Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday called on the West to lift sanctions on Taliban-led Afghanistan and take “responsibility” for reconstruction efforts in the country.

Banning the sale of tobacco to people born between 2006 and 2010 could prevent around 1.2 million deaths from lung cancer by the end of the century, said a modelling study released yesterday.

Britain yesterday said it would give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius but under what US President Joe Biden called a “historic agreement” will keep its strategic joint military base with the United States on Diego Garcia.

The prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was “politically motivated” and had a “chilling” effect on the whole media landscape, the parliamentary arm of pan-European rights body the Council of Europe said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan’s embassy in London closed yesterday after Taliban authorities cut ties with diplomatic missions set up by the previous government in Kabul and fired its UK staff.

An Irish regulator helping to police European Union data privacy said yesterday it had fined Facebook-owner Meta 91 million euros ($102 million) for password-security breaches.

Russia hit a high-rise apartment block in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv during an attack with guided bombs yesterday, killing at least three people and injuring 15 more, with others feared trapped under rubble, local authorities said.

The number of migrants arriving in Britain by crossing the Channel in small boats has topped 25,000 since the start of the year, provisional figures showed yesterday.

France unveiled a new government on Saturday evening that aims to strike a fine balance between right-wingers and centrists, as Prime Minister Michel Barnier hopes to break political deadlock following snap elections that delivered a hung parliament.

A young brother and sister were killed near Naples, Italy, yesterday after the two-storey building where they lived collapsed, firefighters said.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to protect public services and ruled out austerity measures as Labour’s annual conference kicked off yesterday, its first in 15 years as a government party.

Ukrainian drones struck an arms depot in Russia’s western Tver region early yesterday, sparking a massive blaze that led to the evacuation of nearby residents, a Ukrainian security source said.

France’s budgetary situation is “very serious”, Prime Minister Michel Barnier told AFP yesterday, saying more information was needed to gauge the “precise reality” of French public finances.

Eight migrants died early yesterday when their overcrowded vessel capsized while trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French authorities said, less than two weeks after the deadliest such disaster this year.

In the castle gardens of Muskauer Park, which straddles both banks of the German-Polish river border, caretakers have mounted a fightback against the impacts of climate change.

Russia shot down three drones over its northern Murmansk region on Wednesday, more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) from Ukraine, the regional governor said.

The US and British top diplomats yesterday vowed to work together for Ukraine’s victory as they discussed further easing rules on firing Western weapons into Russia, whose alleged acquisition of Iranian missiles has raised new fears.

Russia has received ballistic missiles from Iran and will likely use them in Ukraine within weeks, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatens wider European security.

President Vladimir Putin yesterday warned the United States against trying to outgun Moscow in Asia as Russian and Chinese warships held joint drills as part of the biggest Russian naval exercises since the Soviet era.

The French are largely satisfied with the appointment of the centre-right Michel Barnier as prime minister, but believe he will not last long in his new post, a poll said yesterday.