Britain on Tuesday hailed a new treaty with the United States that seeks to protect the wreck of the Titanic from damage by explorers and tourists.
The remains of the ship lie largely intact 2.5 miles (four kilometres) below the surface of the north Atlantic Ocean, after it hit an iceberg in 1912.
But there have been growing concerns about visitors taking artefacts, leaving rubbish and even placing plaques in memory of the 1,500 people who died.
An international treaty to limit access was signed by Britain in 2003 but only ratified by the United States in November last year.
During a visit to Belfast in Northern Ireland, where the Titanic was built, British maritime minister Nusrat Ghani said it was a "momentous agreement".
It meant the site "will be treated with the sensitivity and respect owed to the final resting place of more than 1,500 lives", she said, according to a government statement.
"The UK will now work closely with other North Atlantic States to bring even more protection to the wreck of the Titanic."
Built by Harland and Wolff, the Titanic was the largest and most luxurious passenger vessel of its time and described as "unsinkable".
It set sail on its maiden voyage from the English port of Southampton on April 10, 1912, bound for New York but it never arrived.
The ship, carrying around 2,224 passengers, hit an iceberg on April 15, broke apart and sank to the bottom of the ocean.
The wreck was discovered in September 1985 about 350 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, in Canada.
Several countries have been negotiating an international deal to protect it since then, while it is also protected by UNESCO.
Britain and the US have now both passed legislation giving them the power to grant or deny licences authorising people to enter the hull sections of the Titanic and remove artefacts, UK officials said.
Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump have agreed to extend negotiations on a dispute over a French tax on digital giants to the end of the year, postponing Washington's threat of sanctions against Paris, French officials said Tuesday.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, speaking before a Brussels meeting with EU counterparts, said: "Macron and Trump had a very constructive discussion... and they agreed to avoid all escalation between the US and France on this digital tax issue."
A French diplomatic source said the French and US leaders, who spoke by telephone on Sunday, agreed to give negotiations a chance to "find a solution in an international framework" and avoid "a trade war that will benefit no one".
Macron tweeted Monday that he had had a "great discussion" with Trump on the issue. "We will work together on a good agreement to avoid tariff escalation," he said.
"Excellent!" replied Trump on Twitter.
The White House said the two men spoke and "agreed it is important to complete successful negotiations on the digital services tax, and they also discussed other bilateral issues."
The dispute began last year when Paris approved a levy on up to three percent of revenues earned by technology companies in France, as international efforts dragged on to find a new model for taxing revenues earned via online sales and advertising.
Tech companies often pay little tax in countries in which they are not physically present.
Washington said the tax singled out US companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix. It threatened retaliatory duties of up to 100 percent of the value of French imports of such emblematic goods as Champagne and Camembert cheese.
The European Union had said it would back France if such tariffs were levied, raising the prospect of a transatlantic trade war.
- 'Remains a difficult negotiation' -
On January 7, Paris and Washington had given themselves 15 days to reach a deal to avert the US threat of duties on up to $2.4 billion of French goods.
Le Maire, who has been conducting intensive negotiations for the last several weeks, had been scheduled to hold crunch talks on the issue with US counterpart Steven Mnuchin at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
According to another French source, the possibility of France suspending collection of the tax "will be on the negotiating table" when the two meet.
After confirming the reprieve, Le Maire told journalists in Brussels that he spoke with Mnuchin by telephone on Sunday and "our technical teams are in contact day and night to work on a solution".
He stressed that "this remains a difficult negotiation.... A certain number of details need to be worked out, but I believe we're going in the right direction."
Le Maire declined, however, to say whether France would suspend its digital tax. "I am not going to get into the details of the negotiation. I prefer that that remains between Mnuchin and myself," he said.
The French presidency said on Monday that "France is pursuing its objective of fair taxation on digital companies and finding a compromise within the framework of the OECD."
France has said it would drop its tax if an international agreement is reached under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
After blocking the OECD talks for several years, Washington relaunched them last year only to make proposals in December which France rejected.
Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday slammed global inaction on climate change in front of the world's top business leaders, as the annual Davos forum faced up to the perils of global warming while bracing for an address from US President Donald Trump.
