Rihanna tweets support for Indian farmers protesting in New Delhi over new agriculture laws - Sky News

Rihanna has shown her support for Indian farmers protesting in New Delhi over new agriculture laws they say will destroy their livelihoods.

The pop star - who has 101m followers on Twitter - shared a CNN article about the protests on the social media site, with the message: "Why aren't we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest".

Her post took the farmer's fight global and has been liked more than half a million times in less than 24 hours.

Following Rihanna's tweet, other high-profile names including teenage activist Greta Thunberg, US Vice President Kamala Harris's niece Meena Harris and Lebanese-American model Mia Khalifa showed their solidarity with the farmers.

Thunberg shared the same article, writing: "We stand in solidarity with the #FarmersProtest in India."

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Harris, a lawyer and author, wrote: "It's no coincidence that the world's oldest democracy was attacked not even a month ago, and as we speak, the most populous democracy is under assault. This is related. We ALL should be outraged by India's internet shutdowns and paramilitary violence against farmer protesters."

Khalifa shared a photo of protesters, writing: ""Paid actors," huh? Quite the casting director, I hope they're not overlooked during awards season. I stand with the farmers. #FarmersProtest."

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The international organisation Human Rights Watch has also been highlighting the farmers' plight.

In response to criticism, India's external affairs ministry says the new legislation has followed full debate and discussion.

It also put out a statement that appeared to refer directly to Rihanna's tweet, saying: "The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible."

Image: Farmers say the laws make them vulnerable to exploitation by private companies

Tens of thousands of farmers have been living in makeshift campsites on the outskirts of New Delhi for several months and say they will remain in place until the new laws are repealed.

Demonstrators say the new laws around the sale, pricing and storage of produce will turn agriculture corporate, and make them vulnerable to exploitation by private companies.

Image: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi insists the changes will modernise Indian farming

However, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi says the changes are necessary to modernise Indian farming.

Clashes between the protesters and government forces last week left one protester dead and nearly 400 police officers injured.

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In response, authorities - who are notoriously sensitive to any form of public criticism - suspended internet access to several areas around the capital and have previously blocked the Twitter accounts of farmers' leaders and activists.

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2021-02-03 11:26:47Z
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Myanmar fitness instructor accidentally captures coup unfolding - BBC News - BBC News

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1. Myanmar fitness instructor accidentally captures coup unfolding - BBC News  BBC News
2. 'I fear we have seen the last free and fair election in Myanmar'  Telegraph.co.uk
3. Medics in Myanmar on strike against military amid COVID-19 crisis  Al Jazeera English
4. Myanmar coup and Aung San Suu Kyi's arrest presaged by world ignoring Rohingya genocide  NBC News
5. The World Waits for No Man—Not Even the President of the United States | Opinion  Newsweek
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2021-02-03 15:00:56Z
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Why a politician from 150 years ago is key to Trump's impeachment trial | ITV News - ITV News

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1. Why a politician from 150 years ago is key to Trump's impeachment trial | ITV News  ITV News
2. Impeachment trial: Trump lawyers claim 'fight like hell' speech didn't incite riot  The Guardian
3. Biden news – live: President reverses Trump immigration policies as impeachment case is set out  The Independent
4. Trump’s Senate impeachment trial won’t be a waste of time  The Washington Post
5. Trump’s second impeachment succeeded. But a Senate trial could backfire.  Washington Post
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2021-02-03 11:08:00Z
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Aung San Suu Kyi: Ousted Myanmar leader charged and remanded in detention - Sky News

Police in Myanmar have filed a charge against ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been remanded in detention until 15 February.

Ms Suu Kyi, who was detained on Monday as Myanmar's military staged a coup, is charged with breaching the country's import and export laws.

A police document states that four illegally imported handheld radios were discovered during a search of Ms Suu Kyi's home in the capital Naypyidaw, Reuters news agency reports.

It adds that as well as being imported illegally, the walkie-talkies had been used without permission.

Listing the reasons for detaining the 75-year-old Nobel laureate, the document said police planned "to question witnesses, request evidence and seek legal counsel after questioning the defendant".

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Police have also filed charges against ousted President Win Myint, according to a separate document which says the offences come under the country's Disaster Management Law.

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Pans were bashed and car horns sounded in a protests against the military coup

Myanmar's military maintains the coup is in response to "election fraud" from last November's ballot, despite pleas across the country to respect the result.

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Staff at 70 hospitals and medical departments in 30 towns have joined forces to strike and create the Myanmar Civil Disobedience Movement, rejecting the action.

