Countries’ greenhouse gas-cutting pledges put Earth on track for warming far beyond key limits, potentially up to a catastrophic 2.9 degrees Celsius this century, the UN said yesterday, urging G20 nations to boost emissions cuts.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in wartime Kyiv yesterday in a gesture of “unwavering” support as questions swirled over the sustainability of vital Western assistance as the war with Russia drags on. Austin, accompanied by the commander of the US European Command, was shown next to a train shaking hands with the US ambassador to Kyiv in a photograph published by the embassy.

A bicorne hat believed to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte sold for a record 1,932,000 euros ($2.11 million) at the Drouot auction house in Paris on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in a virtual G20 leaders’ summit on November 22, after skipping the flagship in-person meeting in New Delhi in September.

Russia carried out a major drone attack on Ukraine overnight, hitting infrastructure facilities and causing power outages in more than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast, and north of the country, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain have teamed up to join the genocide case over Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya minority before the UN’s top court in The Hague, the court said yesterday evening.

Finland will close four of the nine crossing points on its border with Russia to stem a flow of asylum seekers to the Nordic nation, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said yesterday.

Images of faces generated by artificial intelligence (AI) can now appear more real than pictures of real people -- as long as they are white, a study said on Monday.

Iranian authorities have launched a new wave of arrests targeting members of the Bahai faith, the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, representatives of the community said yesterday.

The world is “failing to get a grip” on climate change, the UN warned yesterday, as an assessment of current climate pledges shows only minor progress on reducing emissions this decade.

President Vladimir Putin yesterday tightened media conditions for election coverage in Russia, ahead of a March 2024 presidential vote expected to prolong his rule until 2030.

Russia has signed a contract to supply Igla-S hand-held anti-aircraft missiles to India and allow production of the Igla there under licence, the Russian state news agency TASS quoted a top arms export official as saying yesterday.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak brought back former leader David Cameron as foreign minister yesterday in a reshuffle triggered by his firing of interior minister Suella Braverman after her criticism of the police threatened his authority.

Russian forces have killed 34 fighters and wounded more than 60 in air strikes on targets in Syria’s Idlib governorate, Russia’s Interfax reported late on Sunday, citing deputy head of Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria.

In his fresh remarks on the diplomatic face-off with India, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that the world will become “more dangerous” for everyone “if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences”.

The Ocean Viking rescue vessel has picked up 128 stranded migrants in three operations off the coast of Libya, the Marseille-based SOS Mediterranee which runs the ship said on Saturday.

Half of the world’s 2,000 biggest listed companies have set a target to get to net-zero emissions by mid-century, but just a fraction meet tough United Nations guidelines for what constitutes a quality pledge, a report yesterday showed.

A Ukrainian military brigade said yesterday 19 of its soldiers were killed last week in a Russian air strike that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as “a tragedy that could have been avoided”.

Vladimir Putin has decided to run in the March presidential election, a move that will keep him in power until least 2030, as the Kremlin chief feels he must steer Russia through the most perilous period in decades, six sources told Reuters.

The Group of Seven (G7) bloc of wealthy democracies risks eroding its relevance as a force to tackle major geopolitical crises over an apparent struggle between its member nations to agree on a firm, united approach to Israel’s war in Gaza.