The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps resort got under way seeking to meet head-on the dangers to both the environment and economy from the heating of the planet.
Trump, who has repeatedly expressed scepticism about climate change, is set to give the first keynote address of Davos 2020 on Tuesday morning, on the same day as his impeachment trial opens at the Senate in Washington.
But before his appearance, Thunberg underlined the message that has inspired millions around the world -- that governments are failing to wake up to the reality of climate change.
"We are all fighting for the environment and climate. If you see it from a bigger perspective, basically nothing has been done. It will require much more than this. This is just the very beginning," she said.
Speaking calmly and with a wry smile, Thunberg acknowledged that her campaign which began with school strikes had attracted huge attention without yet achieving change.
"There is a difference between being heard to actually leading to something," she said.
"I am not the person who should complain about not being heard," she said to appreciative laughter.
"I am being heard all the time. But the science and the voice of the young people are not at the centre of the conversation," she added.
The forum's own Global Risks report published last week warned that "climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected" with global temperatures on track to increase by at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) towards the end of the century.
- Davos showdown? -
There are no expectations that Trump and Thunberg, who have exchanged barbs through Twitter, will actually meet, but the crowded venue and intense schedule mean a chance encounter cannot be ruled out.
When Trump and his entourage walked through UN headquarters last year at the annual General Assembly, a photo of the teenager staring in apparent fury at the president from the sidelines went viral.
Tweeting as he headed to Davos, Trump appeared in bullish mood, writing he would "bring Good Policy and additional Hundreds of Billions of Dollars back to the United States of America!"
"We are now NUMBER ONE in the Universe, by FAR!! he added.
Sustainability is the buzzword at the forum, which began in 1971, with heel crampons handed out to participants to encourage them to walk on the icy streets rather than use cars, and the signage paint made out of seaweed.
Trump's opposition to renewable energy, his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, and the free hand extended to the fossil fuel industry puts him at odds with the entire thrust of the event.
Business leaders attending the forum will be keen to tout their awareness on climate change but are likely also to be concerned by the state of the global economy whose prospects, according to the IMF, have improved but remain brittle.
The IMF cut its global growth estimate for 2020 to 3.3 percent, saying that a recent truce in the trade war between China and the US had brought some stability but that risks remained.
"We are already seeing some tentative signs of stabilisation but we have not reached a turning point yet," said IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva.
- 'Healthy balance' -
Activists meanwhile will be pressing for much more concrete action to fight inequality, after Oxfam issued a report outlining how the number of billionaires has doubled in the past decade and the world's 22 richest men now have more wealth than all the women in Africa.
Greenpeace meanwhile complained that some of the world's biggest banks, insurers and pension funds have collectively invested $1.4 trillion in fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal.
"I am angry about the state of the world but I am also determined to engage and provide solutions and deliver," WWF director general Marco Lambertini told AFP. "There needs to be healthy balance between these two sentiments."
US President Donald Trump arrived in Davos on Tuesday for the annual WEF forum, where he was to give a keynote speech just hours before his impeachment trial kicks into high gear in Washington.
Trump's Marine One helicopter touched down in the picturesque Swiss ski resort shortly ahead of his scheduled speech to the World Economic Forum, which this year is focusing on climate change.
He was also due to meet separately with the president of Iraq, Pakistan's prime minister and the head of the European Union executive body.
Meanwhile in Washington, Trump's impeachment enters a new phase in the Senate with legislators debating the format for the trial.
Although Trump's Republican party holds a majority in the Senate and is almost sure to acquit him on charges of abusing his power and obstructing Congress, the impeachment adds volatility to an already tense 2020 presidential election.
The starkly opposed visions of US President Donald Trump and Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg on climate change will clash in Davos on Tuesday as the World Economic Forum tries to face up to the perils of global warming on its 50th meeting.
The four-day gathering of the world's top political and business leaders in the Swiss Alps gets under way seeking to meet head-on the dangers to both the environment and economy from the heating of the planet.
Trump, who has repeatedly expressed scepticism about climate change, is set to give the first keynote address of Davos 2020 on Tuesday morning, on the same day as his impeachment trial opens at the Senate in Washington.
