The world must halve single-use plastics and slash throwaway consumption to stem the tide of environmental pollution, according to a UN report yesterday that warns the next few years are critical.

Artificial sweeteners, used to replace sugar in a vast range of products, do not help in losing weight and can have serious health effects, according to the World Health Organization.

Ukraine said yesterday it had shot down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles in a single night, thwarting a superweapon Moscow had previously touted as all but unstoppable.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday called Germany a “true friend” in his country’s battle against Russia, as Berlin pledged unwavering support for Kyiv ahead of a widely expected counter-offensive.

Germany averted a crippling 50-hour train strike as transport union EVG today called off the industrial action after reaching a wage deal with rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

Kyiv yesterday said that the massive new weapons package from Germany was another sign that Russia would lose in its war against Ukraine.

France’s highest court yesterday ruled that the country could try foreign suspects under the universal jurisdiction principle, greenlighting inquiries into two Syrians accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Three men sentenced to death in Iran over protests that erupted last year are at imminent risk of execution after the supreme court upheld their sentences, Amnesty International warned yesterday.

Ukraine said yesterday that its forces had recaptured chunks of territory around the embattled city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, which has been the epicentre of fighting with Russia for months.

The UN rights chief yesterday called on the international community to exert all possible pressure on the fighting sides in Sudan to resolve the conflict and end “the wanton violence”.

Around 27 people, a majority of them children, were injured today when a pedestrian bridge collapsed in the Finnish city of Espoo, just outside the country's capital, a spokesperson for the Helsinki regional rescue service said..Many of the injured were part of a group of school children,

France’s top administrative court yesterday ordered the government for a second time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within a year, in a case brought by a town threatened by rising sea levels.

President Vladimir Putin yesterday vowed Russia’s military would be victorious in Ukraine and blamed Western countries for the conflict, comparing the fighting to World War II during a military parade on Red Square.

More than 14 million people tuned in to watch King Charles III’s coronation on BBC television, the corporation said yesterday.

Russian paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said yesterday he had received “a promise” of more ammunition from the Russian army, after he threatened to pull his frontline Wagner troops out of Bakhmut.

Authorities in northwest Mexico rescued 113 kidnapped migrants of different nationalities from a building along the border with the United States, the state prosecutor’s office said.

A gunman shot and killed eight people and wounded at least seven others at a busy mall north of Dallas on Saturday, police said.

Charles III was crowned monarch of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth realms yesterday at Britain’s first coronation for 70 years, during a ceremony steeped in a millennium of ritual and spectacle.

Thousands of people turned central London red, white and blue yesterday, with a sea of Union Jack flags lining the streets for the coronation of King Charles III.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting -- a biennial summit of governmental leaders from all Commonwealth nations -- today