Russian police have raided the Jehovah’s Witnesses nationwide and made arrests in a new criminal case against the banned Christian-based group.

The Investigative Committee (SK) posted a video on YouTube showing SK men in balaclavas breaking into a flat and seizing piles of foreign currency.

The SK – which operates like the FBI – said “conspiratorial meetings” had been held at a Moscow flat since June 2019.

In 2017 Russia’s Supreme Court banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses as “extremist”.

According to the SK, the Moscow group “studied religious literature… propagandising Jehovah’s Witnesses teachings”. It said they “indoctrinated and recruited new members among the capital’s residents and in other regions, to participate in the banned religious movement”.

What’s next?

Dozens of the faith’s followers are being prosecuted in Russia for practising their religion.

In July the UK government voiced concern about Russia’s crackdown on Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying the state had “criminalised the peaceful worship of 175,000 Russian citizens and contravened the right to religious freedom that is enshrined in the Russian constitution”.

In December 2018 Russian President Vladimir Putin said he could not understand why followers of the religion were being persecuted.

The Russian Orthodox Church welcomed the ban in 2017. A senior Orthodox cleric, Metropolitan Hilarion, called the Jehovah’s Witnesses a “totalitarian sect” on Russian TV.

He said: “It’s hard to deny that these cultists will remain and continue their activity… but at least they’ll stop openly claiming to be a Christian faith, in other words, in the market place of existing Christian confessions this product will no longer be on display.

“And I think that’s all for the best. It’ll save families, people’s lives”.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses were founded in the US in the late 19th Century and stick to a very literal reading of the Bible, rejecting the interpretations of many Christian scholars and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

They believe that the final battle between good and evil will happen soon. They are also pacifists, carry out door-to-door preaching and oppose blood transfusions.

Tributes have been paid to “immense” former France rugby union international Christophe Dominici, who has died aged 48.

Dominici was best known for helping France knock New Zealand out of the 1999 Rugby World Cup.

A witness saw him climb the roof of a disused building at Saint-Cloud park, near Paris, on Tuesday before falling, officials say.

Prosecutors have opened an inquiry into the cause of his death.

“So much sadness. Christophe Dominici was an immense player, an artist. His sudden death is a shock,” said sports minister Roxana Maracineanu.

Dominici played 67 times for his country and won the French championship five times with Stade Français before retiring in 2008. In recent years he had worked as a pundit for French radio and TV.

His 1999 World Cup semi-final performance spurred France to a sensational comeback, as he darted down the left of the pitch and seized the ball ahead of two New Zealand defenders to score a try. The All Blacks were leading the game at the time and had the brilliant Jonah Lomu in their line-up.

Known as Domi, he was 1.72m (5ft 6in) tall and earned a reputation for weaving runs that could change the course of a match. He played in four Six Nations-winning teams, including two Grand Slams.

His death has stunned the world of rugby. France’s rugby federation said the national sport was “in mourning after the tragic death of our wing Christophe Dominici”.

it added: “We’re particularly thinking of his family and loved ones.”

A similar message came from the other big rugby union nations. The Welsh Rugby Union said: “Adieu, Christophe Dominici… what a player.”

US President-elect Joe Biden has formally introduced the first people he has chosen for his cabinet, as the transition of power gathers pace.

If confirmed, Avril Haines would be the first female director of national intelligence and Alejandro Mayorkas the first Latino homeland security boss.

John Kerry will be climate envoy, while foreign policy veteran Antony Blinken is nominated for secretary of state.

President Trump has now agreed that the transition process should start.

However, he still refuses to concede defeat. He said the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the handover, must “do what needs to be done” but continues to repeat unsubstantiated claims that the 3 November election was “rigged”.

Mr Biden can now access millions of dollars in funds, national security briefings and key government officials to properly prepare to take over the presidency on 20 January.

In a very brief appearance in the White House press room on Tuesday, Mr Trump praised the work of his administration, hailed the Dow Jones stock index for passing the 30,000 mark and left without taking questions.

