1.The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative region (HKSAR) announced today that it will no longer recognize the British National (overseas) (BNO) passport) as a valid travel document and proof of identity. With effect from 31 January, the BNO passport cannot be used for entry or exit in Hong Kong, nor will it be recognized as any form of proof of identity in Hong Kong. 

2.According to the Los Angeles Times, the efficacy of the Novax and Johnson vaccines in novel coronavirus has reached 70 to 90 percent, but the immune response to the variant virus found in South Africa has dropped to less than 60 percent, which is much lower than that of other strains. Novak recently announced that the effectiveness of the variant virus (B.1.351) found in South Africa has been reduced to 49%.

3.Japanese media: as the Japanese government has been controlling the scale of testing, there may be a large number of asymptomatic infections, 16 times the number of people currently diagnosed, according to a new study on the COVID-19 epidemic in Japan. According to the report, after a mathematical model analysis of the epidemic information in Japan, Okinawa International University and Central University speculated that the epidemic in Japan was spreading from the capital circle to the whole country, especially the government’s travel promotion plan “Go To Travel” accelerated the spread of the virus.

4.US real GDP grew at an annualised rate of 4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020, but the economy shrank by 3.5 per cent for the whole year. It is also the first full-year contraction of the US economy since the international financial crisis in 2008, the worst performance since 1946. 

5.Citron, a US short-seller, said it would no longer issue short-selling reports and would focus on long-term opportunities for individual investors. Us retail VS Wall Street’s five-day tug-of-war: in the past two weeks, there has been a very strange scene in the US stock market: game Station, a US physical game retailer that has been in decline for years, has suddenly become the hottest investment in the United States, with its share price soaring from $19 on January 12 to a peak of $483 on January 28, closing at $193.6 on the 28th. The astonishing surge in stock prices is unexpectedly a forced market caused by a large number of retail investors huddling together. This time, the group of retail investors ordered at least two Wall Street hedge funds shorting the “game post” to “lay down their arms”. After the incident, Robin Hood, an American securities trading platform, imposed restrictions to prevent users of its applications from buying stocks such as game stations.

6.On January 1, a batch of inactivated novel coronavirus vaccines assisted by the Chinese government arrived in Pakistan. This is the first batch of vaccine assistance from the Chinese government and the first batch of vaccines received by Pakistan. Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi thanked the Chinese government and people for their strong support for Pakistan’s fight against the epidemic, and said that the epidemic will give priority to vaccinating front-line medical personnel. 

7.France announced on the evening of the 29th that in order to contain the COVID-19 epidemic, the French government has decided to close its borders to countries outside the European Union.

8.World Health Organization (WHO): hoarding COVID-19 vaccine will lead to three major problems. First, it would be a “catastrophic moral failure”, and second, it would cause the epidemic to continue to spread, and it would slow the global economic recovery. The current export bans or restrictions imposed by any country will prevent the free flow of raw materials for the production of vaccines, diagnostic tools and other drugs, which will do nothing to stop the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic.

9.German Marshall Foundation: In 2020, despite the efforts of Twitter and Facebook to curb false information, deceptive content from discredited websites continued to surge. The spread of deceptive websites on Twitter reached an all-time high in the fourth quarter of last year, when their content was deleted by Twitter 47 million times. Compared with other content, the content of deceptive websites expands its coverage faster.

10.Recently, the cheap stock prices of many “stars” in the US stock market fluctuated sharply in the game between retail investors and hedge funds. Although this round of short-selling stocks are all small-cap stocks with relatively low share prices, they reflect the excessive speculation brought about by the crazy rise in US stocks against a backdrop of abundant liquidity. Some market participants believe that the “short” market may promote a new round of pullback in US stocks.

11.Is there no lawyer for Trump’s impeachment? More than a week before the impeachment trial of former US President Donald Trump, five lawyers, including two “leading” lawyers, have left their legal team on the grounds that they do not agree with Trump’s “legal strategy”, according to (CNN).

12.Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Treasury on January 29 local time. Earlier, the US Department of Defense announced on January 14 that it had added nine Chinese companies to the Chinese military-related sanctions list, including aircraft maker Comac and mobile phone maker Xiaomi.