Australian journalist Cheng Lei, after months of detention in China, has been formally arrested on charges of supplying state secrets overseas.

Prior to her detention, the Chinese-born Australian had been a TV presenter for Chinese state media outlet CGTN.

Chinese authorities confirmed her arrest on Monday, adding that her legal rights would be guaranteed.

Ms Cheng was detained in August and charged last Friday, Australian officials had earlier said.

At a press briefing on Monday, Chinese ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he hoped Australia would “not interfere with China’s handling of this case”, according to news agency Reuters.

Canberra has repeatedly raised concerns with Beijing over Ms Cheng’s detention.

“We expect basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met, in accordance with international norms,” said Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne.

“Our thoughts are with Ms Cheng and her family during this difficult period.”

Ms Cheng had worked in Beijing for the last few years. Many of her family, including her two young children, live in Australia.

In August, she suddenly disappeared from television and couldn’t be contacted by friends or relatives. Her employer, CGTN – the English-language channel of the state broadcaster – also wiped its websites of Ms Cheng’s profile page and work.

China eventually announced she was being held on national security grounds under “residential surveillance” in an unknown location.

Her family said they had no idea why she had been detained.

“I don’t think she would have done anything to harm national security in any way intentionally,” her niece Louisa Wen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“We don’t know if she’s just been caught up in something that she herself didn’t realise.”

Her family said Ms Cheng had been interrogated on several occasions and was being kept in a cell. Her health had deteriorated, they added.

Australia said its representatives had been able to visit her once a month – in line with the bilateral consular agreement with China.

Relations between Australia and China have deteriorated in recent years, leading to diplomatic and trade ructions.

Analysts say this has made it harder for Australian authorities to negotiate with Beijing over their citizens’ release.

Beijing has arrested or expelled a number of journalists in recent times. Shortly after Ms Cheng’s arrest last year, the last two Australian media correspondents in China fled the country following consular advice.

ABC reporter Bill Birtles said that prior to his departure, Chinese police had turned up to his apartment and questioned him about Ms Cheng, but also asked him questions on a wide range of topics.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, says Nigeria is making efforts to get the coronavirus vaccines from China.

Onyeama disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

He said hopefully by the end of February, Nigeria will get vaccines from China, one of its strategic partners, and from other countries.

“What we are engaging with China is in the area of vaccines for COVID-19, so we are also looking to import, to acquire significant vaccines from China and other partners too. I think in the short immediate time that is an area we will need China,” he said.

“They have cooperated with us with regards topersonal protective equipment and other things in our COVID response.

“So we are now at the stage of the vaccine and we are hoping that we can get some support from them in that area.

“There are different ways we are expecting to get the vaccines. There is the bilateral way as a country that we are negotiating.

“Then we have the framework of the African Union collectively as a continent, they are also engagements to receive vaccine.

“The African Union has made some headway, more than 400 million as what has been agreed to. So we were hoping that at the end of January we would have started receiving the vaccines.

“But I think almost certainly by the middle of February we should have started receiving,” Onyeama said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in January when the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Nigeria, the Federal Government opened discussions with China to have access to its COVID-19 vaccines.

Nigerians have, however, been expectant of vaccines, especially as the cases of COVID-19 in the country continues to surge.

Nigeria’s fight against COVID-19 suffered a setback when the World Health Organisation (WHO) disqualified the country from getting vaccines.

President Joe Biden has said his predecessor Donald Trump should not be given access to intelligence briefings because of his “erratic behaviour”.

The US has a tradition of allowing former presidents to be briefed on the nation’s security issues – as a courtesy extended by the incumbent.

But when asked by CBS News if Mr Trump would receive the same courtesy, President Biden said “I think not”.

He cited Mr Trump’s “erratic behaviour” as his reason for refusing access.

The president declined to speculate on what his worst fears would be if Mr Trump were allowed to see classified reports, but he hinted that the former president could not be trusted to keep confidential information to himself.

“I don’t think there’s any need for him to have an intelligence briefing,” Mr Biden said in his first sit-down interview since becoming president.

“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What value is there at all, other than that he might slip and say something?”

Mr Trump feuded with the intelligence community throughout his four-year presidency and went through six national intelligence directors.

He questioned reports by US agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and assailed intelligence chiefs for being “extremely passive and naive” over Iran.

In 2017, he disclosed highly-classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about an Islamic State operation in what was seen as a breach of trust by many in the US intelligence community.

During his CBS interview, President Biden was asked about the impeachment trial Mr Trump is facing in the US Senate for his role in the riot at the Capitol on 6 January.

Mr Biden said he “ran like hell to defeat” Mr Trump in the election “because I thought he was unfit to be president”, but he would leave the Senate to decide whether the Republican should be barred from ever holding public office again.

The Biden administration has ended the deadlock over the next head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) by expressing its “strong support” for Nigeria’s ex-finance minister.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was frontrunner for the role until the Trump administration last October said it wanted another woman, South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee.

Ms Yoo has now withdrawn her candidacy.

If confirmed in the role, Dr Okonjo-Iweala would be the first woman and the first African to lead the WTO.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala on Friday praised her rival for the post and said: “There is vital work ahead to do together.”

A WTO nominations committee in October recommended its 164 members appoint Dr Okonjo-Iweala as a replacement to outgoing chief Roberto Azevedo; a spokesman at the time said all had approved the appointment “except for one”.