Mr Biden is projected to beat President Trump by 306 votes to 232 in the US electoral college when it meets to formally confirm the winner on 14 December. This is far above the 270 votes he needs.

On Tuesday, Governor Tom Wolf said he had certified the victory of Mr Biden in Pennsylvania, one of the key swing states. Another, Michigan, certified the same result on Monday.

Who has Biden picked?

Many of the choices are Mr Biden’s colleagues from the Barack Obama administrations.

Presenting his nominations, Mr Biden said the team would “make us proud to be American”.

Mr Biden presented six key picks on Tuesday:

• Antony Blinken was nominated as secretary of state – the most important foreign policy position. He is expected to manage a Biden foreign policy agenda that will emphasise re-engaging with Western allies
• Ex-US Secretary of State John Kerry will lead the incoming administration’s effort to combat climate change. He was one of the leading architects of the Paris climate agreement, which President Trump withdrew from
• Avril Haines, a former deputy director of the CIA, was nominated as the first female director of national intelligence
• Alejandro Mayorkas was the first Latino nominated to serve as secretary of homeland security. He previously served as deputy secretary of homeland security under President Obama
• Jake Sullivan was named White House national security adviser. Mr Sullivan served as Mr Biden’s national security adviser during Mr Obama’s second term
• Long-time diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield was nominated US ambassador to the UN. She also served under President Obama, including as assistant secretary of state for African affairs between 2013 and 2017

One choice that is expected but has not been announced yet is former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary

Most of the picks, although not Mr Kerry nor Mr Sullivan, will need confirmation by the Senate. Rejection of a nominee is rare. The last was in 1989, although some nominees have withdrawn from consideration.

Mr Biden’s first TV interview as president-elect is scheduled to air in the US on Tuesday evening.

It is not yet clear when Mr Biden will be given his first classified national security briefing as incoming president. The so-called Presidential Daily Brief gives Mr Trump details of the latest international threats and developments

Trial of ex-president Sarkozy a landmark for France

He was nicknamed the “bling-bling” president for what many in France saw as his lavish tastes – but now Nicolas Sarkozy faces the stark reality of a soulless courtroom.

He has gone on trial accused of corruption and influence-peddling, for allegedly trying to bribe a magistrate in return for information about an investigation into his party finances.

Mr Sarkozy is the first ex-president in modern France to appear in the dock.

He led France from 2007 to 2012.

His first court appearance was brief, however. The session was suspended after 30 minutes – until Thursday – because a key figure in the case, former senior judge Gilbert Azibert, is required to have a medical examination.

He is 73 and did not appear in the dock with his co-accused – Mr Sarkozy, 65, and the ex-president’s former lawyer Thierry Herzog. There is a question mark over the court proceedings because of the general coronavirus disruption.

The trial is set to run until 10 December. If found guilty, Mr Sarkozy could face a 10-year prison sentence and €1m (£889,000) fine.

Another former right-wing president, Jacques Chirac, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence in 2011 for diverting public funds and abusing public trust. The offences dated back to his time as mayor of Paris.

But he did not appear in court, owing to ill health. He denied wrongdoing.

What’s this case all about?

French magistrates have spent years investigating allegations of corruption dating back to Mr Sarkozy’s election campaigns and period in office.

This case is linked to a long-running investigation into the right-wing politician’s suspected use of secret donations to fund his 2007 presidential campaign.

The prosecution alleges that Mr Sarkozy and lawyer Thierry Herzog sought to bribe Gilbert Azibert with a prestigious job in Monaco in return for information about that investigation.

It is known as the “wiretapping case” in France, because phone calls between Mr Sarkozy and Mr Herzog were tapped in 2013-2014, in which Mr Sarkozy used the alias “Paul Bismuth” and they discussed Judge Azibert.

French media report that Mr Sarkozy was heard telling Mr Herzog “I’ll get him promoted, I’ll help him.”

