BIDEN PLANS TO 'RECALIBRATE' SAUDI RELATIONS; WARNS CHINA OF REPERCUSSIONS OVER HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

President Joe Biden plans to shift U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and will conduct diplomacy through Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz rather than his powerful son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the White House said on Tuesday.

It is the latest sign Biden’s team is taking a different track from former President Donald Trump toward the world’s largest oil exporter. Trump established close ties with Prince Mohammed and made Saudi Arabia the centerpiece of his strategy toward the Middle East after taking his first trip abroad as president there.

“We’re going to recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday. “Part of that is going back to engagement counterpart-to-counterpart. The president’s counterpart is King Salman.”

Separately, Biden on Tuesday warned China saying there will be "repercussions" for China for its human rights violations. He was responding to queries at a televised event on the Asian nation's handling of Muslim minorities in its far western region of Xinjiang.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has drawn global criticism for holding the minority Uyghurs in internment camps and other human rights abuses.

"Well, there will be repercussions for China and he knows that," Mr Biden said of Mr Xi when pressed on the issue at the town hall event televised on broadcaster CNN.

The US would reassert its global role in speaking up for human rights, Mr Biden said, adding that he would work with the international community to get China to protect them.

"China is trying very hard to become a world leader and to get that moniker and be able to do that they have to gain the confidence of other countries," Mr Biden said on his first official trip since taking office as President in January.

"As long as they are engaged in activity that is contrary to basic human rights, it is going to be hard for them to do that," he added.

Mr Biden has tried to send the message that he would take a radically different approach to China than former president Donald Trump, who placed trade and economic issues above all else in the US-China relationship.

PROTESTERS STAGE BIG RALLIES IN MYANMAR

Myanmar’s anti-coup protesters returned to the streets in force on Wednesday, staging the biggest demonstrations since troops fanned out around the country to quell opposition to the new military junta.

Much of the country has been in open revolt since the army deposed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government at the start of the month and charged her under an obscure import law.

Tens of thousands rallied in Yangon, some blockading roads with vehicles to stop security forces from moving around the nation’s biggest city.

Police and soldiers were spotted near a key protest junction but appeared to be hanging back, looking on as demonstrators streamed past.

Wednesday’s crowds came in defiance of violent efforts by the regime to bring resistance to heel — including use of tear gas and rubber bullets — following nationwide street protests and a disobedience campaign encouraging civil servants to strike.

Demonstrations over the past two days had been noticeably smaller since troops were deployed around Yangon at the weekend.

But social media platforms had been flooded with calls for a show of force by protesters in the hours before the junta imposed a third consecutive overnight Internet blackout.

By noon, there were anti-coup demonstrations across Myanmar, from the remote highland region of Chin State to a small town in the Irrawaddy delta where parading protesters hoisted Suu Kyi posters.

Right outside the administrative capital Naypyidaw, tens of thousands of people from different sectors — including engineers, doctors and teachers — marched through the logging town of Pyinmana carrying signs saying “Help Myanmar”.

UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews warned that soldiers going into Yangon, as had been reported, could lead to the situation spiralling out of control. “We could be on the precipice of the military committing even greater crimes against the people of Myanmar,” he said.

U.S. WILL PAY OVER $200 MILLION IN WHO CONTRIBUTIONS, SAYS ANTONY BLINKEN

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that his country would pay the World Health Organization (WHO) $200 million by the end of this month. The announcement is significant as former U.S. President Donald Trump had begun the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO, a process stopped by his successor, President Joe Biden.

“Today, I’m pleased to confirm that by the end of the month, the United States intends to pay over 200 million in assessed and current obligations to the WHO,” Mr. Blinken told foreign ministers of U.N. Security Council member countries, at an online meeting to discuss the response to the pandemic. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was also part of the meeting.

“This is a key step forward in fulfilling our financial obligations as a WHO member and it reflects our renewed commitment to ensuring the WHO has the support it needs to lead the global response to the pandemic — even as we work to reform it for the future,” Mr. Blinken said. The U.S. is the largest funder of the WHO, contributing more than 15% of its total funds.