Around the same time, Thunberg will also attend a meeting at the forum, where she is expected to underline the message that has inspired millions around the world -- that governments are failing to wake up to the reality of climate change.
The forum's own Global Risks report published last week warned that "climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected" with global temperatures on track to increase by at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) towards the end of the century.
There are no expectations that the two, who have exchanged barbs through Twitter, will actually meet, but the crowded venue and intense schedule mean a chance encounter cannot be ruled out.
When Trump and his entourage walked through UN headquarters last year at the annual General Assembly, a photo of the teenager staring in apparent fury at the president from the sidelines went viral.
'No turning point'
Sustainability is the buzzword at the forum, which began in 1971, with heel crampons handed out to participants to encourage them to walk on the icy streets rather than use cars, and the signage paint made out of seaweed.
Trump's opposition to renewable energy, his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, and the free hand extended to the fossil fuel industry puts him at odds with the entire thrust of the event.
"Climate change is a hot topic at Davos," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, adding there had been a "change in the atmosphere" and realisation that climate change represented a downside risk for the economy.
EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said at a welcome ceremony in Davos that "for too long, humanity took away resources from the environment and in exchange produced waste and pollution".
Business leaders attending the forum will be keen to tout their awareness on climate change but are likely also to be concerned by the state of the global economy whose prospects, according to the IMF, have improved but remain brittle.
The IMF cut its global growth estimate for 2020 to 3.3 percent, saying that a recent truce in the trade war between China and the US had brought some stability but that risks remained.
"We are already seeing some tentative signs of stabilisation but we have not reached a turning point yet," said IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva.
'Healthy balance'
Activists meanwhile will be pressing for much more concrete action to fight inequality, after Oxfam issued a report outlining how the number of billionaires has doubled in the past decade and the world's 22 richest men now have more wealth than all the women in Africa.
Other key priorities will be exploring how to battle biodiversity loss, narrow the digital divide between the internet haves and have nots and step up the fight against pandemics in the face of vaccine hesitancy and drug resistance.
"I am angry about the state of the world but I am also determined to engage and provide solutions and deliver," WWF director general Marco Lambertini told AFP. "There needs to be healthy balance between these two sentiments."
The risk of global conflict will also loom large after the spike in tensions between the United States and Iran, following the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike.
But a planned appearance by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif -- which could have paved the way for a showdown or even meeting with Trump -- has been cancelled.
Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido -- who declared himself acting president last year -- will be attending the forum in defiance of a travel ban imposed by the regime of President Nicolas Maduro.
Following their newly-forged agreement with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Harry and Meghan hope their departure from the royal family will give them "financial independence".
The couple are giving up their taxpayer-funded income, maintaining some other revenue streams, while leaving several questions about their finances unanswered.
- What is their income? -
Harry and Meghan earned a small share of the Sovereign Grant, paid annually to Queen Elizabeth II to cover her and family members' official duties, as well as the upkeep of royal palaces.
The grant amounted to £82 million ($107 million, 96 million euros) for the 2018-2019 financial year.
It is not known how much is paid to each family member, but it is said to represent only five percent of the couple's income.
The remainder is allocated to them by Harry's father Prince Charles via the Duchy of Cornwall, a 53,000 hectare estate and financial portfolio granted to the heir to the throne.
It comprised assets of nearly £1 billion in 2018-2019, making a profit of over £20 million.
The Times newspaper reported that around £5 million per year is paid out to Charles' two sons, Harry and William.
- What are Harry and Meghan giving up? -
The couple will "no longer receive public funds for royal duties", according to a Buckingham Palace statement on Saturday.
It said they had also shared their wish to "repay Sovereign Grant expenditure for the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage, which will remain their UK family home".
The recent renovation cost British taxpayers £2.4 million.
But it remains unclear if Harry will continue to be so heavily subsidised by Prince Charles and the Duchy of Cornwall.
The Daily Telegraph reported Sunday that the Prince will continue to offer "private financial support" to his son and his wife.
But it said that was expected to come from his own private investment income rather than revenue generated by the duchy, and that this was not "an inexhaustible source of funds", according to a royal source.
- What resources do they have? -
Harry and Meghan will be free to earn their own money after giving up their royal titles and allowances.