President Donald Trump – who had described the WTO as “horrible” and biased towards China – wanted Ms Yoo, South Korea’s trade minister.

Ms Yoo on Friday said her decision to withdraw her candidacy was made in “close consultation” with the US. She said: “South Korea will actively contribute to reaching consensus for the next WTO chief and co-operate with her and participate in the WTO reform process.”

The White House congratulated Ms Yoo on her “strong campaign” for the position and for being a “traiblazer” as South Korea’s first female trade minister.

In a statement, it said the “US stands ready to engage in the next phase of the WTO process for reaching a consensus decision on the WTO Director General”.

Closing Cryptocurrency Accounts Can’t Stop Sunday Igboho’s Funding – Lawyer

Legal practitioner, Tommy Ojoge-Daniel, has said the recent warning issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria to financial institutions and others against doing businesses in crypto and other digital assets, cannot stop the fundraiser set up for Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo (Igboho).

Ojoge-Daniel, disclosed this in an interview with the PUNCH on Friday shortly after the CBN issued its directive.

Supporters of Igboho had set up a Gofundme page for the purpose of raising £100,000 (N51.8 million) for him to buy buses.

The fundraiser, which was initiated by Maureen Badejo, a blogger and activist based in the United Kingdom, had garnered £26, 452 (N13.8 million) as of the time of filing this report.

It was gathered that crypto currency was one of the major ways through which funds sourced through crowd funding are accessed.

On Friday, the CBN directed banks in the country to close all cryptocurrency-related accounts.

In a statement on Friday, the regulator prohibited all financial institutions from facilitating cryptocurrency payments in the country.

This directive was contained in a letter addressed to all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs)and other financial institutions (OFIs).

Ojoge-Daniel said, “It (CBN policy) does not affect it (Igboho’s funding) in any way in as much as crypto currency is an open source platform for peer to peer (P2P) exchange of value and it is largely untraceable.

“The open ledger (block chain) only tracks activities in wallets and cannot hinder or hamper individuals who have crypto in their wallets from sending it to the recipient wallet. They can only track the payments but can never track the payers. The only issue will be exchanging the crypto on a direct platform to a Nigerian account.”

Lawmakers in the US state of Virginia have voted to abolish use of the death penalty as a criminal punishment.

On Friday the state’s House of Delegates followed its Senate in voting to end the practice, paving the way for Governor Ralph Northam to sign the repeal into law.

The decision means Virginia will become the first southern US state to abolish capital punishment.

The move comes at a time of renewed debate across the US about executions.

Former President Donald Trump resumed them on a federal level last year after a 17-year hiatus. Some 13 people were put to death in a matter of months – including six executions carried out after the election despite a flurry of legal challenges.

During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden said he would work to end the federal death penalty and encourage states to follow suit.

The United Nations says 170 of its 194 member states have abolished executions in law or practice and the US has faced repeated international criticism over its failure to do so.

According to Gallup poll research, public support for executions has dropped from a high of 80% in 1990 down to 55% in 2020.

Executions are still authorised in 28 states across the country – though several, including California, have enacted a moratorium on carrying the punishment out.

The Death Penalty Information Center says Virginia has executed 113 prisoners since 1976 – the second highest state tally behind Texas. Two men remain on death row in the state.

Governor Northam, a Democrat, is known to support the effort to abolish the punishment.

“The practice is fundamentally inequitable. It is inhumane. It is ineffective. And we know that in some cases, people on death row have been found innocent,” he said after the state’s Senate voted in its favour.

Children in Hong Kong are to be encouraged and taught to be responsible citizens and law abiding citizens

Children as young as six are to learn about crimes under Hong Kong’s national security law.

Schools will be asked to monitor children’s behaviour and report any support for the pro-democracy movement, as part of new education rules.

The national security law was imposed last June with Beijing arguing it was needed to tackle unrest linked to pro-democracy protests in the city.

Thousands of children became involved in the protests.

Hong Kong’s education bureau released the guidelines late on Thursday along with an animated video that explains to students what the national security law is.

The law criminalises secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces with the maximum sentence life in prison.

The video, featuring an owl and two students, explains that the national security law has been enacted “for the sake of Hong Kong’s continuous development and long-term prosperity”.

“We all know Hong Kong is an inalienable part of our country,” it tells students.

Primary school students will also be taught how to sing and respect the national anthem and learn about how the People’s Liberation Army protects Hong Kong. Older students will learn about the limits of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms.

The national security law will also be incorporated into other subjects such as geography and biology.

Schools are required to stop students and teachers from singing specific songs – a nod to a trend in schools last year where children would drown out the Chinese national anthem with protest songs.

Any books that endanger national security will be removed from schools’ libraries.

The new guidelines have been criticised by Tin Fong-Chak, vice-president of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union.

Mr Tin told the Financial Times newspaper that the guidelines were “extremely meticulous”.

“The government basically does not trust schools. These measures will destroy the teacher-student relationship,” he said.

Hong Kong has had a high degree of autonomy since it was returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997, and its residents have had a far higher level of freedom of speech and media than people on the mainland.

But the new law’s key provisions include that crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces are punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison.

It makes it easier to punish protesters, and reduces Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The law also gives Beijing powers to shape life in the former British colony in a way it never has before.

Critics say it effectively curtails protest and freedom of speech. China has said the new law will return stability to the territory after a year of unrest.