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President Halimah Yacob had a bilateral meeting with China's Premier Li Keqiang at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on Feb 5, 2021. (Photo: Xinhua News Agency) - 

President Halimah Yacob held a bilateral meeting with China’s Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on Saturday (Feb 5), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said in a statement.

During the meeting, Madam Halimah congratulated China on the successful opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics and expressed appreciation of the “unifying power of the Olympics to bring together athletes from around the world to achieve sporting excellence and promote sportsmanship”.

“Mdm Halimah and Mr Li affirmed the strong ties between Singapore and China. They welcomed the good momentum in economic cooperation, including the robust growth in trade and investment as well as cooperation in new areas such as the digital economy, green economy and sustainable development,” said MFA.

Both leaders also agreed that there were many areas of convergence between Singapore’s pursuit of innovative, sustainable and inclusive development, and China’s current and future development strategies.

“Mdm Halimah expressed Singapore’s readiness to deepen bilateral cooperation and ensure that our relations remain substantive and forward-looking, as both countries work to secure post-pandemic recovery and a sustainable future,” said MFA.

The Foreign Ministry also added that Mdm Halimah also looked forward to “the full resumption of air connectivity and people-to-people exchanges, including the return of all Singapore students to China for their studies, when conditions permitted”.

Mdm Halimah will meet with President Xi Jinping on Sunday before returning to Singapore.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Mdm Halimah said she had attended a welcome banquet hosted by Mr Xi and his wife Mdm Peng Liyuan. 

"I took the opportunity to catch up with King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia and Prince Albert II of Monaco, who were seated beside me," she said. 

Mr Xi has held meetings with the leaders of Serbia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, who were in China for the opening of the Winter Olympics. Other foreign dignitaries and leaders who were due to attend the Olympics include Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Salman and the presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan//CNA

Protests by truckers and their supporters against Covid-19 vaccine mandates are continuing in Ottawa, Canada (Photo: AFP/File/Dave Chan) - 

Protesters again poured into Canada's capital early Saturday (Feb 5) to join a convoy of truckers whose occupation of Ottawa to denounce COVID-19 vaccine mandates is now in its second week.

Individuals and families huddled around campfires in bone-chilling weather and erected bouncy castles for children outside Parliament, while waving Canadian flags and anti-government placards.

Police, who were out in force and erected barriers overnight to limit vehicle access to the city center, said they were expecting up to 2,000 protesters - as well as 1,000 counterprotesters - to join hundreds of truckers already clogging Ottawa streets.

But organisers of the so-called "Freedom Convoy" told AFP they expected their numbers to swell into the tens of thousands.

Similar protests were planned for Toronto, Quebec City and Winnipeg.

The atmosphere early Saturday appeared more festive than a week earlier, when some protesters waved Confederate flags and Nazi symbols - which were condemned by government officials - and clashed with locals.

Police have vowed to end the "unlawful" occupation as soon as possible.

But on Saturday, there were signs the protesters were digging in. They had erected a wooden shed and tents to house food supplies for demonstrators and fuel for the big rigs.

One woman offered passersby hand-warmers as temperatures were forecast to plunge to -30 degrees Celsius.

Kimberly Ball and her husband had driven five hours from a small town west of Toronto to join the demonstration.

"It's not about whether you get the vaccine or not," she insisted. "It's about our freedom."

Holding back tears, she added: "It's really, really tough. A couple of people we know, friends, also lost their jobs because of these mandates."

Ball has had COVID-19 and said she is not convinced the vaccines are safe and effective.

She is, however, in the minority in Canada, where 90 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated.

The Freedom Convoy started on Canada's Pacific coast in late January and picked up supporters along the trek to the capital. The protest has drawn more than 10 million Canadian dollars (US$8 million) in online donations.

The number of protesters in Ottawa had peaked at several thousand last Saturday, according to officials, before dwindling to a few hundred by midweek.

This weekend Ottawa police worked to contain the protests to the parliamentary precinct, after widespread complaints of harassment, threats and sleeplessness caused by incessant honking//CNA

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay arrives for a cabinet meeting at the FCO in London, Britain September 22, 2020. Leon Neal/Pool via REUTERS - 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday (Feb 5) hired a new chief of staff as he rebuilds his top team following a series of scandals that have left him fighting to shore up his authority.

Cabinet minister Steve Barclay, formerly Brexit minister under Theresa May's administration, will head Johnson's staff, Downing Street said.

"The changes I'm announcing to my senior team today will improve how No 10 operates, strengthen the role of my Cabinet and backbench colleagues, and accelerate our defining mission to level up the country," Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson, who in 2019 won the biggest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher in 1987, has repeatedly refused to resign over reports that he and some of his staff attended Downing Street parties during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Those revelations raised questions about Johnson's often chaotic style of leadership and have led to the greatest threat to him since he took office. They follow a series of other scandals.

Johnson has admitted that problems needed to be fixed at the heart of Downing Street, which serves as both his home and the nerve centre of the British state.

Munira Mirza, his head of policy who had worked with him for 14 years, resigned on Thursday over Johnson's claim that Labour leader Keir Starmer failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions (DPP)//CNA

Smoke rises from a forest fire in Chiribiquete National Natural Park, in the northwest of the Colombian Amazon on Feb 4, 2022. (Photo: AFP PHOTO / COLOMBIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY / Karen SALAMANCA) - 

January of this year was the hottest month in the Colombian Amazon in a decade, leading to an increase in forest fires in the southeastern region and very likely impacting air quality in the capital Bogota, according to an Environment Ministry report seen by AFP on Friday (Feb 5).

It said the month of January recorded the "highest hot spot values in the last 10 years" in the Colombian Amazon.

The phenomenon occurs, the ministry said, when the country goes through a season of low rainfall, and is due to human activity, of which "the most important is associated with deforestation fronts".

At least 80 per cent of the "hot spots" were forest fires, a ministry spokesman told AFP. At the end of January, the ministry identified more than 3,300 "hot spots" in the six departments that make up the Colombian Amazon, including 1,300 in the Guaviare region alone.

According to testimony collected by AFP in October in the region, peasants and landowners take advantage of the dry season, from January to April, to burn or cut down trees and plant coca plants in their place, or to let cattle graze there.

The Serrania del Chiribiquete National Park, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is particularly threatened, as is the Nukak National Nature Reserve, a vast territory of jungle inhabited by the last nomadic indigenous people of Colombia.

The Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), which keeps its own count and regularly flies over the areas concerned, recorded at least 938 forest fires, the highest monthly January figure since 2012.

"Thousands of hectares of Amazon jungle, cut in recent months, are on fire today. These massive fires are now being felt as far away as Bogota," FCDS director Rodrigo Botero warned on Twitter.

"There are public health decisions to be made quickly. What are the air indicators saying in Bogota?"

Bogota mayor Claudia Lopez decried "the inability" of the government "to control the territory and guarantee security."

She described the fires as "arson attacks ... which, due to the direction of the wind, end up arriving and deteriorating the quality of the air" in the capital, almost 500km away.

In Medellin, the country's second most populous city, officials have warned of a deterioration in air quality to a level "harmful to the health" of children and the elderly.

According to data from the Colombian government, deforestation has exploded in recent years in the country's Amazonian regions, notably as a result of the historic peace deal signed in 2016 with the Marxist guerrillas of the FARC, which then abandoned large swaths of territory which they previously controlled//CNA