The curtain came down on Britain’s membership of the European Union yesterday after more than three and a half years of disagreements and delays. Here are the milestones in the rocky process.

The EU’s three chiefs hailed Britain’s departure from the bloc yesterday as “a new dawn for Europe”, warning London would not keep the benefits of membership when it leaves.

The coronavirus is threatening to disrupt large parts of China’s manufacturing machine and its global supply chains as the spread of infection and strict public health measures force companies and workers to remain idle.

Police shot dead a man holding around 20 women and children hostage at his house in northern India after a 10-hour standoff, state

Israeli police forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, leaving at least 10 worshippers injured and detaining three, a Palestinian official is quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency.

British health officials say two people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, in the country’s first confirmed cases since the deadly outbreak emerged in China and began to spread globally recently.

The United States told its citizens not to travel to China in the first major response to the World Health Organization's declaration of a global emergency over the spreading coronavirus, as Chinese authorities have increased the toll to 213 dead and nearly 10,000 infections.

Air strikes killed 10 civilians near a bakery and a medical clinic in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib region yesterday, as government forces kept up a ground offensive.

Recounting the hellish conditions of eight years spent on death row on blasphemy charges but also the pain of exile, Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi has broken her silence to give her first personal insight into an ordeal that caused international outrage.

Australia was bracing for a heatwave to sweep across the country’s fire-ravaged southeast in the coming days, with the forecast stoking fears the soaring temperatures could inflame bushfires.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross yesterday said that the virus that has killed 170 people in China and sparked global health fears could help create jobs in America.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted Thursday that Brexit would bring “enormous benefits” to the United States and the UK, during a visit to Britain on the eve of its historic departure from the European Union.

Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai and environmentalist Jane Goodall are among more than 2,000 activists who declared a state of “emergency” for people and the planet yesterday, in a letter demanding urgent action from world leaders.

Smokers can effectively turn back time in their lungs by kicking the habit, with healthy cells emerging to replace some of their tobacco-damaged and cancer-prone ones, a new study shows.

Questions surfaced yesterday over whether Israel would immediately seek to annex parts of the West Bank, after US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan called for extending Israeli sovereignty to the area.

These are the plans so far by foreign governments to evacuate their citizens from the epicentre of the outbreak:

Pregnant, newlywed and now trapped at the Chinese epicentre of a global health crisis, Thai national Aphinya is among thousands of foreigners desperate to escape -- and watching helplessly as the US and Japan fly their citizens home

Two of three Japanese people evacuated from China and found to be infected with a new coronavirus had not shown symptoms, the health ministry said yesterday, adding to worries about the fast-spreading virus and its economic fallout.

Flash floods and landslides have killed at least nine people and forced thousands into temporary shelters on Indonesia’s Sumatra island,

Australia was bracing for a heatwave to sweep across the country’s fire-ravaged southeast in the coming days, with the forecast stoking fears the soaring temperatures could inflame bushfires.