It could be raining diamonds on planets throughout the universe, scientists suggested, after using common plastic to recreate the strange precipitation believed to form deep inside Uranus and Neptune.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader beloved of the West who lived long enough to see all the reforms he had championed in his homeland undone, was buried yesterday without state honours or the presence of the current Kremlin incumbent.

After a gruelling nationwide tour, a dozen hustings and three televised debates, Liz Truss appears poised to take over as the UK’s next prime minister heading into the close of voting by Conservative party members yesterday.

The EU’s foreign policy chief has voiced hope at reviving the Iran nuclear deal within days as Israel’s leader, a strong opponent, made his case with US President Joe Biden.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev due to scheduling issues, his spokesman said yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to miss the funeral of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, denying the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the full state honours granted to Boris Yeltsin.

The death of Mikhail Gorbachev triggered an outpouring of tributes from Western leaders yesterday but reaction was muted in Russia, where many blamed the last Soviet leader for the loss of the country’s status as a global superpower.

The UN rights chief was set to release a long-awaited report on alleged violations in China’s Xinjiang region before leaving office later yesterday, despite strong

Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, has died at 91, Russian media reported Tuesday.

A 75-year-old Austrian citizen of Iranian origin, jailed in Iran on charges of espionage, has been given a five-day release from prison, his daughter told AFP yesterday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz yesterday pledged emphatic backing for Ukraine and other hopefuls to join the European Union, underlining however that enlarging the bloc to “30 or 36” would require reforms.

Russia said Monday it will launch sweeping military drills in the country’s east that will involve forces from China — a show of increasingly close defense ties between Moscow and Beijing amid tensions with the West over the Kremlin’s action in Ukraine.

Europe could face several winters of gas shortage as a result of the cuts to Russian supplies, Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said.

Dutch police yesterday said six people were killed and seven other people hurt after a truck ran off the top of a dike road and ploughed into revellers at a neighbourhood barbecue.

The death toll from an accident when a truck drove off a dike and slammed into a community barbecue in a village south of Rotterdam rose to six Sunday and police said a further seven people are in hospital, including one in critical condition.

Russia has blocked the adoption of a joint declaration on the United Nations’ nuclear disarmament treaty, which criticised Moscow’s military takeover of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.

Pope Francis will create 20 new cardinals picked from the four corners of the world, most of whom could one day end up choosing the pontiff’s successor.

French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday said the fate of a revived nuclear deal is up to Iran, and that an agreement would be “useful” even if it doesn’t settle everything.

Moderna yesterday sued Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States, alleging they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.

Russia is wasting large volumes of natural gas by burning it in a huge orange flare near the Finnish border at a time when it has sharply cut deliveries to the European Union, scientists and analysts said on Friday.