President Vladimir Putin is open to peace in Ukraine and intense work is going on with the United States, but the conflict is so complicated that the rapid progress that Washington wants is difficult to achieve, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Since December, Belgium's sex workers can access legal protections and labour rights, such as paid leave, like any other profession

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney completed a comeback victory for the governing Liberals in Monday’s election, positioning himself for a global role as a champion of multilateralism against US President Donald Trump’s more protectionist policies.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has branded a three-day truce announced by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as an “attempt at manipulation”.

At least 142 people were prosecuted in 2024 for helping or rescuing migrants across Europe, a report by a group defending migrants' rights warned on Tuesday

Russia yesterday said it was ready to negotiate directly with Ukraine, but that recognition of its claims over five Ukrainian regions, including Crimea, was “imperative” to resolving the conflict.

The Russian army has fully liberated the border Kursk region from Ukrainian control with the help of North Korean soldiers, Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov said on Saturday, admitting their participation in the conflict for the first time.

Tens of thousands of people flocked to the Vatican yesterday for a last glimpse of Pope Francis’s open coffin, as world leaders and other guests began arriving for his funeral.

President Emmanuel Macron yesterday said during a visit to Madagascar he wanted to work toward “forgiveness” for France’s colonisation of the Indian Ocean island, including with the return of cultural artifacts.

A hand-written letter from Napoleon denying his role in the kidnapping of Pope Pius VII in 1809 is to go under the hammer this weekend, in a reminder of France’s complicated past relationship with the Vatican.

Around 200 French media groups, including leading television channels and newspapers, are taking legal action against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, over its online advertising practices, their lawyers announced yesterday.

A large police operation was under way in Germany yesterday to find one or more shooters who killed two men the day before in the centre of the country, police said.

Member states of the Intentional Maritime Organization (IMO) voted in favour of a global pricing system to help curb maritime emissions, the UN shipping body announced yesterday.

Over a thousand Sudanese refugees have reached or attempted to reach Europe in early 2025, the United Nations’ refugee agency said yesterday, citing growing desperation in part due to reduced aid in the region.

European Union finance ministers will discuss this week the setting up of a joint intergovernmental defence fund that would buy and own defence equipment and charge members a fee for its use, a paper prepared for the ministers’ discussions showed.

Stock markets and oil prices collapsed further yesterday on a black for markets as US President Donald Trump stood firm over his tariffs despite recession fears.

The Kremlin yesterday said that it supported the idea of a truce in Ukraine but had many "questions" about how it would work, pushing back at US and European suggestions that it was playing for time.

Cuts to aid budgets are threatening to undermine years of progress in reducing the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth, and could lead to a rise in deaths, the United Nations has warned.

London’s Metropolitan Police yesterday said it had charged comedian and actor Russell Brand with rape and a number of other sexual offences.

German investigators said Wednesday that they had dismantled a major platform for the distribution of child sex abuse images with 1.8 million users worldwide in an international operation coordinated by Europol.