LONDON (Reuters) – The United Kingdom is ready to take unilateral action that would suspend customs checks on goods moving to Northern Ireland, foreign minister Liz Truss said ahead of talks with the European Union. Truss is due to hold talks with EU Vice President Maros Sefcovic this week to resolve disagreements over post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom which shares a land border with EU member Ireland. To avoid politically contentious border checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland, Britain and the EU agreed Northern Ireland would effectively remain within the EU’s customs union for goods, with checks taking place on goods moving between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland instead. However, there has been friction about how this applies in practice - especially for goods intended to remain within Northern Ireland - as well as the arbitration role of the EU’s European Court of Justice. “I want a negotiated solution but if we have to use legitimate provisions including Article 16, I am willing to do that,” Truss wrote in The Telegraph newspaper. “I will not sign up to anything which sees the people of Northern Ireland unable to benefit from the same decisions on taxation and spending as the rest of the UK, or which still sees goods moving within our own country being subject to checks.” The European Union’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joao Vale de Almeida, said on Sunday the bloc was not “too impressed” with the British stance on Article 16, which allows either side to unilaterally decide to stop implementing parts of the protocol governing trade with Northern Ireland if there are substantial practical problems or trade diversion.

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ACCRA (AFP) – West African leaders gathered on Sunday to discuss Mali’s political crisis, with the military junta submitting a new timeframe for a transition back to civilian rule at the last minute after its first proposal was rejected. The extraordinary summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc in Ghana’s capital Accra discussed possible sanctions on the Sahel state over potentially delayed elections, among other issues. The meeting came after months of increasing tensions over the timetable for restoring civilian rule in Mali after a military takeover in 2020. In August that year, army officers led by Colonel Assimi Goita toppled the elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita amid street protests against his unpopular rule. Under threat of sanctions, Goita subsequently promised to restore civilian rule in February 2022 after holding presidential and legislative elections. But he staged a de facto second coup in May 2021, forcing out an interim civilian government. The move disrupted the reform timetable, and was met with widespread diplomatic condemnation. ECOWAS insisted that Mali hold elections in February.

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BEIJING (AP) – Tianjin, a major Chinese port city near the capital Beijing, began mass testing of its 14 million residents on Sunday after a cluster of 20 children and adults tested positive for COVID-19, including at least two with the omicron variant.
Those infected include 15 students from 8 to 13 years old, a staff member at an after-school center and four parents. The citywide testing is to be completed over two days. China has stepped up its zero tolerance COVID-19 strategy in the run-up to the Winter Olympics, which open Feb. 4 in Beijing. The Chinese capital is 115 kilometers (70 miles) northwest of Tianjin and connected by a high-speed rail link that takes less than one hour. Millions of people are being confined to their homes in Xi’an and Yuzhou, two other cities that are farther away but have larger outbreaks. The city of Zhengzhou, a provincial capital 70 kilometers (40 miles) north of Yuzhou, is also conducting mass testing and closing schools starting Monday. The first two cases confirmed in Tianjin were a 10-year-old girl and a 29-year-old woman working at the after-school center. Both were infected by the omicron variant. In subsequent testing of close contacts, 18 others tested positive and 767 tested negative as of Saturday night.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) – A riot erupted inside a northern Mexico prison over prisoners trying to extort money from others and 56 inmates were injured, authorities say. Officials said the riot began Friday at the Apodaca prison, just outside the city of Monterrey. Aldo Fasci, the public safety secretary for Nuevo Leon state, said that the injuries were all caused by beatings and that no firearms were involved. “There were no firearms, all the injuries were caused by blows, The head wounds were caused by blunt objects, either rocks or in some cases by (smashing them) on the floor,” Fasci said. He said many inmates at the prison work in industrial plants and are usually paid on Friday. He said at least five gangs are extorting money from other inmates inside prison walls. Authorities acknowledge that inmates have been in partial control of the facility. “We have to keep working to eliminate shared rule” of prisons, Fasci said. He said a sweep after the situation was brought under control found prohibited cellphones, and drugs among inmates’ possessions.

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BRASILIA (AFP) – At least seven people were killed and three were missing after a cliff collapsed onto boats carrying tourists on a lake in Brazil, authorities said Saturday. Rescue teams including a dive squad and members of the Brazilian Navy rushed to Furnas Lake in Minas Gerais state, where panicked tourists had watched helplessly as a large rock fragment broke off a ravine and plunged atop three boats. The latest official toll is “seven dead and three missing,” Minas Gerais firefighters’ spokesman Pedro Aihara said on Saturday night. Another 32 were wounded, including nine who had to be hospitalized, authorities said. Firefighters had initially reported 20 missing, but “that number was substantially reduced because a good part of the victims who were unaccounted for were people who moved by their own means to hospitals,” Aihara said in a voice message sent to reporters. Tourists flock to see the rock walls, caverns and waterfalls that surround the green waters of Lake Furnas, formed by the hydroelectric dam of the same name.