A powerful hurricane has brought torrential rains and strong winds to Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, two weeks after another devastating storm hit. Iota made landfall as a category four storm near the town of Puerto Cabezas, where patients had to be evacuated from a makeshift hospital after its roof was ripped off. Residents are in shelters, and there are fears of food shortages. The storm has weakened and Honduras is expected to be hit later on Tuesday.The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Iota was now a category two storm, but warned it could bring life-threatening storm surges, catastrophic winds, flash flooding and landslides.(BBC)…[+]

President Donald Trump asked senior advisers last Thursday about potential options for attacking Iran’s main nuclear site, US media report. The advisers warned him that military action could spark a broader conflict, officials were cited as saying. The White House has not commented on the accounts of the meeting.

It took place a day after the global nuclear watchdog said Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was 12 times what was permitted under a 2015 nuclear deal. The landmark accord saw the US and five other world powers give Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions in return for limits on sensitive activities to show it was not developing nuclear weapons.(BBC)…[+]

The head of Nato has warned of a “high price” if US and allied forces leave Afghanistan too quickly.

In a statement, Jens Stoltenberg said the country risked once again becoming a platform for international terrorists to organise attacks. It follows reports by US media that President Donald Trump may speed up troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq before he is due to leave office. President Trump has previously said he wants “all” troops home by Christmas. He has criticised US military interventions for being costly and ineffective. But Mr Stoltenberg, secretary general of the Nato military alliance, said on Tuesday: “The price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high.” He specifically warned that the Islamic State group could use Afghanistan to rebuild after losing ground in Syria and Iraq. He added that there were fewer that 12,000 Nato soldiers in the country, “and more than half of these are non-US forces”. Funding for their mission to train and help Afghan security forces had been allocated “through 2024”.(BBC)…[+]

Facebook has taken down a string of racist and misogynistic posts, memes and comments about US Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris. The social network removed the content after BBC News alerted it to three groups that regularly hosted hateful material on their pages. Facebook says it takes down 90% of hate speech before it is flagged. One media monitoring body described the pages as “dedicated to propagating racist and misogynistic smears”. However, despite the pages being places where hate-speech is regularly directed towards the vice-president-elect, Facebook said it would not take action on the groups themselves.

Boris Johnson has reiterated he is “confident [the UK] will prosper” outside the EU if a post-Brexit trade deal is not agreed with the bloc. Talks began again in Brussels on Monday, with the UK’s chief negotiator saying there had been “progress”. Lord David Frost told reporters: “We’re working very hard to get a deal but there’s quite a lot to do.”

His EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, said he wanted “future cooperation to be open but fair” with the UK.  Tweeting as talks started, he added: “We remain determined, patient, respectful.” Sticking points between the two sides focus on competition rules and state aid for businesses, as well as fishing rights. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said there was still a “very, very wide gap” on fishing, with no progress on the issue since the summer. He told RTE: “Until we can find a way of doing that, there isn’t going to be an agreement.”(BBC)…[+]

Michigan and Washington are the latest US states to bring in strict measures to try to curb the spread of Covid-19. High schools and colleges are to halt on-site teaching while restaurants are prohibited from offering indoor dining in Michigan from Wednesday. Indoor restaurant dining is also banned in Washington State, and gyms, cinemas, theatres and museums will close. Covid cases have now topped 11 million in the US, with hospital admissions at record levels. On average, more than 1,000 people a day are dying with the virus, and the overall death toll is close to 250,000. The Trump administration struck an optimistic note on Friday, saying it hoped to distribute 20 million doses of an approved vaccine in December, and for each month after that – although vaccines have yet to get official approval.(BBC)…[+]

Peru’s interim president has resigned, a day after two people died during protests against his government. Manuel Merino, former speaker of Congress, had been in the post less than a week. He replaced President Martín Vizcarra after he was impeached on Monday over bribery allegations, which he denies. Senior politicians had called for Mr Merino’s resignation after a violent crackdown on demonstrations against him.

Twelve ministers from his recently-appointed cabinet resigned earlier on Sunday in protest against police brutality and his handling of the crisis. Tens of thousands of demonstrators – many of them young – have been taking part in protests against Mr Vizcarra’s removal in recent days. They accuse Congress of staging a parliamentary coup. Mr Vizcarra, 57, has enjoyed continued support among many voters for his attempts at reform. Saturday’s protests in Lima were largely peaceful but clashes broke out towards the evening between police and protesters.(BBC)…[+]

The 12-day conflict between Ethiopia’s government and forces in the country’s Tigray region has escalated. The Tigrayan forces fired rockets across the border into neighbouring Eritrea, after claiming Ethiopian soldiers were using an Eritrean airport to attack Tigray. Ethiopia’s prime minister appeared to deny the accusations in a tweet. But analysts say the latest attacks mark a major uptick in a conflict which has displaced thousands of civilians.

Most of the debilitating effects of statins are not caused by the drug, but by people believing it will make them sick, a UK study suggests. The phenomenon is known as the “nocebo effect” and may account for 90% of the ill health associated with the cholesterol-lowering drugs. The British Heart Foundation said the results were undeniable. The Imperial College London researchers hope the findings will help more people stay on statins.

The drugs are one of the most prescribed in the UK. Nearly eight million people taken them to lower their cholesterol and in turn reduce the risk of heart attacks and stroke. However, up to a fifth of people stop taking them due to side-effects such as muscle aches, fatigue, feeling sick and joint pain.(BBC)…[+]

Reports of the mass killing of civilians in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region “would amount to war crimes” if confirmed, the UN human rights chief has warned. Michelle Bachelet called for an inquiry into reports that scores and maybe hundreds of people had been stabbed and hacked to death in one town. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has accused forces loyal to Tigray’s leaders of the massacre. Its officials have denied involvement. Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael told AFP news agency that the accusations were “baseless.”

Mr Abiy said that fighters backing Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), went on the rampage after federal troops had “liberated” the western part of Tigray, “brutally” killing innocent civilians in Mai-Kadra, a town in the South West Zone of Tigray.(BBC)…[+]