Mr. Trump had pulled the U.S. out of the WHO which he had called a “puppet of China”. This process would have been complete in mid-2021, but Mr. Biden halted and reversed it hours after assuming office last month.

“The United States believes that multilateralism, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, are essential not just as an effective international COVID-19 health and humanitarian response but also building stronger global health capacity and security for the future,” Mr. Blinken told his counterparts on Wednesday.

FACEBOOK BLOCKS AUSTRALIAN USERS FROM VIEWING OR SHARING NEWS

Facebook has blocked Australian users from sharing or viewing news content on the platform, causing much alarm over public access to key information.

Australians woke up on Thursday to find the Facebook pages of all local and global news sites were unavailable.

Several government health, emergency and other pages were also blocked on Thursday - something the tech giant later asserted was a mistake.

Australia's government said the ban threatened Facebook's "credibility".

Those outside of Australia are also unable to read or access any Australian news publications on the platform.

Facebook's move is in response to a proposed law in Australia which would make tech giants pay for news content.

Companies like Google and Facebook have argued the law doesn't reflect how the internet works, and unfairly "penalises" their platforms.

The Australian government has said it is proceeding with the law, which passed parliament's lower house on Wednesday.

"Facebook needs to think very carefully about what this means for its reputation and standing," Communications Minister Paul Fletcher told the ABC.

PAKISTAN MAY NOT BE OFF FATF GREY LIST UNTIL JUNE

PM Imran Khan-ledPakistan is unlikely to exit the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list until June, despite its efforts to garner support from the member nations ahead of the plenary meeting of the global terror financing and money laundering watchdog next week, according to a media report on Wednesday.

The FATF’s Plenary and Working Group meetings, scheduled to be held from February 21 to 26 in Paris, is all set to decide on Pakistan’s grey list status.

According to a report in The Express Tribune newspaper, although Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi sounded optimistic about the outcome of the upcoming FATF meeting, officials admitted that Pakistan would remain in the ‘grey’ list at least until June.

“If agreed, the FATF visit will help Pakistan come out of the grey list by June this year,” a senior Pakistani official dealing with the matter was quoted as saying by the report. The Foreign Office has been inviting diplomats of FATF members to brief them about the progress on implementing the 27-point action plan,” the report said.

CORONAVIRUS | PFIZER-BIONTECH TO GET EU 200 MILLION MORE COVID-19 SHOTS

As worries about vaccine delays swept across Europe, Pfizer and BioNTech said on Wednesday they have finalised an agreement to supply the European Union with another 200 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine.

The U.S. and German companies said in a statement that the doses come on top of the 300 million vaccine doses the bloc has initially ordered. The EU's executive Commission has an option to request a further 100 million doses.

They said the 200 million doses are expected to be delivered this year, with an estimated 75 million of them in the second quarter.

SRI LANKA CANCELS IMRAN KHAN’S PARLIAMENT ADDRESS A WEEK AHEAD OF VISIT

Days ahead of his maiden visit to Sri Lanka, Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s parliament address was cancelled by the Lankan government, reports from Colombo said.

Pakistani authorities were quoted as saying that the address had never been finalised in the first place.

According to a report in Colombo gazette, foreign minister Dinesh Gunawardena had informed the parliament that while the Pakistani PM’s visit would go ahead as scheduled, a proposed visit to the parliament complex would not take place.

Khan is scheduled to arrive in Colombo on February 2.

‘NEXT TIME, THERE WOULD BE NO MISTAKE’: TALIBAN MILITANT THREATENS MALALA YOUSAFZAI ON TWITTER

A Pakistani Taliban militant who nine years ago is alleged to have shot and badly wounded Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai has threatened a second attempt on her life, tweeting that next time, “there would be no mistake.” Twitter on Wednesday permanently suspended the account with the menacing post.

The threat prompted Ms. Yousafzai to tweet herself, asking both the Pakistan military and Prime Minister Imran Khan to explain how her alleged shooter, Ehsanullah Ehsan, had escaped from government custody.

