A French court on Friday convicted six teenagers for their role in the 2020 beheading of a teacher by a radicalised Islamist near Paris, in a case that horrified the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday he would run for president again in the 2024 presidential election, a move expected to keep him in power until at least 2030.

Rich countries need to stop using coal by 2030 and oil and gas by 2040, with poorer nations following a decade behind, to give the world a chance of limiting warming to 1.5C, climate scientists told the UN yesterday.

European Union scientists said yesterday that 2023 would be the warmest year on record, as global mean temperature for the first 11 months of the year hit the highest level on record, 1.46°C (34.63°F) above the 1850-1900 average.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia yesterday, during a rare trip abroad, and discuss oil production, OPEC+ and the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.

Italy has formally withdrawn from China’s vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, more than four years after becoming the only G7 nation to sign up, a government source said yesterday.

President Vladimir Putin will visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates today, the Kremlin announced, as Moscow courts allies abroad despite being isolated over the Ukraine conflict.

A man known to French authorities for radical Islamism with mental health troubles stabbed a tourist to death and wounded two other people in Paris late Saturday night before being arrested, with prosecutors opening an investigation into a suspected “terrorist plot”.

Russian forces hit a fortified commander post of Ukraine’s “East” air defence and alerting centre in the central city of Dnipro, the Russian defence ministry said yesterday.

A person known to the French authorities as a radical Islamist with mental health troubles stabbed a German tourist to death and wounded two people in central Paris on Saturday before being arrested, officials said

Russian shelling killed one civilian and destroyed two houses in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar yesterday, the interior ministry said.

Russia yesterday said its troops were progressing in all areas of the Ukrainian front, despite observers seeing little movement more a year and a half after Moscow launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine.

The European Parliament and EU member states agreed draft new rules yesterday that are intended to protect journalists and activists from abusive lawsuits used to silence public criticism.

A Moscow court yesterday said it had extended until January the detention of US reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in Russia earlier this year on spying charges.

Nato members yesterday pledged to stay the course on helping Ukraine fight Russia, despite doubts over US support and a bloody stalemate on the front line.

Irish writer Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize on Sunday for his novel ‘Prophet Song’, the story of a family and a country on the brink of catastrophe as an imaginary Irish government veers towards tyranny.

Russia was intensely attacking the eastern town of Avdiivka and southern village of Robotyne, where fighting has centred in recent weeks, Ukraine said yesterday.

Russia yesterday put Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone on a wanted list on unspecified charges as the US social media giant -- which owns Facebook -- is classed as “extremist” by Moscow.

Iran has executed a 17-year-old convicted of murder, two rights groups said on Saturday, expressing outrage that the Islamic republic continues to hang people for crimes committed as minors.

President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that the West had a “dangerous” monopoly over artificial intelligence and Russia needed to rival “biased” Western chatbots with its own technology.