1989 - Hungary opened its border to the West, allowing thousands of East Germans to leave in a mass exodus that presaged the toppling of the Berlin Wall.

At least 10 people were killed when a fire broke out in a makeshift hospital for Covid-19 patients in the North Macedonian town of Tetovo, the country's health minister said on Wednesday.

Nearly 80 Yemen rebels and pro-government troops have been killed as fighting intensifies for the northern city of Marib, officials said yesterday, nearly seven years into a war that has triggered a major humanitarian crisis.

Among the cranes and containers of the port of Rotterdam is a surreal sight: a herd of cows peacefully feeding on board what calls itself the world’s first floating farm.

Armed robbers struck a Bulgari store on the opulent Place Vendome in Paris and snatched jewellery worth 10 million euros ($11.84 million) on Tuesday, police in the French capital said.

The International Press Institute today named Yuliya Slutskaya was named the institute’s 72 nd World Press Freedom Hero. 

The sentencing of Maria Kolesnikova and Maksim Znak shows the Belarusian authorities continuing their assault on the defenders of democracy and freedom.

Indigenous groups urged world leaders yesterday to back a new target to protect 80% of the Amazon basin by 2025, saying bold action was needed to stop deforestation pushing the Earth’s largest rainforest beyond a point of no return.

The challenges to security emerging from the upheaval in Afghanistan should be a wake-up call for the European Union, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, urging the EU to be more ambitious on defence and on global leadership. 

New Zealand recorded its first Covid-related death in six months yesterday, but health authorities said there were signs the outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant was coming under control.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday vowed to tighten counter-terrorism laws this month after a knife-wielding militant known to the authorities stabbed and wounded seven people in a supermarket.

476 - Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian who proclaims himself king of Italy.

The sooner the Taliban will enter the family of civilised people, so to speak, the easier it will be to contact, communicate, and somehow influence and ask questions.

New Zealand police on Friday shot and killed a knife-wielding "extremist" who was known to authorities, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, after he stabbed and wounded at least six people in a supermarket.

The European Union and other countries yesterday called for negotiations towards a legally-binding agreement to reduce plastic pollution, including the microplastics infesting oceans and waterways.

1783 - Treaty of Paris signed in Paris ends the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain and United States of America.

A Paris auction house will seek to sell in October the world’s biggest known example of the dinosaur triceratops, known as “Big John”, with the spectacular skeleton on show to the public beforehand, organisers said Tuesday.

Over half of all people in the world have no social protections, the United Nations said yesterday, even after the pandemic spurred countries to offer more services to their populations.

When the world’s leading conservation congress kicks off Friday in the French port city of Marseille it will aim to deliver one key message: protecting wildlife must not be seen as a noble gesture but an absolute necessity -- for people and the planet.

Teachers and school staff should be among the groups prioritised for Covid-19 vaccinations so that schools in Europe and Central Asia can stay open, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef said yesterday.