SAUDI ARABIA: State-backed oil giant Aramco announced that its 2020 profits had nearly halved year on year to $49 billion (£35bn).
The pandemic has hit demand for oil, with both international travel and internal movement severely affected.
It is sticking to a pledge to pay shareholders (the largest being the Saudi government) quarterly dividends of $18.75bn, more than 150 per cent of its annual income.

BRAZIL: Indigenous Munduruku people in Para state have called for federal reinforcements to help them fend of armed mining prospectors who are entering their lands.
The Public Ministry said central government had been asked to help but “nothing has been done so far.”
The federal agency responsible for protecting indigenous groups, Funai, did not comment. Critics say the Jair Bolsonaro government has removed protections for indigenous peoples.

CHINA: Top officials appealed to the public yesterday to register for vaccinations, saying the effective suppression of the virus had made people complacent.
Just 75 million of China’s 1.4 billion people have been inoculated. National Health Commission official He Qinghua said: “Many people mistakenly believe there is no practical meaning to being vaccinated because the epidemic is under control,” but nobody was immune from a potential resurgence. “I suggest that people get vaccinated as soon as possible.”

PAKISTAN: Two men have been sentenced to death for the gang rape of a woman in front of her children.
The men broke into the woman’s car when it had run out of petrol on a motorway last September.
Comments by Lahore’s top police official that the unnamed woman should have travelled by a busier route prompted mass protests over victim-blaming.