Six In The Morning Saturday 23 January 2021

 

Rotting fish, lost business and piles of red tape. The reality of Brexit hits Britain

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN Business

Updated 0500 GMT (1300 HKT) January 23, 2021

Brexit might be done and dusted, but its specter will loom over Britain for a long time yet.

For all the fanfare made when Prime Minister Boris Johnson struck a trade deal with Brussels on Christmas Eve, the inescapable reality of leaving the European Union's customs and regulatory territory has already started to bite. The fact that the deal was only agreed one week before it came into effect meant that dangerous disruption to countless businesses that relied on seamless supply chains was inevitable.

Russian police arrest over 1,000 protesters calling for Navalny's release

Demonstrators gather in cities and town across country as UK says it is ‘deeply concerned’ by arrests

Andrew Roth in Moscow

Sat 23 Jan 2021 15.18 GMT

More than a thousand people have been arrested at protests across Russia as they called for the release of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, from jail.

Demonstrators gathered in cities and towns in Siberia and the far east with rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg expected to begin at 2pm local time (1100 GMT). The protests are thought to be the largest in Russia since 2017.

The UK has called for the release of the estimated 1,614 people who have been detained as authorities use force in their attempt to break up the unsanctioned rallies.

At the eye of the storm: Wuhan residents reflect on the price paid a year on from the first Covid lockdown

On January 23, 2020, Wuhan, the place where the coronavirus pandemic originated, went into a months-long total lockdown. One year on, local residents reflect on what has changed for the city

William Yang@WilliamYang120

The metro is packed with people rushing to work on a usual morning in Wuhan. Apart from the masks on their faces, it seems obvious that the city that went into a months-long total lockdown one year ago has now recovered from that surreal experience.  

“People are now playing music from their phones or speaking quite loud on the metro, which is completely different from how Wuhan was one year ago,” says Liang, a 31-year-old English teacher in Wuhan. “I can still remember the metro being dead silent the day before Wuhan went into total lockdown one year ago. No one is making any sound on the metro, and there was a strong sense of fear in the air.”  

Protests in Tunisia come with a bitter taste

Recent unrest shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's followed the country's trajectory. The image of Tunisia as the only "survivor" of the uprisings in the region is misleading, writes DW's Sarah Mersch.

This week's turmoil is the result of an accumulation of frustration, lack of perspective and hope, and economic hardship worsened by the pandemic. The strict lockdown over the long weekend of the 10th anniversary of the ousting of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali backfired. It sparked a wave of nationwide protests, preceded by a growing number of sit-ins and demonstrations over the past months.

It leaves a bitter taste to see that 10 years into what started out to be an inclusive democratic process, many young people feel excluded once more from public life. Many of those out in the streets were children when Ben Ali's regime was toppled and never consciously experienced life in a dictatorship.

No, this photo doesn’t prove Trump is going to declassify secret documents

A Facebook post published on January 16 claimed that former US president Donald Trump was about to declassify a large number of documents, with the aim of “revealing them to the world”.  The post, which includes a photo of the president posing next to tall stacks of paper, was shared more than a thousand times the day before his successor Joe Biden took office. Turns out, however, this photo is old and has nothing to do with classified documents.

The photo shows a smiling Trump posing next to several stacks of paper. One towering series of piles is labeled “Today” while the other, much shorter stack is labelled  "1960". The caption claims that Trump is getting ready to declassify all of the documents in the “Today” stacks. 

“Files that will be declassified and revealed to the world,” says the caption, claiming that Trump is planning to reveal state secrets before leaving the Oval Office. 

China authorises coast guard to fire on foreign vessels

Legislation also allows demolition of other countries’ structures built on Chinese-claimed reefs.

China has passed a law that for the first time explicitly allows its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels, a move that could make the contested South China Sea and nearby waters more choppy.

The Coast Guard Law passed on Friday empowers it to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organisations or individuals at sea”.