back to life once again. good afternoon, and welcome to bbc news. a serving metropolitan police officer has appeared in court charged with the kidnap and murder of sarah everard. sarah, who was 33, disappeared whilst walking home in south london ten days ago. her body was discovered in woodland, in kent, a week after she went missing. 48 year old wayne couzens appeared before magistrates this morning as our correspondent, helena wilkinson, reports. arriving at westminster magistrates court this morning, pc wayne couzens believed to be in this police van. the 48 year old met police officer joined the force two years ago. today he appeared in the dock charges of kidnap and murder were formally put to him. it s ten days since sarah everard disappeared in south london. her body was found here in woodland, near ashford, in kent. it was found inside a builder s bag and identified through her dental records. extensive searches are continuing close to where her body was found.
allegations a stain on the royal. more than 17 million people watched in the us. we will bring you all the reactions. myanmar s ambassador to the uk has broken banks with the military and is calling for the release of the democratically elected leader aung san suu kyi. the death a of the pandemic has passed 100,000. 0nly death a of the pandemic has passed 100,000. only other countries five other countries have suffered as many. the duke and duchess of sussex, harry and meghan, have given an extraordinary portrayal of their life in the royal family. there s a huge amount to go report. among the many shocking elements of the interview, meghan told oprah winfrey that she considered taking her own life. she said there were conversations within the royal family about how dark their son archie s skin might be. and harry said he felt really let down by his father, prince charles. we ll look at the reaction to this in a moment. first, here are three clips from the interview, sta
only 42% of those over 80 have received a booster shot. and experts say that getting that third dose is necessary for enough protection since china is using less effective vaccines compared to the mrna ones used o overseas and adds the crematoriums fill up, the chinese government is narrowing the definition of covid deaths to only include those who died of respiratory failure directly caused by the virus. that means those who died because of another underlying condition will not be counted as a covid death even if they were sick with covid at the time. this goes against the world health organization s guidelines and and the w.h.o. will upd underestimate the true covid death rate in china. thank you so much for that reporting. we ll be right back.
holiday break, a lot of travel and increased circulation of illnesses right now and steep increases in the number of people sick with the flu and r rsp. it s true covid is smoldering but now we have rsv and influenza searching. those are also serious viruses so it seems a reasonable thing to do if you are going in pu public, put on the mask and social distancing. this may be the time to rent a movie rather than going to the movie. health officials are recommending people mask up in indoor public settings, a recommendation, not a mandate. the mask is a polarizing way given everything we ve been through but a mask mandate is a
it is both a shock as well as expected. shock because this is truly a tragic and a staggering number. almost 15 million excess deaths. direct and/or indirectly associated with covid-19 pandemic just over a period of 24 months. the new data is particularly concerning for india. the w.h.o. estimates the country s true covid death toll is ten times higher than government figures. on thursday india s government raised multiple objections over the validity of the mathematical models used by the agency. now, wall street did a complete u-turn on thursday and saw its worst day of the year. the dow dropping more than 1,000 points while the ideas and the s&p 500 also suffered major