Ehsan was arrested in 2017, but escaped in January 2020 from a so-called safe house where he was being held by Pakistan's intelligence agency. The circumstances of both his arrest and escape have been shrouded in mystery and controversy.

Since his escape, Ehsan has been interviewed and has communicated with Pakistani journalists via the same Twitter account that carried the Urdu-language threat. He has had more than one Twitter account, all of which have been suspended.

The government is investigating the threat and had immediately asked Twitter to shut down the account, said Raoof Hasan, an adviser to the Prime Minister.

Ehsan, a longtime member of the Pakistani Taliban or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan as they are known, urged Ms. Yousafzai to “come back home because we have a score to settle with you and your father.” The tweet added that “this time there will be no mistake.”

SHOW US THAT SHEIKHA LATIFA IS ALIVE, UK TELLS DUBAI

Britain called on the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday to show proof that Sheikha Latifa, one of the daughters of the ruler of Dubai, was still alive after she said in a video message from a bathroom that she was being held captive in a barricaded villa.

The fate of Latifa, 35, and her tempestuous relationship with her father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has cast a new spotlight on his family affairs and on an international campaign to free his daughter.

Dubai is now under growing international pressure to allow Latifa, who tried to flee in 2018 in a dinghy but was brought back by commando units from India, to go free.

British foreign minister Dominic Raab said the video of Latifa, in which she said she was being held hostage and was worried about her safety, was deeply troubling as it showed a woman in deep distress.

"Given what we've just seen, I think people would just at a human level want to see that she's alive and well," Raab told Sky.

NO ELECTRICITY, NO WATER, TEXANS STRUGGLE THROUGH HISTORIC COLD WITH MORE DARK DAYS AHEAD

Texas officials warned of "disasters within the disaster" of historic cold weather that left millions without heat for a third day on Wednesday, telling residents to prepare for energy to not return until the weekend.

Residents in over 100 counties in Texas have been told to boil their drinking water as treatment plants continue to suffer from energy blackouts, officials said. Upward of 12 million people in the state -- the country's second largest with a population of roughly 29 million -- have either have no drinking water on tap in their homes or have drinking water available only intermittently.

Energy remains out for 2.7 million households, officials said. With freezing temperatures expected through the weekend, getting the lights back on will be a slow process, as the state has lost 40% of its generating capacity, with natural gas wells and pipelines, along with wind turbines, frozen shut.

Hospitals in Houston, the state's largest city, and elsewhere in Texas have reported they have no water. Nearly two dozens deaths have been attributed to the cold snap. Officials say they suspect many more people have died - but their bodies have not been discovered yet.

On Wednesday evening, officials told residents in the most populous parts of the state to brace for another round of freezing rain and snow in the next 24 hours.

The cold forced some residents to choose between staying in dark and cold homes, some with frozen or broken water pipes, or face possible COVID-19 exposure at local relief centers.

EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COURT DEMANDS RUSSIA RELEASE NAVALNY

Europe’s top human rights court has ordered Russia to release jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a ruling that will be unlikely to soften the Kremlin’s determination to isolate its most prominent foe.

The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that was posted on Navalny’s website on Wednesday demands that Russia set him free immediately and warns that failing to do so would mark a breach of the European human rights convention.

In its Tuesday’s ruling, the ECHR pointed to Rule 39 of its regulations, citing “the nature and extent of risk to the applicant’s life.”

The Russian Justice Ministry warned in a statement carried by the Tass news agency that the ECHR’s demand referencing the rule would represent a “crude interference into the judicial system” of Russia and “cross the red line.”

It emphasised that “the ECHR can’t substitute a national court or cancel its verdict.”

In the past, Moscow has abided by the ECHR’s rulings awarding compensations to Russian citizens who have contested verdicts in Russian courts, but it never faced a demand by the European court to set a convict free.

In a reflection of its simmering irritation with the European court’s verdicts, Russia last year adopted a constitutional amendment declaring the priority of national legislation over international law. Russian authorities might now use that provision to reject the EHCR’s ruling.