This should present little problem to the photogenic and globally recognisable couple.
They have also retained their titles as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, which the pair could seek to build a brand around.
Meanwhile, Harry sits on an inheritance of tens of millions of pounds, from the death of his mother Diana and also left to him by his great-grandmother, according to the British press.
For her part, Meghan Markle previously earned hundreds of thousands of dollars when she was an actress, starring in the US TV series Suits, and running her blog The Tig.
- Who will pay for their security? -
Buckingham Palace said it would not comment on the details of security arrangements in its weekend statement, adding there were "well established independent processes to determine the need for publicly-funded security".
Harry and Meghan's VIP status entitles them to armed close protection by the British police, and any change to that would ultimately be sanctioned by Britain's interior ministry.
The subject has already become sensitive in Canada, where the couple plan to spend a large chunk of their time.
In a survey by the Angus Reid Institute, almost three-quarters of Canadians said they did not want their country to bear the costs of their protection.
Hundreds of Central Americans from a new migrant caravan tried to force their way into Mexico Monday by crossing the river that divides the country from Guatemala, prompting the National Guard to fire tear gas.
The Central Americans, from the so-called "2020 Caravan" of around 3,500 undocumented migrants, gathered on the Guatemalan side of the Suchiate River at dawn, demanding migration authorities let them continue their journey to the United States.
When authorities did not immediately respond, the migrants began fording the river, which is shallow this time of year.
Mexican troops fired tear gas in an attempt to force them back. Scores of migrants, many with cloths tied around their faces to protect them from the tear gas, pelted the military police guarding the river with large stones, as the latter sheltered behind riot shields.
"Let us through! Put your hands on your hearts," shouted a Honduran migrant named Jorge, who was traveling with his wife and two young children.
"They're trying to trick us. They tell us to register (with the authorities), but then they deport us," said another migrant, Tania, who has been with the caravan since it formed last week in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, around 650 kilometers (400 miles) away.
"We got desperate because of the heat. It's been exhausting, especially for the children," Honduran migrant Elvis Martinez, 33, told AFP on the Guatemalan side of the border as he prepared to ford the river.
"I'm asking (Mexican President Andres Manuel) Lopez Obrador to consider his conscience" and let the migrants through, he added.
But Lopez Obrador's government faces intense pressure to do just the opposite from President Donald Trump, who last year threatened to impose steep tariffs on Mexico if it did not do more to stop a surge of undocumented Central Americans arriving at the US-Mexican border.
Angolan prosecutors vowed on Monday to use "all possible" means to bring back Isabel dos Santos, the former president's billionaire daughter, after thousands of leaked documents revealed new allegations she siphoned off hundreds of millions in public money.
Dubbed Africa's richest woman, dos Santos is accused of using her father's backing to plunder state funds from the oil-rich but impoverished southern African country and -- with the help of Western consulting firms -- move the money offshore.
She stopped living in Angola after her authoritarian father Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country for nearly 40 years, stepped down in 2017 for his anointed successor Joao Lourenco.
She now spends her time between London and Dubai.
"We will use all possible means and activate international mechanisms to bring Isabel dos Santos back to the country," prosecutor general Helder Pitra Gros told public radio.
"We have asked for international support from Portugal, Dubai and other countries," he added.
The 46-year-old dos Santos is already being investigated as part of an anti-graft campaign launched by Lourenco, who has vowed to root out corruption.
Prosecutors last month froze bank accounts and holdings owned by the businesswoman and her Congolese-Danish husband Sindika Dokolo, a move dos Santos described as motivated by a groundless political vendetta.
Gros' remarks came after a trove of 715,000 files dubbed the "Luanda Leaks" on Sunday revealed how the eldest daughter of the former president allegedly moved the vast sums into overseas assets.
The award-winning New York-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) behind the release alleged the international system has allowed powerful individuals like her to move assets around the world, without questions.
PUBLICO/AFP/File / FERNANDO VELUDO Prosecutors have already frozen the bank accounts and holdings owned by dos Santos and her Congolese husband Sindika Dokolo
"Based on a trove of more than 715,000 files, our investigation highlights a broken international regulatory system that allows professional services firms to serve the powerful with almost no questions asked," the ICIJ wrote.
