FAR-RIGHT RIOTERS STORM BRAZIL'S CONGRESS AND TOP COURT

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace in the capital on Sunday, a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant and sit on Brasilia's vast Three Powers Square.

Some of them called for a military intervention to either restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power, or oust Lula from the presidency.

In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula said Bolsonaro had encouraged the uprising by those he termed fascist fanatics, and he read a freshly signed decree for the federal govt to take control of security in the federal district.

There is no precedent for what they did and these people need to be punished, Lula said.

TV channel Globo News showed protesters wearing the green and yellow colors of the national flag that also have come to symbolize the nation's conservative movement.

The former president has repeatedly sparred with Supreme Court justices, and the room where they convene was trashed by the rioters. They sprayed fire hoses inside the Congress building and ransacked offices at the presidential palace. Windows were broken in all of the buildings.

Political analysts have warned for months that a similar storming was a possibility in Brazil, given that Bolsonaro has sown doubt about the reliability of the nation's electronic voting system without any evidence. The results were recognized as legitimate by politicians from across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of foreign govts.

PRINCE HARRY UNLEASHED ON HIS FAMILY IN TWO BIG INTERVIEWS

Prince Harry's first of four primetime interviews about his controversial memoir Spare has aired ahead of the book's launch.

ITV of Harry: The Interview, showed the Duke describing feelings of guilt and telling broadcaster Tom Bradby he had cried only once after the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales.

Harry said he is publishing his memoirs because he does not know "how staying silent is ever going to make things better". He also said he wants to reconcile with his family - but that it cannot happen without "some accountability".

The interview was the first of four broadcast appearances over the coming days, with the duke also speaking to Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes on CBS News on Sunday night, Michael Strahan of Good Morning America on Monday and Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on CBS on Wednesday morning UK time.

A string of revelations have already been leaked from the memoir, Spare, which is due to be published on Tuesday.

Harry has come under fire for some of the claims in the book, including that the Prince of Wales physically attacked him and called his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, "difficult" and "abrasive".

CHINA REOPENS BORDERS TO TOURISTS AFTER THREE YEARS OF COVID CLOSURE

China has reopened its borders to international visitors for the first time since it imposed travel restrictions in March 2020.

Incoming travellers will no longer need to quarantine - marking a significant change in the country's Covid policy as it battles a surge in cases.

They will still require proof of a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours of travelling.

The move has been welcomed by many eager to reunite with family.

In Hong Kong, 400,000 people are expected to travel into mainland China in the coming weeks with long queues for flights into cities including Beijing and Xiamen.

On Sunday, double-decker coaches packed with travellers arrived at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge to catch buses to the Guangdong province - among them were college students returning home.

The country's reopening comes at the start of "Chunyun", the first period of Lunar New Year travel. Before the pandemic, it was the largest annual worldwide migration of people returning home to spend time with family.

Two billion trips are expected to be made this Lunar New Year, double the number that travelled last year.

But there is concern from some that opening the borders will result in more transmission of Covid-19.

On Saturday,  the Chinese government banned over 1,000 social media accounts critical of its handling of the virus.

XBB.1.5 COVID VARIANT QUICKLY GROWING IN US

Three yearsinto the pandemic, the coronavirus continues to impress virus experts with its swift evolution. A young version, known as XBB. 1. 5, has quickly been spreading in US over the past few weeks. As of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that it made up 72% of new cases in the northeast and 27. 6% of cases across the country. The new subvariant, first sampled in autumn in New York state, has a potent array of mutations that appear to help it evade immune defences and improve its ability to invade cells. “It is the most transmissible variant that has been detected yet,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the Covid technical lead at the WHO, said on Wednesday.

XBB. 1. 5 remains rare in much of the world. But Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist at KU Leuven in Belgium, expects it to spread quickly and globally. “We’llhave another infection wave, most likely,” he said. Advisers at WHO are assessing the risk XBB. 1. 5 poses. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital, said the surge in cases would not match the first omicron spike Americans experienced a year ago. “Is it a Category 5 hurricane?” he said. “No. ” Still, he warned XBB. 1. 5 could worsen what is already shaping up to be a rough Covid winter as people gather indoors and don’t get boosters.

Preliminary studies suggest vaccines should provide decent protection against XBB. One thing experts are confident about is that XBB. 1. 5 is not the last chapter in the coronavirus’s evolution.

