Hazardous drinking rates jumped over the Covid-19 lockdown last year, says Alcohol Healthwatch executive director Dr Nicki Jackson.Her claims are backed up by the Ministry of Health’s data on emergency department attendances.The…

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Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has been ordered to remain in custody for 30 days during an unexpected hearing in Russia on Monday, less than 24 hours after he returned to the country and five months after he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.

The opposition leader flew back to Moscow from Germany on Sunday, and was immediately detained by masked officers.

READ MORE: Russia's leading critic detained on return to Moscow after poisoning

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He was held overnight at a police station in the city of Khimki, just north of central Moscow.

Navalny was placed on the country's federal wanted list last month for violating terms of probation related to a 2014 conviction for fraud, which he dismisses as politically motivated.

Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) has requested that a court replace his suspended sentence with a prison term.

If the request is granted, Navalny will likely be jailed for three and a half years.

Governments around the world have criticised Russia over Navalny's arrest.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas have all called for his immediate release.

More to come …

The World Health Organisation chief on Monday lambasted drugmakers' profits and vaccine inequalities, saying it's "not right" that younger, healthier adults in wealthy countries get vaccinated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries and charging that most vaccine makers have targeted locations where "profits are highest".

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus kicked off WHO's week-long executive board meeting — virtually from its headquarters in Geneva — by lamenting that one poor country received a mere 25 vaccine doses while over 39 million doses have been administered in nearly 50 richer nations.

"Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest income country — not 25 million, not 25,000 — just 25. I need to be blunt: The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure," Tedros said. He did not specify the country, but a WHO spokeswoman identified it as Guinea.

READ MORE: WHO team arrives in Wuhan to investigate pandemic origins

"It's right that all governments want to prioritise vaccinating their own health workers and older people first," he said. "But it's not right that younger, healthier adults in rich countries are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries. There will be enough vaccine for everyone."

Tedros, an Ethiopian who goes by his first name, nonetheless hailed the scientific achievement behind rolling out coronavirus vaccines less than a year after the pandemic erupted in China, where a WHO-backed team has now been deployed to look into origins of the coronavirus.

"Vaccines are the shot in the arm we all need, literally and figuratively," Tedros said. "But we now face the real danger that even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another brick in the wall of inequality between the worlds of the world's haves and have-nots."

He noted the WHO-backed COVAX program, which aims to get vaccines out to all countries, rich or poor, based on need, has so far secured 2 billion vaccine doses from five producers and options on a billion doses more.

"We aim to start deliveries in February," he said. "COVAX is ready to deliver what it was created for."

READ MORE: Three countries account for half of global COVID-19 cases

That target date could be a tall order, because a key producer of vaccines for the developing world — the Serum Institute of India — has not confirmed a date and predicted that its rollout might not happen before March or April.

In his opening remarks, Tedros aired some of his toughest public words yet toward vaccine makers, criticising "bilateral deals" between them and countries that WHO says can deplete the effectiveness of the COVAX facility — and went further to raise the issue of profits.

"The situation is compounded by the fact that most manufacturers have prioritised regulatory approval in rich countries, where the profits are highest, rather than submitting full dossiers to WHO," he said.

That appeared to allude to a shortage of data the UN health agency says it has received from vaccine makers so that WHO can approve their shots for wider emergency use.

Dr Clement Martin Auer, a board member from Austria, had sharp words and questions for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, that also with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is leading the effort on COVAX.

While calling its principles of equal access to vaccines a "fantastic idea," Auer faulted COVAX as being "slow" and unable to close "crucial numbers" of contracts. He defended the European Union, which counts among its 27 members many of the world's richest countries, for getting vaccines for its 450 million citizens and being "the single largest donor" in supporting COVAX.

READ MORE: WHO warns of 'very serious situation' in Europe as virus cases spike

"We were, in the European Union, skeptical that GAVI-COVAX had the means and the capabilities to fulfil its tasks and negotiate the necessary contracts and to secure the needs of our citizens," Auer said, adding that COVAX management had "rejected" proposals negotiated by GAVI and the EU.

He said GAVI-COVAX early last year had not included mRNA vaccines like those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in the COVAX portfolio.

"This was a major mistake, taking into account that the mRNAs are the early ones on the market and the gold standards when it comes to COVID vaccines," Auer said.

WHO has approved Pfzier-BioNTech for emergency use against coronavirus and could approve Moderna this week.

WHO officials or other board members did not immediately address Tedros' concerns at the meeting.

In related vaccine news, Israel has struck a deal with Pfizer, promising to share vast troves of medical data with the international drug giant in exchange for the continued flow of its hard-to-get vaccine.

Proponents say the deal could allow Israel to become the first country to vaccinate most of its population, while providing valuable research that could help the rest of the world. But critics say the deal raises major ethical concerns, including possible privacy violations and a deepening of the global divide in access to coronavirus vaccines.

Due to the ultra-cold storage needed for the Pfizer vaccine, it is more expensive and harder to use than some rivals, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, but studies show it is very effective. Israeli media have reported that Israel paid at least 50% more than other countries for the Pfizer vaccine.

Extreme cold has hit large parts of Europe, with freezing temperatures cracking railroad tracks in Poland, snow blanketing the Turkish city of Istanbul and smog spiking as coal was being burned to generate heat.

Temperatures dropped to minus-28C in some Polish areas overnight, the coldest night in 11 years.

Many trains were delayed on Monday after rail tracks at two Warsaw railway stations cracked.

READ MORE: Archaeologists discover treasure trove of coins on farm in Hungary

Hand-in-hand with the cold came a spike in smog in Warsaw and other parts of Poland, as the cold prompted an increase in burning coal for heat.

The smog levels were so high in Warsaw that city officials urged people to remain indoors.

Just across Poland's southwestern border, the Czech Republic experienced the coldest night this year with temperatures dropping below minus-20C in many places.

The lowest temperature, of minus-27C, was recorded Monday in Orlicke Zahori, a mountainous village 160km east of Prague and near the Polish border, according to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.

The freezing weather was expected to ease and be replaced by heavy snowfall in the northeastern Czech Republic, the institute said.

READ MORE: French woman tries to prove she's alive after court rules her dead

In Istanbul, traffic was brought to a halt by the layer of snow covering the city, with cars stalled or skidding on the roads.

The flurries were to continue throughout the day.

In Germany, fresh snow, slippery roads and fallen trees led to several car accidents on Sunday and overnight, the DPA news agency reported.

A driver died in southwestern Germany after his car shot over a mound of snow.

The Nordic region — where winter weather is the norm — also saw snow and subfreezing temperatures, with the coldest temperatures predictably recorded in the Arctic.

Norway's meteorological institute tweeted a tongue-in-cheek message on Monday, saying: "we encourage all knitting lovers to send woollen clothes to their friends in the north."

READ MORE: Cold snap brings Spain's lowest temperatures in 20 years