Mr Sarkozy denies any wrongdoing – and he points out that Judge Azibert did not get the Monaco position.

“Gilbert Azibert got nothing, I made no approach [on his behalf] and I’ve been rejected by the Court of Cassation,” Mr Sarkozy said in 2014, referring to his battle to clear his name.

In October 2013 magistrates dropped him from their investigation into claims that he had accepted illicit payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign.

What are Mr Sarkozy’s other trials and tribulations?

Prosecutors suspect that Mr Sarkozy and several associates received millions of euros of Libyan cash to fund his 2007 presidential campaign. At that time the late Libyan dictator Col Muammar Gaddafi was in power.

In 2018 Mr Sarkozy was charged with corruption, illegal campaign financing and benefiting from embezzled public funds.

Last month, magistrates also charged him with “membership in a criminal conspiracy”. The charges could lead to a trial.

Mr Sarkozy has rejected all the charges.

In January this year magistrates also placed a former Sarkozy aide, Thierry Gaubert, under formal investigation.

“My innocence is once again trampled on by a decision that presents no evidence at all of any illicit financing,” Mr Sarkozy wrote on Facebook.

In a separate case, he is due to go on trial from 17 March to 15 April 2021 over the so-called Bygmalion affair, in which he is accused of having fraudulently overspent in his 2012 presidential campaign. His 2012 re-election bid was unsuccessful

The coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford is highly effective at stopping people developing Covid-19 symptoms, a large trial shows.

Interim data suggests 70% protection, but the researchers say the figure may be as high as 90% by tweaking the dose.

The results will be seen as a triumph, but come after Pfizer and Moderna vaccines showed 95% protection.

However, the Oxford jab is far cheaper, and is easier to store and get to every corner of the world than the other two.

So the vaccine will play a significant role in tackling the pandemic, if it is approved for use by regulators.

“The announcement today takes us another step closer to the time when we can use vaccines to bring an end to the devastation caused by [the virus],” said the vaccine’s architect, Prof Sarah Gilbert.

The UK government has pre-ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, and AstraZeneca says it will make three billion doses for the world next year.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “incredibly exciting news” and that while there were still safety checks to come, “these are fantastic results.

The vaccine has been developed in around 10 months, a process that normally takes a decade.

There are two results from the trial of more than 20,000 volunteers in the UK and Brazil.

Overall, there were 30 cases of Covid in people who had two doses of the vaccine and 101 cases in people who received a dummy injection. The researchers said it worked out at 70% protection, which is better than the seasonal flu jab.

Nobody getting the actual vaccine developed severe-Covid or needed hospital treatment.

Prof Andrew Pollard, the trial’s lead investigator, said he was “really pleased” with the results as “it means we have a vaccine for the world”.

However, protection was 90% in an analysis of around 3,000 people on the trial who were given a half-sized first dose and a full-sized second dose.

Prof Pollard said the finding was “intriguing” and would mean “we would have a lot more doses to distribute.”

The analysis also suggested there was a reduction in the number of people being infected without developing symptoms, who are still thought to be able to spread the virus.

Protesters have attacked the Carrefour supermarket where Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas was killed by security guards

The brutal killing of a black man at the hands of two white security guards outside a supermarket has sparked outrage across Brazil.

The killing happened on Thursday, the eve of Black Consciousness Day, and spurred anti-racism protests on Friday.

Footage showed Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, being repeatedly punched in the face by the guards at a Carrefour store in Porto Alegre.

One of the guards, it has emerged, was an off-duty military police officer.

They were arrested, and the Brazilian subsidiary of the French supermarket group Carrefour said it had cut ties with the security firm that provided the guards.

Brazil has a long legacy of racism. It was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888.

Brazilians have traditionally been taught that they live in a racial democracy – President Jair Bolsonaro denies racism exists – but activists say that perception is slowly changing.

Video of Thursday night’s attack in the southern city of Porto Alegre was circulated on social networks and on Brazilian media – sparking outrage.

