Voting was underway in France yesterday in a parliamentary election that could deprive newly re-elected centrist President Emmanuel Macron of the absolute majority he needs to govern with a free hand.

Greece’s coastguard continued to search for four missing migrants off the island of Mykonos yesterday after rescuing another 108 migrants on a sailboat that sent a distress signal late on Saturday, officials said.

France, Spain and other western European nations yesterday braced for a sweltering June weekend that is set to break records and sparked concern about forest fires and the effects of climate change.

Britain’s interior minister Priti Patel suggested in an interview published yesterday that a European court’s intervention to stop a deportation flight to Rwanda was politically motivated.

Britain yesterday approved a US government request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face trial over the publication of secret military files, prompting outrage from his supporters.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top ethics advisor said he had quit after the government forced him into an “impossible and odious” position, according to

Oil prices erased early gains to fall to two-week lows on Thursday on the back of inflation concerns highlighted by interest rate hikes in the United States, Britain and Switzerland, though tight oil supply limited losses.

The depressing state of the world is leading people to switch off from the news, the Reuters Institute reported yesterday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday warned of a “dangerous disconnect” between what scientists and citizens are demanding to curb climate change, and what governments are actually doing about it.

The European Commission launched new legal action against Britain yesterday, accusing London of putting peace in Northern Ireland at risk by trying to overhaul the post-Brexit trade deal.

The UN rights chief said yesterday Myanmar’s junta has likely committed crimes against humanity and urged authorities to stop planned executions, including of prominent democracy activists.

Dozens of countries yesterday voiced concern at alleged abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, and demanded that the UN rights chief publish a long-delayed report on the rights situation there.

The UK government yesterday defended its controversial policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, even as the entire senior leadership of the Church of England branded it shameful and immoral.

Microscopic air pollution caused mostly by burning fossil fuels shortens lives worldwide by more than two years, researchers reported yesterday.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been abruptly transferred from the prison where he is serving an 11-1/2 year sentence to an undisclosed location, nearly two years since he was poisoned with what the West said was a nerve agent.

Alphabet Inc unit Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc(TWTR.N) and other tech companies will have to take measures to counter deepfakes and fake accounts on their platforms or risk hefty fines under an updated European Union code of practice, according to an EU document seen by Reuters.

French troops were yesterday handing back a military base in northeastern Mali ahead of a final withdrawal from the Sahel nation, France’s army said, after nine years fighting a jihadist insurgency.

Researchers said yesterday they had mapped the network in the brain linked to addiction by studying long-time smokers who abruptly quit after suffering brain lesions.

The United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, indicated yesterday that she would not seek a second term, the surprise announcement coming in a wide-ranging speech to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

The number of nuclear weapons in the world is set to rise in the coming decade after 35 years of decline as global tensions flare amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, researchers said yesterday.