After more than three years, the COVID-19 pandemic no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the World Health Organization announced on Friday.

COVID-19 no longer represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday, a major step towards the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, disrupted the global economy and ravaged communities.

The European Union is considering a proposal to quit an international energy treaty that has become mired in climate change concerns, but leave an option for individual countries to stay in an updated version of the accord, a document showed.

The Vatican is involved in a peace mission to try to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Pope Francis said on Sunday, adding that it was also ready to help repatriate Ukrainian children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied land.

The king has a lifelong interest in other religions and has spoken in the past about defending all faiths, not just Anglicanism, as Britain grew more multi-cultural.

Around 5.2 million Turks who reached voting age since Erdogan came to power in 2003 -- eight percent of the electorate -- will have their first say on election day.

Tranmere Rovers, an English League Two soccer club partly owned by Santini Group, one of Indonesia’s leading conglomerates, welcomed members of the local Muslim community to its home ground Prenton Park for Idul Fitri mass prayers on the football field, on Friday.

Russia on Saturday announced the tit-for-tat expulsion of over 20 German diplomats following the "mass" removal of Russian embassy staff from the country and accused Berlin of destroying ties.

Strikes across Europe have led to a spike in flight cancellations, delays and driven down bookings to cities like Paris, data from travel firms show, despite efforts by airlines to avoid a repeat of last year's disruptions.

The court in Paris found the companies had committed various errors leading up to the worst aviation disaster in Air France's history -- which left all 228 people on board flight AF447 dead -- but that their mistakes could not be proven to be the cause.

"We have very strong ties. They surpass the military-political alliances of the Cold War era... They are very stable," he said in translated remarks broadcast on Russian TV. 

This year, Indonesia is again the official partner country for Hannover Messe after partnering  previously in 2020 and 2021. Indonesia has picked Making Indonesia 4.0 as its theme at the industrial exhibition for this year.

Pledges to slash climate-changing emissions to nearly zero now cover more than 90% of the world's economy. But emissions themselves are still rising, despite scientists warning they must plunge by nearly half this decade to keep people safe.

Macron's remarks to journalists from French business daily Les Echos and news site Politico came after he was hosted for a state visit by China's Xi Jinping.

Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified US military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three US officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak.

Shoigu also said that some Belarusian military jets were now capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that Iskander rocket systems had been transferred to Belarus, which could be used to carry conventional or nuclear missiles.

"This was a great victory," the 53-year-old head of the conservative National Coalition Party, Petteri Orpo, told his cheering supporters.

President Emmanuel Macron's drive to ram through legislation raising France's retirement age despite mass protests is creating rifts between ministers and his allies amid frustration that the government has not resolved the standoff, insiders say.

"Russian UN Security Council presidency on April 1 is a bad joke. Russia has usurped its seat; it's waging a colonial war; its leader is a war criminal wanted by the ICC for kidnapping children," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Moscow failed on Monday to get the UN Security Council to ask for an independent inquiry into explosions in September that ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia and Germany and spewed gas into the Baltic Sea.

Yousaf beat out two SNP rivals Monday to clinch the party's top job, vowing to rejuvenate its signature policy of pursuing independence for Scotland which has stalled in recent months. 

Putin likened his Belarus plan on Saturday to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, insisting Russia would not violate its nuclear non-proliferation promises.

As France frets about an extended drought and prospects for more wildfires in another long summer, one blaze that erupted eight months ago in the southwest of the country still smoulders away underground.

France's National Assembly on Thursday approved the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) video surveillance during the 2024 Paris Olympics, overlooking warnings from civil rights groups that the technology posed a threat to civil liberties.

Most patients admitted to hospitals with acute viral infections are given antibiotics as a precaution against bacterial co-infection, but this practice may not improve survival, new research suggests.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant on Friday, accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. It said there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility.

 Former Turkish economy tsar Mehmet Simsek's refusal to return to politics has left President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party scrambling to rebuild its economic credibility less than two months before landmark elections, insiders and analysts say.

The EU's planned ban on new combustion engines from 2035 is not on the agenda of the upcoming EU summit but talks between the European Commission and Berlin about their differences over the plan are "very constructive", a German government official said.

Washington denounced Xi's visit, saying the timing indicated Beijing was providing Moscow with "diplomatic cover" to commit additional crimes.

Freshly reappointed for a third term in power, Xi is pushing a greater role for China on the global stage, and was crucial in mediating a surprise rapprochement between Middle Eastern rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia this month.