It showed Mr Silveira Freitas, a welder, being repeatedly punched in the face and head by one security guard while being restrained by another. Another employee appeared to be alongside filming the incident.

Reports said security had been called after a female worker at the supermarket had been threatened by a man.

On Friday morning, protesters gathered outside the Carrefour in Porto Alegre and in the capital Brasilia, chanting and carrying signs which read “Ashamed of being white” and “Please stop killing us”. Protests were being called for in other cities.

The Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained momentum worldwide since the killing of George Floyd in the US in May, has resonated with many Brazilians.

In 2019, police in Brazil killed nearly six times as many people as in the US and most of them were black.

Many took to social media to condemn Thursday’s killing, including Brazil international footballer Richarlison Andrade.

“It seems that we have no way out… not even on Black Consciousness day,” the Everton player tweeted.

“In fact, what conscience? They killed a black man, beaten in front of the cameras. They beat him and filmed. Decency and shame have been lost to violence and hatred

A rocket attack on the Afghan capital Kabul has killed at least eight people and wounded 30 others, officials say, just before scheduled US-Taliban talks.

About 20 mortars were fired from two cars into residential areas on Saturday morning, the interior ministry said.

Several buildings and vehicles were damaged. The Taliban denied being behind the attack.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to meet Taliban negotiators in Doha in an effort to resume peace talks.

Earlier this week, the outgoing Trump administration announced plans to withdraw 2,000 troops from Afghanistan by mid-January. The decision was criticised amid concerns the sharp, fast reduction of troops would weaken the Afghan government’s ability to deal with a resurgent Taliban and other militants.

Many analysts fear the Afghan army is not strong enough to fight on its own if violence continues after foreign troops have left.

The rockets hit areas of central and north Kabul – including near the heavily fortified area that houses embassies and international companies – just before 09:00 (04:30 GMT). The Iranian embassy in Kabul said its compound was hit by rocket fragments but that no-one had been wounded.

In a statement, the Taliban denied involvement, saying they “do not blindly fire on public places”. A regional Islamic State group also operates in the country and has been behind recent attacks in Kabul, including two assaults on educations institutions that killed nearly 50 people in recent weeks.

The US started withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as part of an agreement signed by the US and the Taliban in February this year. But violence in the country has increased recently as the group stepped up its offensives amid stalled negotiations with the Afghan government.

Mr Pompeo is to meet representatives from the Taliban and the Afghan government in the Qatari capital Doha later. There are suggestions the US and the Taliban are finally close to signing off on the preliminary issues they have been discussing so far.

Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth, who has died after contracting coronavirus, was an outspoken judge of a kind rarely seen in Pakistan and an unlikely source of opposition to the powerful military.

Tributes described him as bold, fearless and independent. He was 59.

As chief justice of Peshawar High Court (PHC), he passed judgments that angered both the military and the government – including a death sentence on exiled former ruler General Pervez Musharraf that made headlines around the world.

He also challenged the establishment on human rights abuses, striking down a law under which the military ran secret internment centres, and acquitting dozens of people convicted under anti-terrorism laws for lack of evidence.

Justice Seth’s death is being seen as a major setback in a country where the military has been expanding its influence again in recent years.

Lawyers around the country have been in mourning since his death in an Islamabad hospital on 13 November.

The secretary-general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Harris Khalique, called his death a “great blow to a judiciary struggling to be independent in Pakistan’s quasi democracy”.

Mr Khalique told the BBC that Justice Seth represented the tradition of “conscientious and fearless judges… who unfortunately always remained in a minority”.

Former senator Afrasiab Khatak said in a tweet that Justice Seth’s stature was raised not just by the list of his remarkable judgments, “but also the oppressive conditions that required courage for writing such judgments”.

Supreme Court Bar Association president Abdul Latif Afridi described him as “a courageous and uncompromising” person who didn’t shy away from a fight with the military.

“And he paid a personal price,” Mr Afridi told Dawn newspaper, recalling that the Peshawar chief justice had been denied elevation to the Supreme Court three times despite his seniority.

