Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 1 November 2021

1. PM says Cop26 risks failure

Boris Johnson warned that the Cop26 climate summit is at risk of failure because countries are still not promising enough to restrict global temperature rises to below 1.5C. The prime minister said some progress was made in the past few days at the G20 but there was still a “huge way” to go. Meanwhile, The Prince of Wales is expected to tell the summit that a “war-like footing” is needed to tackle the climate crisis.

2. Trains collide in Salisbury

A major incident has been declared after two trains collided in Salisbury last night. One carriage derailed at Fisherton Tunnel shortly before 7pm on Sunday, and another service crashed into it. All those on board were led to safety but 17 people were taken to hospital. A train driver, who was trapped, was treated by paramedics. A passenger told Sky News he was “pretty scared” as he “heard a big crash” and “saw flames”.

3. France gives UK 24 hours on fish

Emmanuel Macron warned Britain that it had 24 hours to give way in the bitter row over fishing rights or face trade sanctions. The French president refused to back down after a brief meeting with Boris Johnson in Rome failed to solve the dispute. Britain, he insisted, must grant licences for small French boats on Monday or France would stop British boats from landing their catches from Tuesday. “The ball is in Britain’s court,” the president told the media.

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4. Injuries after ‘Joker’ attack on Toyko train

A 24-year-old man dressed as the Joker character from the Batman franchise attacked passengers on a Tokyo train line last night. Witnesses told public broadcaster NHK that petrified passengers fled to adjoining carriages and jumped out of windows during the stabbing and fire attack. The suspect had sprayed a clear liquid around the carriage and set it alight. He reportedly told police he wanted to kill multiple people and receive the death penalty.

5. ‘Annus horribilis’ for weather

The UN said that extreme weather is the new normal, with 2021 among the hottest on record and an “annus horribilis” for floods and heatwaves. A heatwave in the UK in July was estimated to have killed between 400 and 800 people, and Storm Christoph in January brought one of the wettest three-day periods on record. The report was designed to inform negotiations at the Cop26 summit which Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, said must be a “turning point”.

6. Ruling party hangs on in Japan

Japan’s ruling party has held on to their single-party majority in the nation’s general election. The ruling conservative party “defied expectations” with a comfortable victory that will boost the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said The Guardian. His party secured 261 seats in the 465-member lower house – the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber Diet – slightly down on its pre-election 276 seats.

7. Thailand opens up to tourists

Tens of thousands of travellers will arrive in Thailand today as the country reopens to tourists after 18 months of Covid restrictions, the BBC reported. Jabbed travellers from more than 60 countries deemed “low risk” are being allowed to enter and avoid hotel quarantine. Next year, tourist numbers are expected to jump to as much as 15m, bringing in more than $30bn (£22bn).

8. OED chooses ‘vax’ as word of 2021

Vax has been chosen as the word of the year by the team at the Oxford English Dictionary. Senior editor Fiona McPherson said vax was an obvious choice as it has made “the most striking impact” and although it “goes back at least to the 1980s” it was “rarely used until this year”. Words related to immunisation have spiked in frequency in 2021 due to Covid, with double-vaxxed, unvaxxed and anti-vaxxer all seeing a surge in use.

9. Bank adviser quits over bullying

An adviser has quit his role with the Bank of England after a report found he oversaw a culture of bullying and intimidation at the UK’s open banking unit. Imran Gulamhuseinwala resigned as trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity earlier this month, after a scathing independent report criticised the unit for inaction and failure under his leadership. It claimed that a “toxic workplace culture” existed and “bullying was commonplace”.

10. Man dies after bull-running incident

A man bled to death from his injuries after he was gored at a bull-running festival in eastern Spain. The 55-year-old man was repeatedly attacked by the bull at the festival in Onda, the town’s council said on Saturday. The animals let loose for the runs are generally used in bullfights later on the same day. CNN said a public debate over whether bull-running festivals should be abolished has become “more heated” in recent years.