It says the army has put its own interests above a vulnerable population during the coronavirus pandemic which has killed more than 3,100 people.

"We refuse to obey any order from the illegitimate military regime who demonstrated they do not have any regards for our poor patients," the group said.

International response has also seen widespread condemnation, with the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, and the High Representative of the European Union releasing a joint statement demanding the military "immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law".

US President Joe Biden has gone further to threaten fresh sanctions after they were removed in the last decade because of progress towards democracy.

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In the country's biggest city, Yangon, citizens banged pots and honked car horns in a campaign of civil disobedience

Boris Johnson summoned Myanmar's ambassador in London and has insisted the election result "must be respected and civilian leaders released".

Hundreds of members of parliament are currently confined inside their government housing in Naypyidaw, while power has been handed to military chief Min Aung Hlaing.

The military says it will impose a state of emergency for one year - a move of unrest that the UN fears will worsen the plight of some 600,000 Rohingya Muslims still in the country.

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2021-02-03 10:37:56Z
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'Time for Italexit!' EU backlash as chief europhile parachuted in to lead Italy - Daily Express

Brexit: Paragone says ‘big lies’ are told about UK in Italy

Mr Paragone lashed out at calls for Mario Draghi to take the lead in an emergency technocratic government after Giuseppe Conte failed to secure a new majority. Italian President Sergio Mattarella has summoned former European Central Bank chief Mr Draghi for talks today and looks certain to ask him to form a government of national unity to tackle the coronavirus and economic crises.

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He will need the backing of MPs in Parliament should he accept to take the lead.

Reacting to the news, Italexit founder and senator Mr Paragone raged as he called on his colleagues in both houses to reject the proposal.

Speaking in a live video on Tuesday evening to his supporters, he blasted: "We will say no. This is the time to say Italexit.

"This is the moment we have to participate in the great Italexit project.

"Today we will start building something important.

Italy news: Italexit leader Gianluigi Paragone says he will not support Mario Draghi (Image: GETTY)

Italexit leader says this is the time for Italy to leave the EU (Image: GIANLUIGI PARAGONE)

"Today you will finally understand, as it happened with Monti.

"Here and now is the moment to be courageous. Let's see who will back this Mario Draghi government, put together in the name of the emergency.

"I have already seen too many of these emergency governments and we saw how it ended.

"We saw that the final bill of the crisis landed on poor people's tables."

When asked about a possible government led by the former European Central Bank chief, the leader of the centre-right League party Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday the name of Italy's prime minister doesn't matter, but their plans do.

READ MORE: Eurozone meltdown: Record slump of almost seven percent

Italy news: Mario Draghi with Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Christine Lagarde (Image: GETTY)

"We have five priorities and we will decide according to those," Mr Salvini told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview. "As I said, the point is not the name of the person.

"He has to tell us what he intends to do".

Mr Salvini said his party didn't want the new government to raise taxes, but sought for policies to focus on jobs and pensions.

Mr Draghi's name has emerged as a potential premier in recent weeks as political turmoil combines with the health and economic emergencies.

But it is not clear which parties in Italy's deeply fractured parliament would support an administration he would head.

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Italy news: Sergio Mattarella asked Mario Draghi to lead a new government (Image: GETTY)

"Certainly authoritative names and answers are needed in an exceptional crisis like this", the Senate leader of the centrist party Italia Viva Davide Faraone told La Stampa in an interview, urging parties to do "well and quick".

"I have a duty to appeal to all political forces (to support) a high-profile government," Mr Mattarella told reporters, ruling out the only other possibility, early elections, as ill-advised given the array of challenges facing Italy.

Mr Draghi is widely credited with pulling the eurozone back from the brink of collapse in 2012, pledging to do "whatever it takes" to save the single European currency.

He has largely vanished from the public eye since his ECB term ended in October 2019, but his name emerged as a potential premier in recent weeks as political turmoil combined with the health and economic emergencies to form a perfect storm.

The first European country to be hit by the coronavirus, Italy has seen more than 89,000 deaths since its outbreak almost a year ago - the sixth-highest toll in the world.

Italy news: Mario Draghi is the former leader of the ECB (Image: GETTY)

Lockdowns aimed at curbing the contagion have devastated the economy and data released on Tuesday showed Italy's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 8.8 percent in 2020 - its steepest annual drop since World War Two.

President Mattarella said one of the most important things the next administration had to do was to draw up rapidly plans for how to spend more than 200 billion euros from a European Union fund designed to help overcome the economic slump.

Mr Draghi made no immediate comment on the presidential summons and it was not initially clear which parties in the deeply fractured parliament would support an administration he headed.