Justice Seth made history when the three-member special court he headed sentenced Gen Musharraf to death last year in absentia. The general had been found guilty of treason for suspending the constitution and imposing emergency rule in 2007.

It was the first time the treason clause in the constitution been applied to anyone, far less to a top military official by a civil court in a country where the military has controlled political decision-making for most of the time since its independence from British rule in 1947.

The penalty was unlikely to be carried out. Gen Musharraf, who has always denied any wrongdoing, had been allowed to leave Pakistan in 2016 on medical grounds.

The ruling allowed for this, saying if he died before he could be executed his corpse should be dragged outside parliament in Islamabad and “hanged for three days”.

There was outrage, with the government seeking to disbar Justice Seth for being unfit for office, and legal experts calling the instructions unconstitutional

A man who kidnapped and murdered his ex-girlfriend in a woodland hideout has been jailed for at least 25 years.

Andrew Pearson, 45, ambushed Natalie Harker as she cycled to work in Catterick, North Yorkshire on 9 October 2019.

Teesside Crown Court heard Ms Harker, 30, was drowned before her body was hidden in Pearson’s tent.

Police were called by Pearson’s mother after her son had phoned her claiming she had died in an accident.

Pearson told his mother the pair had been walking together when Ms Harker had accidently slipped and fallen into a river, North Yorkshire Police said.

The couple had split up weeks before and Ms Harker, who worked as a cleaner, had told family and friends she was scared of her ex-partner who had been pestering her by text.

Two days before she was killed she told people at her church she was worried she was being followed.

Detectives discovered Pearson had conducted a dry run and took photos of the various scenes days before he ambushed Ms Harker at about 04:30 BST on a secluded path near Colburn.

Passing sentence Judge Stephen Ashurst said only Pearson would know precisely what happened when he killed her by holding her underwater while compressing her neck.

“What happened thereafter was extraordinary,” he said.

“You took her lifeless body into the tent, stripped her of her clothes which you then folded and took into another part of the tent.

“Whether she was still breathing or not, you thought only of yourself, not just in the shock of the moment, but for hour after hour.”

The court heard Pearson did not summon help, but messaged a friend in the US, saying: “Goodbye, I have killed Natalie, I’m going to hand myself in.”

He then spent 42 minutes on a FaceTime call with that friend while in the tent with her body before calling his mother.

Pearson, of Chestnut Court, Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, was given a minimum jail term of 25 years.

It will be the job of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to decide if the vaccine is safe to roll out.

It is not clear how long the FDA will take to study the data. However, the US government expects to approve the vaccine in the first half of December.

Data from an advanced trial showed the vaccine protects 94% of adults over 65.

The trial involved 41,000 people worldwide. Half were given the vaccine, and half a placebo.

The UK has pre-ordered 40 million doses and should get 10 million by the end of the year.

If FDA authorisation does come in the first half of next month, Pfizer and BioNTech will “be ready to distribute the vaccine candidate within hours”, the two companies said.

This would be remarkably quick for vaccine development – within 10 months of detailing the genetic code. The average wait for approval in the US is nearer eight years.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Thursday that the filing for emergency use was a “milestone in our journey to deliver a Covid-19 vaccine to the world”.

Initial doses would be scarce, though, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) will decide who is first in line.https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.36.3/iframe.htmlmedia captionCoronavirus vaccine: How close are you to getting one?

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU could move quickly too – by the end of the year.

But there are caveats. Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said both the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) would “conduct a very careful evaluation”.

And BBC health correspondent Naomi Grimley says this vaccine is still a long way off widespread use, not least because it adopts an experimental technology that has never been approved before.

Data released this week suggested the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine had 95% effectiveness.

This effectiveness was also consistent across age groups – essential given the vulnerability of the elderly – as well as ethnicities and gender.

The vaccine also had only mild-to-moderate and short-lived side-effects.

