France yesterday delivered a first consignment of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine to help Kyiv defend its airspace against Russia, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said yesterday.

The Aga Khan, Imam of the Ismaili Muslims and head of a major development aid foundation, died Tuesday in Lisbon at the age of 88, his foundation announced.

Five people were shot and wounded at a school in the central Swedish city of Orebro yesterday, police said, urging the public to stay away from the area as a large operation was underway.

Mexico yesterday began the 10,000-strong border troop deployment it had promised US President Donald Trump in exchange for delaying a 25-percent tariff on exported goods, President Claudia Sheinbaum said.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered sweeping tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China, demanding they stanch the flow of fentanyl - and illegal immigrants in the case of Canada and Mexico - into the United States, kicking off a trade war that could dent global growth and reignite inflation.

Russia yesterday condemned an executive order by US President Donald Trump to build a new missile defence shield, accusing the United States of trying to upset the global nuclear balance and pave the wave for military confrontation in space.

A Russian drone attack that targeted cities across Ukraine killed at least four people in a Soviet-era residential block in the eastern city of Sumy, the interior ministry said yesterday.

A new strain of bird flu has been confirmed at a duck farm in California, the first time the variant has been discovered in poultry in the United States, an international agency said.

Nordic leaders met on the weekend and reiterated they are united on defence issues, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said, as her country reels from US President Donald Trump’s attempts to take over Greenland.

Italy yesterday resumed the transfer of migrants to its controversial centres in Albania, sending 49 asylum seekers to its maritime neighbour, the interior ministry said.

Rudiger Koch, 59, emerged from his 30-square-meter (320-square-foot) home under the sea

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a video call with Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday in which he proposed further developing their strategic partnership just hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th US president.

Americans will be hit by a “Trump tariffs tax” if the US president-elect increases customs duties on Canadian products, the Canadian foreign minister said Friday, pledging a hard-hitting response in any trade war.

Britain’s competition watchdog yesterday launched an investigation into Google’s dominant position in the search engine market and its impacts on consumers and businesses.

Belgium was hit by a national strike yesterday, with air and rail traffic severely affected as workers protested against pension reform plans.

The last two years exceeded on average a critical warming limit for the first time as global temperatures soar “beyond what modern humans have ever experienced”, Europe’s climate monitor said yesterday.

The downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines airplane shows that flying over Russia poses a “high risk” to civilian flights amid the war in Ukraine, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency said yesterday.

The icy weather first hit Wednesday. The statement said rescue services have been called out to deal with traffic accidents, people falling in the snow and ice, flooding and other emergencies

There is not a “snowball’s chance in hell” that Canada will merge with the United States, outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, while his foreign minister added the country will “never back down” from threats by Donald Trump.

Russia said yesterday it had expelled more than 80,000 migrants in 2024, nearly twice as many as in 2023, as the country toughens migration policies after last year’s Crocus City Hall terror attack.