A senior member of the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement, the largest party in parliament and a key member of the last two coalition governments, said the group would never back a government led by Draghi.

"No way," he said, declining to be named.

By contrast, the Five-Star's main coalition partner, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said it was ready to support the former central banker. Mattarella's initiative "has remedied the disaster," said PD leader Nicola Zingaretti.

Italy news: Matteo Salvini is calling for a snap election (Image: GETTY)

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Matteo Renzi, who triggered Conte's downfall last month by withdrawing his small party from the government in protest at its handling of the pandemic, also pledged support.

All eyes will be on the parties in the right-wing opposition bloc, which includes Mr Salvini's eurosceptic League, the far-right Brothers of Italy and centre-right Forza Italia led by Silvio Berlusconi.

While Forza Italia was widely expected to rally to Draghi's side, Brothers of Italy indicated that it would remain in opposition. This might mean that the League could make or break the mooted administration.

A Draghi government would reinforce Italy's international standing at a time when it has the presidency of the G20. But taking the job would carry risks for the 73-year-old economist.

The last time a technocrat took charge was in 2011, when another economist, Mario Monti, was entrusted with helping Italy out of a debt crisis.

Parliamentarians soon turned on him when they deemed that his economic medicine was too pungent.

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2021-02-03 09:08:00Z
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WHO investigators probe Wuhan virology lab - Financial Times

The World Health Organization team investigating the origins of coronavirus has visited a Wuhan laboratory that has become the focus of theories suggesting a leak was responsible for the pandemic.

The heavily-guarded team of experts was escorted from the cordoned-off wing of their hotel to the Wuhan Institute of Virology on Wednesday by a delegation that included plainclothes security as well as foreign ministry staff.

Peter Daszak, a member of the team and head of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental organisation, told journalists the WHO experts were “asking all the questions that need to be asked”.

The team of epidemiologists, zoologists, virologists and public health experts has been tasked with resolving the politically charged question of how Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, first infected humans.

Many China critics, including Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, have argued that the Wuhan outbreak may have resulted from an accidental leak during experiments on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The institute and Beijing have fiercely denied the allegation.

Apart from evidence of a genetically similar strain of coronavirus in bats, many questions about the origins of the virus remain unanswered, including whether an intermediate host species was involved.

Since completing a 14-day quarantine in a Wuhan hotel last Thursday, the team has visited the Huanan seafood market connected to the first known cluster of infections as well as hospitals that treated early cases, an animal disease research facility and the provincial Centre for Disease Control.

Critics have raised fears that the long delay before the WHO gained access to these sites would make it difficult to unearth conclusive evidence during the two weeks of field visits.

For example, local authorities dismantled and sanitised the Huanan market early last year. A visit to a propaganda exhibit extolling Wuhan’s response to the outbreak drew accusations that the WHO investigators were being excessively deferential to Beijing.

CGTN, the international arm of China’s state broadcaster, has rejected accusations that the investigation was stage-managed. It said the destinations on the itinerary were requested by the WHO and the lack of media access during the visits was to avoid “distractions”.

But one state media employee told the Financial Times that senior editors instructed journalists not to interview the WHO experts without Chinese foreign ministry approval.

The WHO has stressed that the probe is primarily concerned with gathering information to prevent outbreaks. Yet the investigators also face the difficult task of sorting fact from fiction among a range of origin theories.

Chinese officials have suggested that the Wuhan outbreak was seeded by the virus brought to the city on frozen foods or packaging. International virologists think that is improbable.

The Biden administration has avoided criticising the WHO or endorsing any particular origin theory but called last week for a “robust and clear” investigation.

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, told MSNBC that China was “falling far short of the mark” in providing access to international experts. “That lack of transparency, that lack of being forthcoming, is a profound problem and it’s one that continues,” he said.

Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Wuhan

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2021-02-03 05:49:30Z
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Burmese political leader calls for international sanctions after military coup - The Times

The most senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party to remain at liberty in Burma has appealed to the international community to isolate the country completely in order to put pressure on the generals who seized power in Monday’s military coup.

Anticipating arrest, Win Htein, chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), called for sanctions against the government. He urged the Burmese people to use civil disobedience to oppose Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s military government, but to avoid any kind of violence.

“They [foreign governments] shouldn’t recognise the government,” he said by telephone from the capital, Naypyidaw, where communications with the outside world were cut off for hours on Monday.

Protesters gathered outside the Burmese embassy in the Thai capital, Bangkok

LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/GETTY IMAGES

“They should denounce the government. They should cut off all diplomatic and

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2021-02-03 00:01:00Z
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