While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Jan 18
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British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (left) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken take questions, during a press conference in Washington.
REUTERS
UK sees ‘moral imperative’ of Ukraine tanks, US teases new aid
Britain said on Tuesday that its breakthrough decision to provide tanks to Ukraine to fight Russia was a “moral imperative,” as the United States said that more military aid was coming.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on a visit to Washington said that Britain was sending a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin by backing the Ukrainians and becoming the first nation to agree to their request for Western tanks.
“What Putin should understand is we are going to have the strategic endurance to stick with them until the job is done. And the best thing that he can do to preserve the lives of his own troops is to recognise that we’re going to stick with Ukrainians until they are victorious,” he said at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Saturday that his government would provide 14 Challenger 2 tanks, leading Russia to charge that Britain was worsening the conflict.
Ukraine buries man whose kitchen wall was torn off in attack
Family, friends and colleagues on Tuesday laid to rest a Ukrainian boxing coach killed in a Russian missile attack that tore the outer wall off the apartment where he had recently celebrated his daughter’s fourth birthday.
Hundreds of mourners attended the memorial service for Mykhailo Korenovskyi, one of at least 44 people killed in Saturday’s attack on Dnipro in east-central Ukraine.
A recent family video showed his daughter smiling and blowing out candles on her birthday cake while Korenovskyi stood behind her in the kitchen, holding another child in his arms.
World’s oldest known person, who survived Covid, dies aged 118
AFP
The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, has died aged 118, a spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.
Ms Randon, known as Sister Andre, was born in southern France on Feb 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.
She died in her sleep at her nursing home in Toulon, spokesman David Tavella said.
Greta Thunberg released after brief detention at mine protest
AFP
Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg was detained alongside other activists on Tuesday, during protests against the demolition of a village to make way for a coal mine expansion. But she was released after an identity check, according to police.
Ms Thunberg was held while protesting at the opencast coal mine of Garzweiler 2, some 9km from the village of Luetzerath, after police warned that the group would be removed by force if they did not move away from the edge of the mine.
The village in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia is being cleared to allow for the expansion of the mine.
Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos declares interest in buying Man United
AFP
British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos company officially joined the race to buy Manchester United on Tuesday.
United’s owners, the Glazer family, said they were willing to listen to offers for the Premier League club in November and Ratcliffe is keen to strike a deal.
Boyhood United fan Ratcliffe, who made an unsuccessful £4.25 billion (S$6.8 billion) bid to buy Chelsea last year, has long been linked with the Old Trafford outfit.
