While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Jan 30
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Wuhan virus: WHO to reconsider declaring global emergency
Foreign governments flew their citizens out of the epicentre of China's coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday, as the number of deaths jumped to 133 and the World Health Organisation (WHO) voiced "grave concern" about person-to-person spread in three other countries.
The WHO said its Emergency Committee would reconvene behind closed doors on Thursday to decide whether the rapid spread of the new virus from China now constitutes a global emergency.
"In the last few days the progress of the virus especially in some countries, especially human-to-human transmission, worries us," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva, naming Germany, Vietnam and Japan.
"Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak."
White House bars John Bolton book release over 'top secret' material
The White House told former national security adviser John Bolton that a book reportedly containing damaging evidence for President Donald Trump cannot be published because it breaks secrecy laws.
The warning was made in a letter to Bolton's lawyer dated Jan 23 but only made public on Wednesday as Trump's impeachment trial intensified in the Senate.
The National Security Council said after preliminary review of the manuscript - a vetting process applied to any White House employees writing books - that it contained "significant amounts of classified information".
Netanyahu looks to Trump Middle East peace plan to boost election chances
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed US President Donald Trump's peace proposal as a victory for Israel earned on his watch, but whether it boosts his re-election chances remains to be seen, experts say.
The March 2 vote is Israel's third in less than a year, with polls suggesting the prime minister's rightwing Likud is again neck-and-neck with the centrist Blue and White party led by ex-military chief Benny Gantz.
The news from Washington dominated headlines in Israeli papers on Wednesday, with graft charges against Netanyahu generally given second billing.
Cheers, tears, jeers and Auld Lang Syne for the UK's final bow in Brussels
Squeezed between an argument over what to call its transport strategy and a debate on the coronavirus, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of Britain's orderly departure from the European Union.
It was an anti-climactic way to issue the UK's last rites.
But Britain's goodbye has been gradual since voters chose that path in June 2016, and inevitable since December's general election returned Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a large majority.
Putin fires regional chief who made firefighter jump for key
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sacked a regional chief who forced a firefighter to jump in the air to receive keys for new fire engines.
The head of the central Russian region of Chuvashiya, Mikhail Ignatyev, at a public ceremony last week dangled keys over the head of a uniformed officer in the emergency ministry, forcing him to jump up to take them.
After a video emerged on social media, Ignatyev's press service tried to play down the scandal, saying the men were friendly acquaintances. But the emergency minister Yevgeny Zinichev criticised Ignatyev's behaviour as unethical.