The group said its team of 120 reporters in 20 countries was able to trace "how an army of Western financial firms, lawyers, accountants, government officials and management companies helped (dos Santos and Dokolo) hide assets from tax authorities".
- 'Highly coordinated attack' -
Dos Santos took to Twitter to refute the claims, launching a salvo of around 30 tweets in Portuguese and English, accusing journalists involved in the investigation of telling "lies".
"My fortune is built on my character, my intelligence, education, capacity for work, perseverance," she wrote.
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and educated in Britain, dos Santos -- scornfully nicknamed "the princess" -- was named Africa's first female billionaire in 2013 by Forbes, which estimates her current wealth at $2.1 billion.
Her lawyer dismissed the ICIJ findings as a "highly coordinated attack" orchestrated by Angola's current rulers, in a statement quoted by The Guardian newspaper.
Dos Santos herself told BBC Africa the file dump was part of a "witch hunt" meant to discredit her and her father.
AFP/File / Adalberto ROQUE Former Angolan president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos ruled for nearly 40 years before stepping down in 2017
She headed Angola's national oil company Sonangol until her father's successor forced her out after becoming president in 2017.
"Red flags really went up when she was appointed head of the state oil company at a time when her father still had significant influence," said Daniel Bruce, who heads the UK branch of anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International.
"You could see there were major conflicts of interest starting to emerge," he added.
Dos Santos said on Wednesday that she would consider running for president in the next election in 2022.
- Western consultants -
The ICIJ investigation said Western consulting firms such as PwC and Boston Consulting Group were "apparently ignoring red flags" while helping her stash away public assets.
"Regulators around the globe have virtually ignored the key role Western professionals play in maintaining an offshore industry that drives money laundering and drains trillions from public coffers," the report said.
Its document trove included redacted letters allegedly showing how consultants sought out ways to open non-transparent bank accounts.
London-based firm PwC was among those advising her businesses.
The consultancy said it had "immediately initiated an investigation" in the wake of the "very serious and concerning allegations."
"We have also taken action to terminate any ongoing work for entities controlled by members of the dos Santos family," it added in a statement.
The Boston Consulting Group did not immediately respond to an attempt to get comment by AFP.
One confidential document allegedly drafted by Boston Consulting in September 2015 outlined a complex scheme for the oil company to move its money offshore.
The investigation also published a similar 99-page presentation from KPMG.
"UK firms... have played a role both in helping her to amass this fortune but also to invest the proceeds of these suspicious deals," said Bruce.
"There are questions to answer," he added. "Particularly for those who helped her acquire property."
Dos Santos and Dokolo have invested in several luxurious London houses and amassed an impressive collection of valuable artwork.
Her husband, a well-known collector of African arts, developed that passion from his billionaire banker father Augustin Dokolo Sanu.
Glaciers nestled in the lofty crags of the Pyrenees mountains separating France and Spain could disappear within 30 years as temperatures rise, upending ecosystems while putting local economies at risk, scientists say.
"We can't set a precise date but the Pyrenees glaciers are doomed," Pierre Rene, a glaciologist with the region's Moraine glacier study association, told AFP.
He estimates the end will come by 2050, based on the group's measurements of nine of the 15 glaciers on the French side over the past 18 years.
The United Nations has said the past decade has been the hottest on record and warned that persistent greenhouse gas emissions were expected to push average global temperatures even higher, leading to retreating ice cover, rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather.
It also confirmed that 2019 was the second hottest year on record, after 2016.
Surveys, core samples and GPS tracking of the Pyrenees glaciers all point to the same conclusions already noted at glaciers in the Alps and elsewhere: Warmer and drier winters appear to be inexorably shrinking and thinning the ice fields.
The total surface area of the nine glaciers tracked by Moraine now stands at 79 hectares (195 acres) compared with 140 hectares just 17 years ago, Rene said.
That is just a small fraction of the 450 hectares they covered in the middle of the 19th century -- and the pace of decline is accelerating.
Since 2002, the nine glaciers have lost 3.6 hectares every year, the equivalent of five soccer pitches, Moraine says in its report on the 2019 season.
