bucharest.

A lawyer for the brothers confirmed their detention, Reuters said.

The former kickboxer rose to fame in 2016 when he was removed from British TV show Big Brother over a video which appeared to show him attacking a woman.

He went on to gain notoriety online, with Twitter banning him for saying women should "bear responsibility" for being sexually assaulted. He has since been reinstated.

"The four suspects ... appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialised websites for a cost," prosecutors said, according to the Reuters news agency.

The brothers have been under investigation since April alongside two Romanian nationals.

Video circulated widely on social media appears to show Mr Tate and his brother being led away from a luxury villa.

Romania's Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) issued a statement, but did not name the Tate brothers, stating that two British citizens and two Romanian citizens were suspected of being part of a criminal group focused on human trafficking.

It also released a video of the raid, showing guns, knives, and money on display in one room.

Mr Tate moved to Romania five years ago.

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Prior to gaining worldwide notoriety, Mr Tate - a British citizen who was born in the US - fought professionally as a kickboxer and won world titles.

In 2016, he entered the Big Brother house but was soon removed after a video was circulated, which appeared to show him hitting a woman with a belt.

At the time of his expulsion from the show, Mr Tate said the video had been edited, calling it "a total lie trying to make me look bad".

He went on to gain notoriety online, with Twitter banning him for saying women should "bear responsibility" for being sexually assaulted.

Mr Tate has been banned from other social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, with TikTok also removing him, saying "misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated".

His posts on other online sites promote misogyny and target women and have millions of views, with the BBC's disinformation and social media correspondent Marianna Spring saying earlier this year his content had "raised concerns about the real-world effect it could have".

Alongside former US president Donald Trump, he has recently been allowed back onto Twitter following Elon Musk's takeover.

On Wednesday, Mr Tate became embroiled in a war of words on Twitter with climate activist Greta Thunberg.

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2022-12-30 02:23:12Z
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Covid in China: Checks on visitors under review - UK defence minister - BBC

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By Nathan Williams

BBC News

The UK government is reviewing whether to introduce Covid restrictions on visitors from China, the defence secretary has said.

Ben Wallace said the Department for Transport would take medical advice and talk to the Department of Health.

Earlier, an ex-health minister urged the government to consider testing arrivals from China for Covid.

A number of countries are introducing mandatory testing in response to China's coronavirus surge.

Asked whether the government would consider restrictions, Mr Wallace said: "The government is looking at that, it's under review, we noticed obviously what the US has done and India and I think Italy has looked at it."

"We keep under review all the time, obviously, health threats to the UK, wherever they may be."

• UK Covid modelling data to stop being published

• Covid-19 in the UK

Several countries - including the US, Japan and Italy - are now enforcing testing on visitors from China.

This follows a surge in cases in China after Beijing's decision to effectively end its zero-Covid policy.

UK Health Minister Will Quince said he knew that many people would be concerned "about the news coming out of China" and the government was taking the situation "incredibly seriously".

However, there was "no evidence at this point of a new variant from China", which he said would be the "key threat".

"At the moment the variant that is in China currently is already prevalent here in the UK."

Meanwhile, the Scottish government said it currently has no plans to change travel requirements, and would continue to work with the UK Health Security Agency and other countries to "monitor the spread of harmful variants".

There are concerns that a new variant may emerge in China and that international travel could quickly spread it.

When there is lots of virus circulating in any population, there will be opportunities for it to change or mutate in potentially harmful ways.

Covid is circulating in lots of countries around the world.

According to latest estimates for the UK, one in every 45 people in Britain is infected.

Vaccines are saving lives but they can't stop infections. Instead, experts are tracking the virus and seeing if the vaccines need updating to be a better match for any significant new mutations.

So far, science is keeping up with the virus and there are no particularly worrying new variants.

Lord Bethell, who was health minister during the pandemic, told the BBC there was a good reason to look at testing people when they land, a policy Italy has adopted.

"What the Italians are doing is post-flight surveillance of arrivals in Italy, in order to understand whether there are any emerging variants and to understand the impact of the virus on the Italian health system," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"That is a sensible thing to do and something the British government should be seriously looking at."

• Chinese rush to book travel as Covid rules lifted
• China's hospitals seem to be filling up - WHO

China is reporting about 5,000 cases a day, but analysts say such numbers are vastly undercounted - and the daily caseload may be closer to one million.

Prof Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said he did not think the current situation in China was likely to generate many more Covid cases in the UK or generally across the globe.

While China was in a "dark" and "difficult" place, the current evidence suggested the particular variant causing most infections in the country was "very common elsewhere in the world", he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme on Wednesday. The UK has seen many such cases since it appeared in the summer, he added.

On Wednesday, the US said a lack of "adequate and transparent" Covid data in China had contributed to the decision to require Covid tests from 5 January for travellers entering the country from China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Others have also announced restrictions:

• In Japan, from Friday, travellers from China will be tested for Covid on arrival. Those who test positive will have to quarantine for up to seven days
• In India, people travelling from China and four other Asian countries must produce a negative Covid test before arriving. Positive passengers will also be put in quarantine
• Taiwan says people arriving on flights from China, as well as by boat at two islands, will have to take Covid tests on arrival throughout January. Those who test positive can isolate at home
• Malaysia has put additional tracking and surveillance measures in place
• Italy has also imposed mandatory Covid testing on travellers from China

On Thursday, Italy urged the rest of the EU to follow its lead and ensure Chinese arrivals were tested. However, the EU's disease agency said the surge in cases in China was not expected to impact members states and said screening travellers from China for Covid would be "unjustified".

Beijing's foreign ministry has said coronavirus rules should only be put in place on a "scientific" basis and accused Western countries and media of "hyping up" the situation.

China only announced on Monday its decision to end quarantine for arrivals - effectively reopening travel in and out of the country for the first time since March 2020.

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2022-12-29 17:40:40Z
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