US President Donald Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch for the US Supreme Court.  The 49-year-old federal appeals court judge is expected to restore the court's conservative majority, and he becomes the youngest nominee to the nation's highest court in more than 25 years. The Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy, caused by the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, which would have created a “Democratic-leaning” majority of Supreme Court judges.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has asked the UN Security Council to postpone the intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva from February 8th to February 20. "I did ask the Security Council and based also on the discussions I had with the SG (UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres) to postpone the talks until the 20th [of February]" de Mistura told reporters.The postponement would give the Syrian opposition more time to prepare for the talks and ensure that the peace talks are as inclusive as possible. More than 310,000 people have been reportedly killed in the Syrian war so far.

China's power use will grow by 3 percent in 2017, the China Electricity Council has forecast. The growth is slower than 2016, when the nation's power consumption grew 5 percent year on year to stand at 5.9 trillion kilowatt hours. The slower growth rate is thought to be due to a slowing economy and structural changes as China transitions from an export-reliant economy to a service and innovation-driven one. Non-fossil-fuel energy accounted for a larger proportion of energy in 2016 compared to 2015, increasing from 17.9 percent to 19.5 percent.

Austria's coalition government has announced plans to prohibit the wearing of full-face veils in public spaces such as courts and schools. "The full-face veil will be banned in public spaces," Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern announced, adding that he did not want to give the “600,000 Muslims in Austria the feeling that they are not part of our society." The ban is part of a series of announcements including restricting eastern European workers' access to Austria's labor market and has been viewed as an attempt to counter the popularity of the far-right opposition Freedom Party.

The Bangladeshi government has revealed plans to relocate thousands of Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar to the island of Thengar Char in the Bay of Bengal. Some 65,000 Rohingya refugees entered Bangladesh between October and November last year and currently live in camps. Dhaka has said the relocation plan is to address fears that “the influx of Rohingya Muslims from time to time will lead to a degradation of law and order situation, [and] spread communicable diseases.” The United Nations refugee agency says any relocation would need the migrants’ consent.

Two drug traffickers have been killed in a shootout with police in southwest China's Yunnan Province. The dramatic shootout involved the traffickers throwing grenades at the police, with one suspect being shot dead at the site while the second died as a result of his injuries in hospital. A total of 330 kg of heroin, meth and opium and one handgun and 10 bullets were seized in the police operation and two policemen received non-life-threatening injuries. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Iran is in violation of the terms of UN Security Council resolution 2231, which "calls upon" Iran not to undertake any activity related to "ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons" following ballistic missile tests. Netanyahu said he will raise the issue of re-instating sanctions against Iran with US President Donald Trump when they meet later this month. International economic sanctions against Iran were relaxed as part of a deal to stop the country obtaining nuclear weapons. Iran says ballistic missile tests are not prohibited under the deal as they do not involve nuclear weapons.

The UK’s Justice Minister Sam Gyimah announced on Tuesday that thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted of sexual offences have been posthumously pardoned. Approximately 49,000 men have been cleared of decades-old crimes for breaking laws targeting gay and bisexual men which have subsequently been abolished. The pardons are part of new legislation, known as "Turing's law," named after Alan Turing, a celebrated World War II code-breaker who committed suicide in 1954 after being found guilty of "gross indecency".