Junior doctors in England started a six-day walkout over pay on Wednesday (3 January), the longest strike in the 75-year history of the state-run National Health Service (NHS), which will hit patient care during a seasonal winter peak in demand.

Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday (3 January) announced their first exchange of prisoners of war in nearly five months, with more than 200 freed by each side after what both said was a complex negotiation involving mediation by the United Arab Emirates.

Iran blamed Israel and the United States on Wednesday (3 January) for twin bomb blasts that killed at least 95 people in the country's south, ripping through a crowd commemorating Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani four years after his death in a US strike.

This tumultuous year in EU politics started with investigations and arrests of MEPs implicated in the Qatargate scandal and ended with lawmakers agreeing on reforms to stiffen the bloc’s migration policies. Still, our most-read story dealt with an issue that most Brussels politicos thought had been left behind. 

A German local court has opened a regular insolvency proceeding against communications technology company Gigaset AG, Europe's market leader for wireless phones, raising questions as to how - or whether - the struggling company will be restructured.

With the German federal election of 2021 being re-run for half a million eligible voters in Berlin, conservative opposition CDU is hoping for a boost in votes, calling upon voters to send a ‘stop sign’ to the governing centre-left coalition of chancellor Olaf Scholz.

With organs short in supply, scientists are working hard to develop treatments for organ malfunctions independent of human donors. One such example is the use of artificial organs developed with the help of stem cells.

The EU on Wednesday (3 January) added Russia's Alrosa, the world's biggest diamond producer, as well as its CEO Pavel Alekseevich Marinychev to its sanctions list as part of its ban of import bans over Moscow's war on Ukraine.

Turkey said on Tuesday (2 January) it would not allow two minehunter ships donated to Ukraine by Britain to transit its waters en route to the Black Sea since it would violate an international pact concerning wartime passage of the straits.

The arms race across the Taiwan Strait and Chinese military pressure against the island Beijing claims as its "sacred" territory is unlikely to end no matter who wins Taiwan's closely watched elections.

Russia pounded Ukraine's two biggest cities on Tuesday (2 January) in a new wave of heavy air strikes that killed at least five civilians and prompted calls for the West to quickly provide more military assistance.

The European Union on Tuesday (2 January) insisted Somalia's sovereignty should be respected after Ethiopia signed a controversial deal with breakaway Somaliland.

The European Commission is expected to table its proposed climate target for 2040 on 6 February, in what many see as the current administration's legacy for the new team that will be appointed to lead the Brussels-based executive after the June EU elections.

Japanese investigators are preparing to probe the collision of two airplanes at Tokyo's Haneda airport, weeks after the global airline industry heard fresh warnings about runway safety.

Israel killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike in Lebanon's capital Beirut on Tuesday (2 January), Lebanese and Palestinian security sources said, raising the potential risk of war in Gaza spreading well beyond the Palestinian enclave.