Last year was no exception, with the bottom edge of five glaciers tracked by Moraine retreating by 8.1 metres (27 feet) on average last summer, up from 7.9 metres recorded in previous years, it said.
- 'Wiped off the map' -
Scientists also warn of the hit to high-altitude ecosystems and biodiversity, with consequences that will ripple well beyond the mountainous zones.
Glaciers and the cold rivers they feed harbour bacteria and fungi that have adapted to the harsh conditions, including the near-absence of light, said Sophie Cauvy-Fraunie, a researcher at the INRAE agricultural and environmental institute.
Microscopic algae also provides a first link in the food chain of glacier environments, sustaining glacial fleas and other insects.
As temperatures rise and more ground is exposed as the glaciers retreat, the landscape will become vulnerable to colonisation from plants and animals that currently can survive only at lower altitudes.
"If native species in the Pyrenees depend on glacial influences, you can imagine that they are going to be wiped off the map," Cauvy-Fraunie said.
The regional OPCC climate observatory estimated in a 2018 report that average maximum temperatures across the Pyrenees could rise by 1.4 to 3.3 degrees Celsius (2.5 to 4 Fahrenheit) by the middle of this century.
The increase has been even more dramatic at higher altitudes, where shrinking glaciers are seen as a harbinger of dire consequences across the range.
On the 2,870-metre (9,416-foot) Midi de Bigorre peak above the La Mongie ski resort -- favoured by French President Emmanuel Macron -- the average temperature has risen by 1.7 degrees since 1880, compared with a global average of 0.85 degrees, Moraine says.
- Tourism affected -
That could spell disaster for the roughly three dozen ski resorts on both the French and Spanish sides, as well as the popular stations in Andorra.
Already this year, around half of French resorts had to push back their scheduled openings before the Christmas holidays because of warm winds sweeping up from the south.
That came after a 2018-2019 season that saw the lowest snowfalls since regular measurements began 22 years earlier, according to the Meteo France weather service.
It took a heavy toll on tourism as lift ticket sales and hotel reservations plunged, with many skiers heading to higher slopes in the French Alps.
Already several glaciers have been reduced to little more than year-round snow packs, which will also impact the summer tourist season.
Rene said climbers will lose their "stepladders" for ascents to the highest peaks, "making their routes to the top more difficult".
And for hikers at lower elevations, the retreat will destabilise the newly exposed slopes, heightening the risk of rock falls or even avalanches.
Rockers Queen have become the first band to be celebrated on British coinage, joining Queen Elizabeth II on a new coin unveiled Monday by the Royal Mint.
The iconic British group are hailed on a coin kicking off a Music Legends series being produced by the official mint.
It features Queen Elizabeth on the obverse or "heads" side as usual joined by Queen on the reverse.
The coin depicts the instruments played by lead singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon.
It shows Mercury's Bechstein piano and his trademark microphone, May's homemade electric guitar, Taylor's bass drum featuring the band's logo and Deacon's Fender Precision bass guitar.
The piano features three keys pressed down, representing notes from the melody of their 1975 landmark hit "Bohemian Rhapsody", when Mercury would cross hands to play a G and an F.
"Here we have the first ever Queen and Queen coin," said May, 72.
"To have our band recognised and our music celebrated in this way is very touching, a real honour."
Coins are an essential part of the Queen sound: May plays his guitar using old sixpence pieces as a pick.
Taylor, 70, joked that with all the fuss, "I feel entirely spent".
- Camp theatrics -
The coin's designer Chris Facey said he tried to represent the "musical democracy" within the band, in which all four members wrote classic hits.
"Freddie was flamboyant and his camp theatrics are a big part of Queen, but the band are more than just a frontman," he said.
"To reflect this sense of balance between them I created a design that featured each of their iconic instruments.
"And by making the instruments the focus, I wanted to convey Queen's skill as musicians as well as their passion for their craft."
With a face value of £5 ($6.50, 5.85 euros), the collectors' item coin costs £13 in its brilliant uncirculated form.
Meanwhile a £100 denomination one ounce gold version costs £2,020.
Taylor inadvertently became the first living person other than royalty to appear in a photograph on a British stamp.
He was in the background on a 1999 stamp featuring the late Mercury, issued as part of a Great Britons series.
