The investigative work of several panels of experts tasked with monitoring compliance with UN arms embargoes and economic sanctions in conflict zones including Mali is being blocked, sometimes for months, by Russia, diplomats said Wednesday.

Norway will in 2023 shut its last coal mine in Svalbard, its operator said yesterday, drawing to a close more than a century of prospecting by Oslo in this Arctic archipelago.

A 96-year-old former Nazi concentration camp secretary who fled hours before the opening of her trial in Germany has been found, a court said yesterday in a dramatic start to the proceedings.

Poland has sent tens of thousands of text messages to foreign mobile phones along the country’s border with Belarus in a bid to target migrants and dissuade them from crossing.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was handed a one-year prison sentence by a Paris court yesterday after being found guilty of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 re-election bid.

A British police officer who falsely arrested a woman for breaking coronavirus restrictions, then kidnapped, raped and murdered her, was given a rare whole-life jail term yesterday.

France has accused Australia of lying shortly before Canberra cancelled a major submarine contract, with the French foreign minister declaring “someone lied”.

The forthcoming COP26 summit -- which could determine the viability of the Paris Agreement -- will “not be easy” but an outcome matching the urgency of the crisis is an “absolute necessity”, the UN’s climate chief said yesterday.

1938 - After signing the Munich agreement with Hitler in Germany, Neville Chamberlain returned to Britain and declared that there would be “peace with honour for our time”.

A 1970 tape of John Lennon singing a hitherto unheard song called “Radio Peace” and expressing frustration at his Beatles image to a group of Danish schoolboys goes under the hammer in Copenhagen.

A Swiss investigation into the 1990 killing of Iranian opposition figure Kazem Rajavi must reopen, after a court ordered genocide and crimes against humanity charges added to the probe.

The World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa said yesterday that the agency was “heartbroken” by the findings of an independent commission on sex abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

1923 - Britain began to govern Palestine under a mandate from the League of Nations.

The British government says it is putting the military on standby as part of further measures to address a supply chain crisis which has led fuel pumps to run dry amid panic-buying by motorists.

Greta Thunberg is not very optimistic about the climate talks held in Italy this week, the environmental youth activist said as she arrived at the venue in Milan yesterday.

A 36-year-old delivery driver appeared in court in Britain yesterday, charged with the murder of a young primary school teacher whose death sparked renewed calls to improve women’s safety.

German Social Democrat Olaf Scholz vowed yesterday to strengthen the European Union and keep up the transatlantic partnership in a three-way coalition government he hopes to form by Christmas to take over from Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

The Covid-19 pandemic reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since World War Two, according to a study published yesterday by Oxford University, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years.

It’s a lesson many politicians -- mostly male -- have learned the hard way over the past 15 years: never underestimate Angela Merkel.

German Social Democrat Olaf Scholz vowed on Monday to strengthen the European Union and keep up the transatlantic partnership in a three-way coalition government he hopes to form by Christmas to take over from Angela Merkel's conservatives.