TRUMP ACCEPTS TRANSITION TO BIDEN MUST BEGIN

Donald Trump has accepted a formal US transition should begin for

President-elect Joe Biden to take office.

The president said the federal agency overseeing the handover must "do what

needs to be done", even as he vowed to keep contesting his election defeat.

The General Services Administration (GSA) said it was acknowledging Mr Biden

as the "apparent winner".

It came as Mr Biden's victory in the state of Michigan was officially

certified, a major blow to Mr Trump.

The Biden team welcomed the start of the transition process as the

Democratic president-elect gears up to be sworn in on 20 January.

"Today's decision is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing

our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy

back on track," said its statement.

"This final decision is a definitive administrative action to formally begin

the transition process with federal agencies."

Mr Trump tweeted as the GSA, which is tasked with formally beginning

presidential transitions, informed the Biden camp that it would start the

process.

Administrator Emily Murphy said she was making $6.3m (£4.7m) in funds

available to the president-elect.

While pledging to keep up the "good fight", the president said:

"Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that

Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial

protocols, and have told my team to do the same."

DON'T FORCE US TO CHOOSE A SUPERPOWER: SCOTT MORRISON URGES US AND CHINA

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is playing the role of peacemaker declaring

Australia and other nations should not be forced to choose sides between

China and the US.

Mr Morrison has delivered a strong message about Australia’s relationship

with China and the US in what appears to be an attempt to ease tensions with

Beijing.

In a speech to the UK think tank Policy Exchange, he declared his government

will not make a “binary choice” between the countries.

Mr Morrison also said the biggest challenge of the future will be dealing

with the two superpowers at odds.

“Our actions are wrongly seen and interpreted by some only through the lens

of the strategic competition between China and the United States,” he said.

“It is as if Australia does not have its own unique interests or its own

views as an independent sovereign state. These are just false. Stark choices

are in no-one’s interests.”

Mr Morrison stressed Australia’s approach to the Indo-Pacific regions was

not about containing China but rather one of co-existence with the rising

superpower.

His speech comes amid rising tensions between Canberra and Beijing over

trade disputes and Australia’s call for a global investigation into the

pandemic that started in China.

BIDEN PUSH TO RESTORE US GLOBAL ROLE STARTS WITH BLINKEN

Inner circle get key posts as John Kerry named climate envoy. Former US

Secretary of State John Kerry will act as climate envoy when US

President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Kerry was one of several people named for top positions by the Biden

transition team on Monday. Kerry previously served as secretary of state

during Barack Obama's second term as president. A veteran Democratic

politician, he lost to incumbent Republican George W Bush in the 2004

presidential election.

Indicative of his intention to reverse America’s retrenchment from

multilateralism under the Trump administration, Biden announced the

nomination of Deputy Secretary of State and longtime foreign policy adviser

Antony Blinken to the position of Secretary of State.

Biden will nominate Alejandro Mayorkas to become U.S. secretary of homeland

security, Biden’s transition team said on Monday, entrusting the Cuban

immigrant to help reverse outgoing President Donald Trump’s hard-line

immigration policies.

Mayorkas, a former federal prosecutor in California, served as deputy

secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under President

Barack Obama when Biden was Vice President.

Other key picks included former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to serve

as treasury secretary, a pivotal role in which she would help shape and

direct his economic policies at a perilous time, according to a person

familiar with the transition plans.

Yellen, who is widely admired in the financial world, would be the first

woman to lead the Treasury Department in a line stretching back to Alexander

Hamilton in 1789.

In a statement following the announcement on Monday, Biden said: "I need a

team ready on day one to help me reclaim America's seat at the head of the

table, rally the world to meet the biggest challenges we face, and advance

our security, prosperity, and values. This is the crux of that team."

Some of the positions require confirmation in the US Senate.

ISRAELI MEDIA SAY PM MET MBS; SAUDI ARABIA DENIES

Israeli media reports and a government source said Monday Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu had met for landmark talks in Saudi Arabia with Crown

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but Riyadh denied that the meeting took place.

The reports fuelled speculation that the Jewish state may be getting closer

to normalising ties with the biggest West Asian power after its recent

historic U.S.-brokered deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan and other media said . Netanyahu and Mossad

spy agency chief Yosef Meir Cohen had met Saudi de facto ruler Prince

Mohammed, together with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the

futuristic Red Sea city of NEOM on Sunday.