RUSSIA SAYS KILLED 600 UKRAINE TROOPS IN REVENGE ATTACK; KYIV DENIES CLAIM

Kramatorsk (Ukraine) : A Russian rocket strike on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk caused damage but did not destroy buildings and there were no obvious signs of casualties, a witness said on Sunday, after Russia said the attack killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers.

Reuters reporters visited the two college dormitories Russia’s defence ministry said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian servicemen close to the front line of the war at the time of the overnight strike. Neither appeared to have been directly hit by missiles or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood.

Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s forces in the east, said Russian strikes on Kramatorsk damaged only civilian infrastructure, adding: “The armed forces of Ukraine weren’t affected. ” Kramatorsk’s mayor earlier said there had been no casualties.

Russia’s defence ministry, in a statement, said the strike on the buildings in Kramatorsk was a revenge operation for attack on Russian barracks in Makiivka last week, in which at least 89 servicemen were killed. It said over 700 Ukrainian troops had been housed in one hostel and 600 in another.

MOSCOW, KYIV EXCHANGE 50 CAPTURED SOLDIERS EACH

Russia and Ukraine swapped 50 captured soldiers each on Sunday in a deal that both sides welcomed even as they fought one another in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the 50 returned Russian soldiers would be flown to Moscow for medical and psychological rehabilitation.

Ukraine also confirmed the information, and said Russia had freed 50 Ukrainian servicemen as part of the deal.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office, posted images of the freed Ukrainian soldiers holding bags of food near a bus and a video of them singing the Ukrainian national anthem once under way.

PALESTINIAN MINISTER’S TRAVEL PERMIT REVOKED

Israel on Sunday revoked the Palestinian Foreign Minister’s travel permit, part of a series of punitive steps against the Palestinians that Israel’s new hard-line government announced days ago.

Riad Malki said in a statement that he was returning from the Brazilian President’s inauguration when he was informed that Israel rescinded his travel permit, which allows top Palestinian officials to travel easily in and out of the occupied West Bank, unlike ordinary Palestinians. It was not clear whether the permits of other officials had been revoked as well.

Israel’s government on Friday approved the steps to penalize the Palestinians in retaliation for them pushing the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the Israeli occupation. Rulings by the International Court of Justice are not binding, but they can be influential on world opinion.

The decision highlights the tough line the current government is already taking toward the Palestinians just days into its tenure. It comes at a time of spiking violence in the occupied West Bank.

SWEDEN CAN’T MEET TURKEY DEMANDS FOR NATO BID: PM

Turkey, which has for months blocked NATO membership bids by Sweden and Finland, has made some demands that Sweden cannot accept, Sweden’s Prime Minister said on Sunday.

“Turkey has confirmed that we have done what we said we would do, but it also says that it wants things that we can’t, that we don’t want to, give it,” Ulf Kristersson said during a security conference.

Sweden and Finland broke with decades of military non-alignment and applied to join the U.S.-led defence alliance in response to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. But Turkey has refused to approve their bid until the two countries take steps, including joining Turkey’s fight against banned Kurdish militants. Most of Turkey’s demands have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora.

Finland’s Foreign Minister said that the country would join NATO at the same time as its neighbour.

IRANIAN HELD IN GERMANY SUSPECTED OF TERROR PLOT

An Iranian man has been arrested in western Germany suspected of preparing an “Islamist attack” using cyanide and ricin, the police and prosecutors said on Sunday.

The 32-year-old man was “suspected of having prepared a serious act of violence threatening the security of the state by obtaining cyanide and ricin with a view to committing an Islamist attack”, the police said. But a search of the man’s residence in the town of Castrop-Rauxel found no evidence of toxic substances, an official said.

Ricin is a highly toxic substance, which is classed as a “chemical weapon” in Germany. Much like cyanide, ricin can be lethal.

40 DEAD AND 85 INJURED IN SENEGAL BUS ACCIDENT, SAYS FIRE BRIGADE

Forty people died and 85 were injured when two buses collided near the town of Kaffrine in central Senegal on Sunday, a fire brigade official said. “There were 125 victims, of whom 40 have died,” said Colonel Cheikh Fall, who is in charge of operations for the West African country’s National Fire Brigade.