China produced around two new billionaires a week last year as the fortunes of the world's ultra-rich soared by a record amount, a report said yesterday.

Meghan Markle's trend-setting dress sense usually drives frenzied shopping at her favoured designers, but her latest choice - traditional Tongan couture - might prove a little harder for fashionistas to track down.

Spain's Supreme Court yesterday ordered 18 former Catalan leaders to stand trial over their role in last year's declaration of independence.

President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia would be forced to target any European countries that agreed to host US nuclear missiles following Washington's withdrawal from a landmark Cold war-era arms control treaty.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday that Saudi Arabia would not have murdered prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi without American protection, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Salty water just below the surface of Mars could hold enough oxygen to support the kind of microbial life that emerged and flourished on Earth billions of years ago, researchers reported Monday.

The UN Human Rights Committee yesterday criticised France's so-called burqa ban, saying the law "violated" the rights of two women who were fined in 2012 for wearing full-face veils in public.

Britain's beleaguered Prime minister appealed to her increasingly mutinous party on Monday to back her Brexit strategy in the face of deep divisions at home and a tough negotiating stance from the EU.

Two people died yesterday after a boat carrying illegal migrants sank off Turkey's southwestern coast, the Turkish coastguard said. Seventeen others were rescued after the boat ran into trouble 50 metres off the coast of Bodrum district in Mugla province, it said in a statement.

EU flag waving Britons rejecting a future outside Europe packed the heart of London on Saturday for an anti-Brexit protest organisers said drew more than half a million people.

A global financial watchdog on Friday warned Iran to clamp down on terrorism financing by February or face a deeper squeeze on its

Russia's defence minister yesterday said that almost 88,000 rebels had been killed in Syria in the three years since Moscow's

Australia's embattled conservative coalition was dealt a spectacular defeat yesterday in a crucial by-election two months after it turfed

The EU's top court yesterday ordered Poland to "immediately suspend" its decision to lower the retirement age of its Supreme Court judges. "Poland must immediately suspend the application of the provisions of national legislation relating to the lowering of the retirement age for Supreme Court judges," it said.

Pope Francis on Thursday received an invitation to visit North Korea and the pontiff indicated he would consider making what would be a landmark trip to a nation known for severe restrictions on religious practice. South Korean President Moon Jae-in relayed the invitation from Kim Jong Un to the Pope in the Vatican.

Norway will release a Russian suspected of spying, the country's intelligence agency announced yesterday. Mikhail Bochkarev, 51, was arrested on September 21 at Oslo airport after attending a seminar in Norway's parliament, accused of having collected data on the building and its network.

Crunchy and tasty, yes, but could carrots also strengthen cement and cut carbon dioxide emissions for the building industry?

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said yesterday the thorny issue of the border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland could sink the negotiations on Britain's exit from the European Union.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday after talks in Ankara that Washington may now lift sanctions imposed on Turkey during the dispute over its detention of an American pastor.

Energy sector carbon emissions will rise in 2018 after hitting record levels the year before, dimming prospects for meeting Paris climate treaty goals, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday.