World

A 36-year-old Australian man has pleaded guilty to abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith and keeping her inside his home for more than two weeks. Terence Darrell Kelly has appeared in Carnarvon Magistrates’ Court where he pleaded guilty to a charge of child stealing. The 36-year-old could face up to 20 years in prison on a conviction

A British man who died in Thailand following an alleged assault has been named as Marcus Evans. The 49-year-old, from Berrow, Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, was killed in the early hours of Saturday morning in the Kanchanaburi Province in the west of the country. Thai Police were called to a house – thought to belong to

Britain has accused Russia of a shadowy plot to install a pro-Kremlin government in Kyiv as Moscow weighs up a further invasion of Ukraine. In a highly-unusual move that appeared to be based on specially declassified intelligence, the Foreign Office alleged that a former Ukrainian MP was “being considered as a potential candidate” as a

Russia’s defence minister has accepted an invitation to meet his UK counterpart Ben Wallace amid fears that an invasion of Ukraine is “imminent”. The British defence secretary offered earlier this week to hold talks with Sergei Shoigu in London to discuss mutual security concerns, against heightened tensions with the Kremlin over its former Soviet neighbour.

It doesn’t matter that I lived in Russia and experienced its winters for a number of years. It doesn’t matter that I reported on the wintry months of the Ukrainian separatist uprising in 2014 into 2015. Because each time one comes back, the weather is as horrendous and painful as ever. Looking out across miles

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said that any movement of “Russian military forces across Ukraine’s border” will be met with a “swift, severe and united response”. He also warned Moscow’s “extensive playbook of aggression” would also be met with action – following his crunch talks with his counterpart foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, aimed

Austria’s parliament has approved a universal COVID-19 vaccine mandate for adults – the first of its kind in Europe. The mandate will come into force next month, with authorities writing to every household to inform them of the new rules. From mid-March, police will start checking people’s vaccination status during routine checks. Those who cannot

Britain’s armed forces have flown some 2,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine this week amid fears of an imminent, new Russian invasion. British surveillance aircraft have also been spotted. Open source flight-tracking software has plotted Royal Air Force C-17 transport aircraft flying back and forth between the UK and Ukraine. Image: A British military cargo C-17

More than 1.2 million people died from drug-resistant infections in 2019, according to a study. The Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance report, published by The Lancet, comes after repeated warnings from health experts about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria. It blamed antimicrobial resistance for an estimated 1.27 million deaths in 2019, adding that a further

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned Russia that the world is watching as Moscow continues military manoeuvres involving 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine. After talks with Ukraine’s government in Kyiv, America’s top diplomat said Russia could double that number in short order and launch an attack on its neighbour. Mr Blinken

The rapid spread of the Omicron variant, combined with the roll-out of up to 20bn doses of vaccine means the COVID-19 pandemic could be over this year, according to one of the world’s leading public health experts. But Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and former SAGE adviser told Sky News that more

A battered army ambulance pulls up in the freezing, snowy yard of a long-since abandoned factory in eastern Ukraine that is now the headquarters of the army’s 24th battalion.   The Soviet-era vehicle has been converted into a troop carrier; I say converted, in fact I mean everything has been torn out, plywood lines its

Satellite pictures have emerged showing Tonga covered in ash after a huge undersea volcano erupted. A plume of smoke can be seen rising from Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano in images taken before the eruption, with the volcanic island appearing to have all but disappeared afterwards. Australia and New Zealand sent military surveillance flights to assess damage to

The body of a British woman swept away by the tsunami in Tonga has been found, her brother has confirmed. Angela Glover, from Brighton, disappeared after an undersea volcano erupted near the country on Saturday, sending large tsunami waves crashing across the island’s shore. The 50-year-old’s family and friends had appealed for information on her

A series of website defacements in Ukraine this week were “cover for more destructive actions” according to a government official and a technical warning from Microsoft. The high-profile but ultimately ineffective defacements – which came with a fake ransomware notices, according to Microsoft – were immediately reported, but behind the scenes malicious software was really

Tsunami-hit Tonga has remained largely uncontactable due to telephone and internet links being severed. An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted yesterday, triggering warnings of 1.2-metre tsunami waves and evacuation orders on the shores of the island and several others in the South Pacific. The eruption caused internet and phone lines to go down at about