Irish writer Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize on Sunday for his novel ‘Prophet Song’, the story of a family and a country on the brink of catastrophe as an imaginary Irish government veers towards tyranny.

Russia was intensely attacking the eastern town of Avdiivka and southern village of Robotyne, where fighting has centred in recent weeks, Ukraine said yesterday.

Russia yesterday put Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone on a wanted list on unspecified charges as the US social media giant -- which owns Facebook -- is classed as “extremist” by Moscow.

Iran has executed a 17-year-old convicted of murder, two rights groups said on Saturday, expressing outrage that the Islamic republic continues to hang people for crimes committed as minors.

President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that the West had a “dangerous” monopoly over artificial intelligence and Russia needed to rival “biased” Western chatbots with its own technology.

Irish police make 34 arrests after Dublin rioting

Far-right populist Geert Wilders wants to be the Netherlands’ next prime minister and would focus his efforts on curbing immigration, he said following a landmark election win that will have repercussions in the Netherlands and Europe.

Fuel shortages and worsening sanitation in the Gaza Strip are shaping up to be the perfect storm for tragedy through the spread of disease, the United Nations warned yesterday.

Russia said yesterday it was holding joint naval exercises with India in the Bay of Bengal, as the two countries bolster security ties despite Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

Three people were killed and eight were wounded in overnight Russian missile attacks and shelling in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg yesterday warned of Russia’s “malign” interference in Bosnia, saying Moscow’s actions threatened the stability of the deeply divided Balkan country.

Countries’ greenhouse gas-cutting pledges put Earth on track for warming far beyond key limits, potentially up to a catastrophic 2.9 degrees Celsius this century, the UN said yesterday, urging G20 nations to boost emissions cuts.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in wartime Kyiv yesterday in a gesture of “unwavering” support as questions swirled over the sustainability of vital Western assistance as the war with Russia drags on. Austin, accompanied by the commander of the US European Command, was shown next to a train shaking hands with the US ambassador to Kyiv in a photograph published by the embassy.

A bicorne hat believed to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte sold for a record 1,932,000 euros ($2.11 million) at the Drouot auction house in Paris on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in a virtual G20 leaders’ summit on November 22, after skipping the flagship in-person meeting in New Delhi in September.

Russia carried out a major drone attack on Ukraine overnight, hitting infrastructure facilities and causing power outages in more than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast, and north of the country, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain have teamed up to join the genocide case over Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya minority before the UN’s top court in The Hague, the court said yesterday evening.

Finland will close four of the nine crossing points on its border with Russia to stem a flow of asylum seekers to the Nordic nation, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said yesterday.

Iranian authorities have launched a new wave of arrests targeting members of the Bahai faith, the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, representatives of the community said yesterday.

The world is “failing to get a grip” on climate change, the UN warned yesterday, as an assessment of current climate pledges shows only minor progress on reducing emissions this decade.