UN experts yesterday called for an international moratorium on the sale of surveillance technology until regulations are implemented to protect human rights following an Israeli spyware scandal.

French authorities rescued more than 100 migrants Wednesday seeking to sail to England in four separate boats that officials said got into trouble in the Channel.

Australia’s second-biggest city Melbourne yesterday extended lockdown despite growing anger among people as world struggles on to stamp out infections caused by the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus. 

German police have arrested a British man who worked at the British embassy in Berlin on suspicion of passing documents to the Russian intelligence service in exchange for cash, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Two exiled aides of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny were slapped with new criminal charges for helping to finance organisations that have recently been labelled “extremist”, Russian investigators said yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday ordered officials to send in reinforcements to fight forest fires that continue to tear through Siberia.

Guinea confirmed a case of Marburg disease, the World Health Organization said on Monday, the first recorded in West Africa of the lethal virus that’s related to Ebola and, like Covid-19, passed from animal hosts to humans.

After spending hundreds of hours in virtual meetings to complete this week’s major UN climate report, scientists Piers Forster and Joeri Rogelj celebrated in a way their peers could not: by hugging. 

Calling for “massive” pressure to fight climate change after yesterday’s dire report by a UN science panel, activist Greta Thunberg said she plans to go to this year’s global climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, after all.

“Today’s report makes for sobering reading, and it is clear that the next decade is going to be pivotal to securing the future of our planet.” BRITISH PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON

The colourful tins piled high around Belgian collector Yvette Dardenne used to contain goods ranging from chocolates, toffees, coffee and rice to tobacco, talc and shoe polish, and come from as far away as India.

Some 40 Hungarian husbands, with their wives on their backs, clambered over rough terrain on Saturday in the nation’s second wife-carrying contest.

Passes and vaccine passports are increasingly being used across the world to limit entry to public places to those who have been vaccinated, recovered from Covid-19 or tested negative. 

Hundreds of firefighters yesterday fought wildfires and flare-ups that have devoured record numbers of woodlands in Greece and left hundreds of families homeless, but heavy rains brought some respite to hard-hit Turkey. 

About 40 migrants were feared dead after a boat carrying about 50 people travelling from Western Sahara to Spain’s Canary Islands capsized, a Spanish non-governmental organisation, said on Friday.

North Korea continued developing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs during the first half of 2021 in violation of international sanctions and despite the country’s worsening economic situation, according to an excerpt of a confidential United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday. 

Representatives from 195 countries yesterday approved a critical UN science report that will provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment yet of the state of Earth’s climate. 

Millions more Mexicans have fallen into poverty because of the coronavirus pandemic, with people living in one of the country’s top tourist destinations hit particularly hard, official data showed Thursday.

Russia has formally banned organisations established by jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny as the opposition says the authorities are trying to stifle dissent ahead of parliamentary elections.

The United Nations yesterday said it urgently needed funds to feed people in Myanmar amid fears that up to 6.2 million could be plunged into hunger by October.