Confidence in the safety of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine has taken a big hit in Spain, Germany, France and Italy as reports of rare blood clots have been linked to it and many countries briefly stopped using it, poll data showed.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg yesterday said European allies had increased defence spending in 2020 despite the economic pain inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Russian scientists on Saturday launched one of the world’s biggest underwater space telescopes to peer deep into the universe from the pristine waters of Lake Baikal.

Russian police on Saturday arrested around 200 opposition politicians and municipal deputies at a Moscow conference as authorities tighten the screws on Kremlin critics ahead of parliamentary elections.

Police in London clashed with mourners and protesters on Saturday after more than a thousand people gathered to mark the killing of a 33-year-old woman, hours after the police officer charged with her murder appeared in court.

The European Union’s medicines regulator has dismissed reports of blood clots in people who had received the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, saying that there is no indication that the vaccine is linked to an increased risk of blood clots, BBC reported.

A man who has admitted to taking part in the 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia gave his first detailed account of the plot on Thursday, telling a court how the anti-corruption journalist was tracked and killed.

An Algerian man has been arrested in the Italian town of Bari on suspicion of belonging to the Islamist militant group Islamic State and helping the perpetrators of a coordinated attack that killed 130 people in Paris in 2015, police said on Monday.

Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, accused Britain’s royal family of raising concerns about how dark their son’s skin might be and pushing her to the brink of suicide, in a tell-all television interview that could send shockwaves through the monarchy.

A far-right proposal to ban facial coverings in Switzerland won a narrow victory in a binding referendum on Sunday instigated by the same group that organised a 2009 ban on new minarets.

Britain’s Prince Harry and American wife Meghan decided long ago they would not play the traditional royal media “game”, and on Sunday they depart from the norms of engagement again with an in-depth interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday he was ready to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights to prove his innocence, his first public reaction after being found guilty of corruption by judges on Monday.

A Belarusian court today sentenced a journalist to six months in prison for divulging medical secrets, after she had contradicted official statements about the killing of a protester who the authorities suggested was drunk at the time.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption yesterday and handed a three-year prison sentence after a court in Paris convicted him for trying to illegally influence a judge during his time in office.

A Paris court on Monday found French former President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling and sentenced him to one year in prison and a two-year suspended sentence.

A new driverless electric bus has begun operating in the southern Spanish city of Malaga, in a project presented as a first in Europe.

French safety officials yesterday gave the green light to extend the lifetime of the country’s oldest of nuclear power plants as it seeks to boost the share of renewables in its power mix.

Scientists said yesterday they had discovered the oldest remains of a domestic dog in the Americas dating back more than 10,000 years, suggesting the animals accompanied the first waves of human settlers.

Italy said yesterday it has asked the United Nations to launch an investigation into the killing of its ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo was among three people killed yesterday when a UN convoy came under attack in the troubled east, DRC sources and the Italian government said.