Russia has hardened its restrictions on the use of VPNs to access a host of online services, state and independent media outlets reported yesterday, as the authorities seek to exert more control over online communications.

Italy has suspended its defence agreement with Israel, which involves the exchange of military equipment and technology research, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and diplomatic sources said yesterday.

Congratulations from across Europe poured in yesterday for Hungarian political newcomer Peter Magyar, who defeated nationalist Viktor Orban in elections seen as a blow to right-wing populism worldwide.

Britain said yesterday it had tracked and “seen off” three Russian submarines on an alleged month-long “covert operation” in Atlantic waters “north of the UK” near vital undersea cables and pipelines.

Greece will ban access to social media for children under 15 from January 1, 2027

A new German military service law will require most young men to inform authorities when leaving the country for long periods, with a newspaper report on the little-noticed provision prompting widespread debate.

The war in the Middle East has pushed food commodity prices higher due to higher energy and fertiliser costs, the UN’s food agency said yesterday.

Austria has rejected US requests for military overflights of its territory since the start of the conflict in the Middle East in line with its policy of neutrality, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP yesterday.

The foreign resident population rose by 188,000 to 5.56 million

French police have arrested two more people over an apparent bid to set off a homemade device outside the Paris headquarters of Bank of America, prosecutors said yesterday.

Mexico’s navy said on Thursday it had activated a search-and-rescue operation in the Caribbean to locate two sailboats carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba after the vessels failed to arrive in Havana as scheduled.

The discovery of the oldest ever dog DNA suggests they have been our best friends for nearly 16,000 years -- 5,000 years earlier than had previously been thought, new research said Wednesday.

Oil prices jumped and equities slid yesterday as hopes for a peace deal between the US and Iran wavered after Tehran rejected Washington’s bid to wind down the nearly four-week war.

Here are the latest facts about Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial trade waterway virtually closed off by its forces in the Middle East war.

Oil prices tumbled and stock markets rallied yesterday on reports that the United States had sent a peace plan to Iran.

Tehran is seeking to choke the vital Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic following US and Israeli strikes against Iran, with fears it could be using sea mines to do so. Any Iranian mining of the key shipping lane, as its forces did in the 1980s, would be a nightmare for Western demining teams. Here’s an explainer:

UK Defence Minister John Healey suggested on Thursday that Russia was influencing Iran’s use of drone attacks in its war with the United States and Israel.

It all started off as a joke, a French researcher told AFP. But what the team found was a piece of history -- a long-lost page from a legendary manuscript by ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes which had been languishing, forgotten, in the archives of a French museum.

A Russian court yesterday handed life sentences to four gunmen from Tajikistan, and 11 others it said were their accomplices, for the 2024 Crocus concert hall attack that left 150 people dead.

Antarctic sea ice coverage has likely rebounded this year, coming closer to its annual summer average after four years of extreme lows, US scientists said Monday.