Formed in 1970, Queen were a formidable act both live and in the studio, remembered for huge hits like "We Are The Champions" (1977)," Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (1979) and "Another One Bites the Dust" (1980), and stage performances like at the 1985 Live Aid concert.
Mercury died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991. Deacon retired in 1997.
Taylor and May are currently on tour in South Korea and Japan with US vocalist Adam Lambert.
Iran said Monday it will consider withdrawing from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) if a dispute over its atomic program goes before the UN Security Council.
Britain, France and Germany launched a process last week charging Iran with failing to observe the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, a move that could eventually see the Security Council reimpose international sanctions on the country.
Iran has accused the three EU member states of inaction over sanctions the United States reimposed on it after unilaterally withdrawing from the landmark accord in 2018.
The European move "has no legal basis" and if they take further measures "Iran's withdrawal from the NPT will be considered," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted as saying by the Iranian parliament's website.
The landmark 2015 deal reached with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program.
Since the US pullout, Iran has progressively rolled back its commitments to the accord -- the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -- in retaliation.
It has hit out at the three European nations that remain party to the JCPOA for failing to live up to their promises to ease the impact of US sanctions on its oil-based economy.
"If the Europeans return to the commitments, Iran will also stop reducing its commitments, but if the Europeans continue as they have been... we have different options," said Zarif.
The foreign minister said Iran's President Hassan Rouhani had warned former EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini about such consequences in three letters sent in 2018.
"It was stated in the president's letter that if this issue is referred to the Security Council, Iran's withdrawal from the NPT will be discussed but before that we can consider other (options)," he said.
European officials have made it clear that the decision to trigger the dispute resolution mechanism was made in a bid to bring Iran back into compliance and save the accord.
But Iran's foreign ministry on Monday warned more measures could be taken in retaliation for the European move.
"If these talks continue, Iran is formulating a final and even more effective" measure regarding the nuclear deal, spokesman Abbas Mousavi told a news conference in Tehran.
Asked by reporters to elaborate, Mousavi said it would be a "serious" measure, but he gave no further details.
"Different options are on the table for Iran that will be announced if a consensus is reached" by its leaders, he said.
Iran has stressed the steps it has taken to roll back the nuclear deal can be reversed if its interests are realized.
New photos have emerged which for the first time show convicted Nazi guard John Demjanjuk at the Sobibor death camp, a Berlin archive confirmed Monday, although he always denied ever being there.
Ukrainian-American Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 Jews at Sobibor by a German court in 2011. He died while his appeal was pending.
According to the Berlin-based Topography of Terror archive, photos of Demjanjuk are among a newly discovered collection of more than 350 snaps which give "detailed insight" into the camp in German-occupied Poland.
The photos surfaced from the estate of former SS officer Johann Niemann, who was killed in an inmates' uprising at Sobibor in 1943.
In a statement, the archive said the collection provided "hitherto unknown insights" into both the Holocaust and the euthanasia programme the Nazis forced on disabled or ill people.
"The Niemann collection expands our knowledge of 'Aktion Reinhard', the murder of 1.8 million Jews in the Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka camps," the statement said.
The photos are to be published in a forthcoming book and will be presented in Berlin on January 28.
They offer proof that Demjanjuk was present at Sobibor, an accusation he rejected until his death in 2012.
Born in Ukraine in 1920, Demjanjuk emigrated to the US after the Second World War.
In 1986, he stood trial in Jerusalem accused of being "Ivan the Terrible," an infamous Ukrainian guard at another death camp, Treblinka.
An initial death sentence was overturned by the Israeli supreme court in 1993.
But after evidence emerged that he served as a guard at other Nazi camps, Demjanjuk was stripped of his US citizenship in 2002 for lying about his war record on immigration forms.
Extradited to Germany in 2009, he was later sentenced to five years in prison in a landmark case for the German justice system.
Prosecutors alleged that he had been one of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war recruited to the SS training camp Trawniki in occupied southeastern Poland before being moved to Sobibor.
They rested their case on a green SS identity card issued at Trawniki to a Ukrainian called Ivan Demjanjuk, John's original name.
