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Vietnam's Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh (L) and Britain's International Trade Secretary Liz Truss finalised a free trade pact which will see 99 per cent of tariffs eliminated once it is fully implemented. (Photo: AFP/Nhac NGUYEN)

Britain will apply to join the Pacific free trade area, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the UK said Saturday (Jan 30), under its post-Brexit plans.

Britain's International Trade Secretary Liz Truss is to formally request UK membership of the free trade bloc, which represents 11 Pacific Rim nations including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and Vietnam, on Monday.

Negotiations between the UK and the partnership are expected to start this year, the trade department said.

"One year after our departure for the EU we are forging new partnerships that will bring enormous economic benefits for the people of Britain," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said."Applying to be the first new country to join the CPTPP demonstrates our ambition to do business on the best terms with our friends and partners all over the world and be an enthusiastic champion of global free trade," he added.

Truss, who has touted the prospect of British membership of the bloc as the UK agreed post-Brexit trading arrangements with Japan and Canada among other members of the CPTPP, said joining would offer "enormous opportunities".

"It will mean lower tariffs for car manufacturers and whisky producers, and better access for our brilliant services providers, delivering quality jobs and greater prosperity for people here at home," she added.

The CPTPP was launched in 2019 to remove trade barriers among the 11 nations representing nearly 500 million consumers in the Asia-Pacific region in a bid to counter China's growing economic influence.

The United States, one of the major proponents of the Pacific bloc under former president Barack Obama, withdrew from the partnership under the Trump administration before it was ratified in 2017//CNA

Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - October 1, 2020 Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko in action during her second round match Czech Republic's Karolina Pliskova REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko fought back from a set down to reach the second round of the Gippsland Trophy as a raft of Australian Open warm-up tournaments got underway at Melbourne Park on Sunday.

The 23-year-old Latvian initially struggled with her serve and posted six double faults in the opening set of her first match since October against experienced Italian Sara Errani.

Estonian Kaia Kanepi had an even bigger scare on Margaret Court Arena against Australian Astra Sharma, who was two points from victory in the second set before slumping to a 1-6 7-5 6-2 defeat.

French 12th seed Caroline Garcia had a more straightforward outing against local Arina Rodionova, winning 6-3 6-4 to set up a second-round meeting with Timea Babos.

Top seeds Simona Halep and Naomi Osaka were given byes and will join the fray in the second round.Anastasia Potapova thrashed fellow teenager Whitney Osuigwe 6-3 6-0 to set up a date with Halep, while France's Alize Cornet will play Australian Ajla Tomljanovic on Monday to decide Osaka's first opponent//CNA

Single COVID-19 case sends Australia's Perth into snap lockdown - AFP

The Australian city of Perth will begin a snap five-day lockdown after a security guard at a quarantine hotel tested positive for COVID-19, authorities announced Sunday (Jan 31).

Roughly 2 million residents of the city must stay at home as of Sunday evening, as will those living in the nearby Peel and South West regions.

A scheduled return of schools on Monday will be delayed, with locals only permitted to leave their homes for exercise, medical care, essential work or to buy food.

The new rules follow the first case of community transmission in Western Australia state for 10 months, officials said.

"Our model is to deal with it very, very quickly and harshly ... so that we can bring it under control and not have community spread of the virus as you have seen in other countries around the world," state Premier Mark McGowan said.

Authorities believe the man contracted the virus from a returning traveller quarantining in a hotel in Australia's fourth-biggest city.

The traveller is thought to have picked up a UK variant of the virus believed to be more infectious than COVID-19 strains previously detected in Australia.

Genomic testing is underway to determine the precise source of the man's infection, and health officials said he may have visited more than a dozen locations while carrying the virus.

Cafes, bars and restaurants have been ordered to close, while visits to health facilities are banned and weddings cancelled.

"We are trying to crush the virus as quickly as we possibly can."

The restrictions are the toughest seen in Perth since the early stages of the pandemic, while masks have been made mandatory for the first time.

Western Australia kept its borders closed for most of 2020, cutting itself off from the rest of the nation but allowing the state to enjoy many months of relative normality.

The snap lockdown comes three weeks after similar measures were implemented in the eastern city of Brisbane, prompted by a hotel cleaner contracting the variant.

Those restrictions were quickly lifted when it became clear the virus had not taken hold in the community.

Australia has fared relatively well during the pandemic, recording just over 28,800 COVID-19 cases and 909 deaths linked to the virus in a population of about 25 million//CNA

US order waering Masks - NY

A number of countries tightened their borders against a surge in variant strains of the deadly coronavirus as the United States on Saturday (Jan 30) ordered travellers to wear masks on most public transport. 

With doses of the different COVID-19 jabs so far approved for use still in relatively short supply - and mass inoculation programmes in their early stages - Britain and the EU have become embroiled in an ugly row over the shots they had been promised by drugmaker AstraZeneca.

The jab developed by the British-Swedish firm is only the third to be rolled out in Europe. But the company has said it can only deliver a fraction of the doses promised to the Brussels and London because of production problems.

As the World Health Organization warned against vaccine nastionalism, both Britain and EU said Saturday they were confident the problems could be resolved. 

Nevertheless, tensions on either side of the English Channel showed scant sign of easing.

France's European affairs minister Clement Beaune warned that it would pose "a problem" if the UK were given preferential treatment. 

British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab warned that "the world is watching and it is only through international collaboration that we will beat this pandemic".

Nevertheless, Raab said he had been "reassured" in talks with EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovkis that Brussels "has no desire to block suppliers fulfilling contracts for vaccine distribution to the UK".

Germany's vaccine commission has recommended against using it on older people.

And on Saturday, Health Minister Jens Spahn said the government would no longer give priority to people over 65 when giving out the AstraZeneca shots.

Italy has similarly approved the AstraZeneca jab for all adults. But its medicines agency recommended alternatives be given to people aged over 55.

The AIFA agency "authorises the AstraZeneca vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals over the age of 18, as per European Medicines Agency guidance," it said//CNA