 |  | The Reuters Daily Briefing |
Thursday, January 21, 2021 by Linda Noakes and Farouq Suleiman |
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Good morning, . Heres what you need to know. 'America is back'
Joe Biden got to work undoing Donald Trump’s policies hours after being sworn in, signing 15 executive actions and making his first moves on the pandemic, immigration and climate change.
Further executive orders today will direct that disaster funds be used to reopen schools and willrequire people to wear masks on planes and buses.
World leaders have welcomed Biden in a series of messages with a common tone: 'The United States is back', 'America is back', and 'Today is a good day for democracy.’
Meanwhile, QAnon followers are facing a harsh reality check: Trump has left office with no mass arrests or other victories against the supposed cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophile cannibal elites, especially Democrats, he was ostensibly fighting.
Investors got their Biden bounce on, with world stocks racking up record highs on hopes of major U.S. stimulus to cushion the coronavirus’s economic damage. |
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| | Today's biggest stories  The pandemic The World Health Organization plans to approve several vaccines from Western and Chinese manufacturers in coming weeks and months, a document shows, as it aims for rapid rollouts in poorer countries.
Africa’s coronavirus case fatality rate stands at 2.5%, higher than the global level of 2.2%, a trend that is alarming experts, the head of the continent’s disease control body said on Thursday.
A third pandemic lockdown appears to be having little impact on rates of COVID-19 in England, researchers warned, with prevalence of the disease “very high” and “no evidence of decline” in the first 10 days of renewed restrictions.
Moscow will relax some restrictions from Friday, including fully reopening colleges and specialist education institutions, the mayor of the Russian capital said. The number of daily new cases has started to fall in Russia, which launched a voluntary vaccination program with the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine last month. |
 World news Twitter has locked the account of China’s U.S. embassy for a tweet that defended China’s policy towards Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, which the social media platform said violated its stand against “dehumanizing” people.
Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party gathers for a congress next week that will help shape the country’s global role for the next five years, selecting new leaders and setting policy as tensions bubble with Beijing and Joe Biden settles in at the White House.
Britain is resisting an EU demand that it grant full diplomatic status to the bloc’s ambassador in London, causing a row between the recently divorced parties that spilled out into the open.
A twin suicide bombing killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 50 in a Baghdad market on Thursday, the first such attack in years, security and medical sources said. |
 Business News U.S. Treasury Secretary-designate Janet Yellen’s comments defending President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending plan reflect a steady shift in economists’ thinking about the mountains of government debt across the developed world.
China more than doubled its construction of new wind and solar power plants in 2020 from a year earlier, government data showed, reflecting Beijing’s pledge to cut fossil fuel dependence and bring carbon emissions to a peak within a decade.
Feed fight: Tightening global supplies of basic foodstuffs and disruptions to shipping caused by the coronavirus pandemic are driving up the cost of rice, the most important staple food for billions of people worldwide.
Billionaire Jack Ma’s 50-second video reappearance has done little to resolve Alibaba Group’s troubled relationship with regulators that is making some investors hesitate about owning the Chinese e-commerce giant’s stock. |
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From Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Planes, Hotels, Banks Norwegian Air Shuttle just found a reserve parachute, Upscale Chinese hotelier Zhejiang New Century is looking to check out of equity markets just two years after its initial public offering, and the descriptions “pleasant surprise” and “European bank” are not often conjoined. Read concise views on the pandemics financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe. |
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| | Quote of the day "To restore the soul and to secure the future of America requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity." Joe Biden 46th U.S. President Biden's inaugural address | |
| Thanks for spending part of your day with us. Today’s The Reuters Daily Briefing was written by Linda Noakes and Farouq Suleiman |
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