The court ruled that as a guard at the camp, he was automatically implicated in killings carried out there at the time.
The case set a new legal precedent and prompted several further convictions of Nazi officers, including that of the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" Oscar Groening, on the basis they served as cogs in the Nazi killing machine.
In 2019, Demjanjuk was the subject of the Netflix documentary "The Devil Next Door".
You’re reading this with a cup of coffee in your hand, aren’t you? Coffee is the most popular drink in the world. Americans drink more coffee than soda, juice and tea — combined.
How popular is coffee? When news first broke that Prince Harry and Meghan were considering Canada as their new home, Canadian coffee giant Tim Hortons offered free coffee for life as an extra enticement.
Given coffee’s popularity, it’s surprising how much confusion surrounds how this hot, dark, nectar of the gods affects our biology.
Coffee’s ingredients
The main biologically active ingredients in coffee are caffeine (a stimulant) and a suite of antioxidants. What do we know about how caffeine and antioxidants affect our bodies? The fundamentals are pretty simple, but the devil is in the details and the speculation around how coffee could either help or harm us runs a bit wild.
The stimulant properties of caffeine mean that you can count on a cup of coffee to wake you up. In fact, coffee, or at least the caffeine it contains, is the most commonly used psychoactive drug in the world. It seems to work as a stimulant, at least in part, by blocking adenosine, which promotes sleep, from binding to its receptor.
Caffeine and adenosine have similar ring structures. Caffeine acts as a molecular mimic, filling and blocking the adenosine receptor, preventing the body’s natural ability to be able a rest when it’s tired.
This blocking is also the reason why too much coffee can leave you feeling jittery or sleepless. You can only postpone fatigue for so long before the body’s regulatory systems begin to fail, leading to simple things like the jitters, but also more serious effects like anxiety or insomnia. Complications may be common; a possible link between coffee drinking and insomnia was identified more than 100 years ago.
The National Film Board of Canada produced a documentary on the cultural history of coffee called ‘Black Coffee: Part One, The Irresistible Bean’
There are individuals who don’t process caffeine and to whom drinks like coffee could pose medical danger. Even away from those extremes, however, there is variation in how we respond to that cup of coffee. And, like much of biology, that variation is a function of environment, our past coffee consumption, genetics and, honestly, just random chance.
We may be interested in coffee because of the oh-so-joyous caffeine buzz, but that doesn’t mean that caffeine is the most biologically interesting aspect of a good cup of coffee.
What about the antioxidants in coffee and the buzz that surrounds them? Things actually start out pretty straightforward. Metabolic processes produce the energy necessary for life, but they also create waste, often in the form of oxidized molecules that can be harmful in themselves or in damaging other molecules.
Antioxidants are a broad group of molecules that can scrub up dangerous waste; all organisms produce antioxidants as part of their metabolic balance. It is unclear if supplementing our diet with additional antioxidants can augment these natural defences, but that hasn’t stopped speculation.
Antioxidants have been linked to almost everything, including premature ejaculation.
Are any of the claims of positive effects substantiated? Surprisingly, the answer is again a resounding maybe.
Coffee and cancer
Coffee won’t cure cancer, but it may help to prevent it and possibly other diseases as well. Part of answering the question of coffee’s connection to cancer lies in asking another: what is cancer? At its simplest, cancer is uncontrolled cell growth, which is fundamentally about regulating when genes are, or are not, actively expressed.
My research group studies generegulation and I can tell you that even a good cup of coffee, or boost of caffeine, won’t cause genes that are turned off or on at the wrong time to suddenly start playing by the rules.
The antioxidants in coffee may actually have a cancer-fighting effect. Remember that antioxidants fight cellular damage. One type of damage that they may help reduce is mutations to DNA, and cancer is caused by mutations that lead to the misregulation of genes.
Higher coffee consumption has also been linked to lower rates of Type 2 diabetes. Complexity, combined effects and variation between individuals seems to be the theme across all the diseases.
At the end of the day, where does all this leave us on the biology of coffee? Well, as I tell my students, it’s complicated. But as most reading this already know, coffee will definitely wake you up in the morning.
PUBLICO/AFP/File / FERNANDO VELUDO 
AFP/File / Adalberto ROQUE 
