French foreign minister says it will be hard for UK to strike deal by end of year given differences   Britain and the European Union are going to rip each other apart in talks over a future trade deal, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has predicted, while also ...

We might be wrong about how Mars formed, scientists have said. The Red Planet may have taken much longer to form, and done so in an unexpectedly violent way, according to new research. It is hard to know how Mars formed, and how much that was dictated by collisions in ...

WhatsApp has two billion users, it has said in a new announcement. It means that more than a quarter of the world’s population are on the chat app. WhatsApp used the announcement to stress its commitment to security – a position that has led to criticism from lawmakers and politicians ...

Here are the latest developments around the coronavirus outbreak: *China’s Hubei province reported a record 242 deaths as of Wednesday, bringing the toll to 1,310. Daily new cases in the province jumped to 14,840, up from 1,638, the fastest rise. *Provincial officials started using computerized tomography (CT) scans to look ...

The Lebanese government will request “technical assistance” from the IMF to draw up a stabilisation plan to resolve the country’s financial and economic crisis, including plans to restructure public debt, a government source told Reuters today. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri previously suggested yesterday that a decision on whether to pay ...

Iran will respond forcefully to any Israeli action against its interests in the region, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, according to the Mehr news agency, Reuters reports. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will give a crushing response that will cause regret to any kind of aggression or stupid action from this regime against ...

The UN Security Council on Wednesday adopted a resolution calling for a “lasting ceasefire” in Libya, where a fragile truce has been in place since January. The text, drafted by Britain, was approved by 14 votes out of 15, with Russia abstaining. It was subject to weeks of wrangling, reflecting ...

Traces of unknown ancestor emerged when researchers analysed genomes from west African populations   Scientists have found evidence for a mysterious “ghost population” of ancient humans that lived in Africa about half a million years ago and whose genes live on in people today. Traces of the unknown ancestor emerged ...

Palestinian officials welcome report, while Israel condemns it as ‘shameful blacklist’   The UN has published a list of companies with business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the US-based TripAdvisor and Airbnb and the British truck and digger maker JCB. Most of the 112 companies ...

The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, urged Israel on Tuesday not to annex the Jordan Valley, a large swathe of the occupied West Bank, warning of Palestinian protests if it went ahead. Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war. The Palestinian Authority wants to make the area part ...