An Israeli government source who requested anonymity confirmed the reports

to AFP.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan then strongly denied the

report that suggested Saudi Arabia was moving away from its decades-old

stance of refusing dialogue with the Jewish state until the Palestinian

conflict is resolved.

“I have seen press reports about a purported meeting between HRH the Crown

Prince and Israeli officials during the recent visit by @SecPompeo,” Prince

Faisal tweeted.

“No such meeting occurred. The only officials present were American and

Saudi.”

Pompeo has confirmed he was in NEOM as part of a Middle East Tour and met

with Prince Mohammed, who is widely known by his initials MBS. The US State

Department declined to confirm a trilateral meeting.

POPE, FOR FIRST TIME, SAYS CHINA’S UIGHURS ARE ‘PERSECUTED’

In a new book, Pope Francis for the first time calls China’s Muslim Uighurs

a “persecuted” people, something human rights activists have been urging him

to do for years.

In the wide-ranging “Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future,” Francis

also says the Cobvid-19 pandemic should spur governments to consider

permanently establishing a universal basic income.

In the book, a 150-page collaboration with his English-language biographer,

Austen Ivereigh, Francis speaks of economic, social and political changes he

says are needed to address inequalities after the pandemic ends. It goes on

sale on Dec. 1.

He also says people who see wearing masks as an imposition by the state are

“victims only in their imagination” and praises those who protested against

the death of George Floyd in police custody for rallying around the “healthy

indignation” that united them.

“I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the

Yazidi,” he said in a section where he also talks about persecuted

Christians in Islamic countries.

While the pope has spoken out before about the Rohingya who have fled

Myanmar, and the killing of Yazidi by Islamic State in Iraq, it was the

first time he mentioned the Uighurs.

CHINA LASHES OUT AT US WITHDRAWAL FROM OPEN SKIES TREATY

China on Monday lashed out at Washington over its withdrawal from the “Open

Skies Treaty” with Russia, saying the move undermined military trust and

transparency and imperiled future attempts at arms control.

The treaty, to which China is not a signatory, had allowed each country

overflight rights to inspect military facilities.

That leaves only one arms-control pact still in force between the former

Cold War foes, the New START treaty, which limits the number of nuclear

warheads each may have. That treaty will expire in February and the Trump

administration had said it wasn't interested in extending it unless China

also joined, something Beijing says it will not do.

“This move by the US undermines military mutual trust and transparency among

relevant countries, is not conducive to maintaining security and stability

in relevant regions and will also have a negative impact on the

international arms control and disarmament process," Chinese foreign

ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing Monday.

Critics complain that Beijing has urged other major countries to reach arms

control agreements while refusing to take part in any such arrangements,

including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, that expired

last year.

CHINA LAUNCHES ROBOTIC SPACECRAFT TO RETRIEVE ROCKS FROM THE MOON

China on Tuesday launched a robotic spacecraft to bring back rocks from the

moon in the first bid by any country to retrieve samples from the lunar

surface since the 1970s, a mission that underscores Chinese ambitions in

space.

The Long March-5, China’s largest carrier rocket, blasted off at 4:30 am

Beijing time (2030 GMT on Monday) in a pre-dawn launch from Wenchang Space

Launch Center on the southern Chinese island of Hainan carrying the

Chang’e-5 spacecraft.

The Chang’e-5 mission, named after the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon,

will seek to collect lunar material to help scientists understand more about

the moon’s origins and formation. The mission will test China’s ability to

remotely acquire samples from space, ahead of more complex missions.

State broadcaster CCTV, which ran live coverage of the launch, showed images

of China National Space Administration staff in blue uniforms applauding and

cheering as they watched the spacecraft climbing through the atmosphere,

lighting up the night sky.

If successful, the mission would make China only the third country to have

retrieved lunar samples, joining the United States and the Soviet Union.

GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS AT NEW HIGH, DESPITE COVID-19 MEASURES: UN

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, hit

record highs last year and have continued climbing this year, despite

measures to halt the pandemic, the UN said Monday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that while lockdowns and

other measures had cut emissions, this had not curbed record concentrations

of the greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in the atmosphere, raising

temperatures, causing sea levels to rise and driving more extreme weather.

"The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term

graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve," WMO chief Petteri

Taalas said in a statement.