Aukus: UK, US and Australia launch pact to counter China

Humanoid robot Pepper has been turned into what is thought to be the world’s first robotic squash coach, by researchers at National Robotarium and Heriot-Watt University. The aim is to see how robotics could improve a player’s performance and motivation between sessions with their human coach. BBC Click’s Paul Carter reports.

At least 26 million people are struggling for food following consecutive poor rainfall seasons in the Horn of Africa. Drought conditions in northern Kenya, much of Somalia and southern Ethiopia are predicted to persist until at least mid-2022, putting lives at risk. The situation is already so bad that wild animals are dying in their…

Every country should try to have a “price on carbon”, the UK prime minister’s finance adviser for COP26 has said. The former Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, told the BBC’s Christian Fraser that although a global carbon price would be the best option, carbon taxes would probably have to be related to a country’s…

LJ Rich looks at some of the best technology news stories of the week including: Royal Mail announces a trial of autonomous drones to deliver packages remotely from the mainland UK to the Isles of Scilly Tesla suspends the option to purchase its vehicles using Bitcoin due to climate change concerns, its CEO Elon Musk…

A military ceremony has been held in honour of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is due to step down next week after 16 years in office. Mrs Merkel chose three pieces of music – one of which raised a few eyebrows. She chose a popular song by Hildegard Knef called For Me It Should Rain…

A Malian woman has recently given birth to nine babies – five girls and four boys at a clinic in Casablanca, Morocco. The nonuplets will have to spend “two to three months” in incubators, a director of the clinic has said, but both the mother, Halima Cissé, and her children are said to be doing…