It uses an experimental approach, called mRNA, which involves injecting part of the virus’s genetic code into the body to train the immune system.

Antibodies and T-cells are then made by the body to fight the coronavirus.

The US this week passed 250,000 deaths in the coronavirus outbreak, by far the largest number in the world.

Its confirmed cases since the pandemic began stand at 11.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins University research, again a global first.

Cases have also been soaring over the past week, reaching record daily highs.

The health system in many areas is struggling to cope, with makeshift wards being created.

The CDCP has issued a “strong recommendation” that Americans refrain from travelling during the Thanksgiving holiday.

In California from Saturday there will be a 22:00 to 05:00 stay-at-home curfew for the vast majority of the population.

Ohio, Minnesota and New York are among other states imposing tough restrictions.

The transition of administrations has also not helped, with President-elect Joe Biden complaining of a lack of co-operation from Donald Trump’s government.

Defence funding boost ‘extends British influence’, says PM

A “once-in-a-generation modernisation” of the armed forces is required to extend British influence and protect the public, Boris Johnson has said.

The prime minister told MPs a new four-year funding deal would protect “hundreds of thousands” of jobs and create 40,000 new roles.

“I have decided that the era of cutting our defence budget must end, and it ends now,” he said.

Labour welcomed more defence spending but asked how it would be funded.

Outlining the new package in the Commons, the PM – speaking over video link as he is self-isolating – said the benefits “will go far beyond our armed forces”.

Mr Johnson described the increase in defence spending as being worth £16.5bn in new money over four years.

However economist Ben Zaranko, from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, said that while this represented a big rise in spending, the figure of £16.5bn was a “misleading way to present this announcement”.

He continued: “It would be more accurate to say that by 2024-25, defence spending will be £7bn higher than it would have been under previous plans.”

Mr Johnson said: “Our plans will safeguard hundreds of thousands of jobs in the defence industry, protecting livelihoods across the UK and keeping the British people safe.”

The PM pledged to end defence budget cuts, protect shipping lanes that supply the country, press on with renewing the UK’s nuclear deterrent and restore Britain as “the foremost naval power in Europe” with a “renaissance of British shipbuilding across the UK”.

He also said the funding would allow investment in new technology such as:

• A new centre dedicated to artificial intelligence
• The creation of a national cyber force, which he said was already operating against terrorists, organised crime groups and hostile states
• A new “RAF space command launching British satellites and our first rocket from Scotland in 2022”

“From aerospace to autonomous vehicles, these technologies have a vast array of civilian applications opening up new vistas of economic progress, creating 10,000 jobs every year – 40,000 in total – levelling-up across our country and reinforcing our union,” Mr Johnson added

A veteran Japanese singer has been suspended by his agency after admitting to an extra-marital affair.

Johnny & Associates said Masahiko Kondo’s “thoughtless” behaviour deserved “strict punishment”.

The 56-year-old has since been barred from all work engagements.

It is common for public figures in Japan to face censure and strict penalties after an affair is exposed, but some people have questioned the professional repercussions of this.

Mr Kondo’s relationship was first reported by a gossip magazine last week.

Johnny & Associates, one of Japan’s most powerful talent agencies, said that as a married man Mr Kondo’s “behaviour was thoughtless” and “lacked awareness and a sense of responsibility”.

“After careful consideration we decided that strict punishment was needed,” it said in a statement.

Mr Kondo, who was a J-Pop idol in the 1980s, had apologised and offered to step back to reflect on his behaviour and “to become a better person”, the agency added.

The singer, who is also known as Matchy, was widely criticised on social media as some fans expressed dismay about his behaviour, while others expressed sympathy for his wife.

But the news also did not surprise many as there had been previous reports about Mr Kondo’s affairs in Japan.

“In the current context of attention to women’s issues and #MeToo, his censure is a wake-up call for male celebrities,” said Professor Jennifer Robertson, an anthropologist specialising in Japan from the University of Michigan.

Some have questioned the scrutiny of his private life while not condoning his behaviour