WORLD

Congolese authorities and health workers vaccinated more than 200,000 people against Ebola in August, the government said on Sunday, using a Merck vaccine they hope will help rein in the world’s second worst epidemic. Figures released by the government’s Ebola committee showed that 204,044 people had been inoculated since August …

A Hong Kong police officer fired a gunshot during protests on Sunday, the first time a live round has been used since demonstrations broke out in June. Images show several other officers also pointed guns at protesters who were chasing them with sticks. In another first, police deployed water cannon …

Brazil’s president has ordered the armed forces to fight record forest fires in the Amazon, amid international outrage over rising deforestation. President Jair Bolsonaro deployed soldiers in nature reserves, indigenous lands, and border areas beset by fires. The move is an apparent reversal from Mr Bolsonaro, who has been accused …

International concern over fires in the Amazon mounted on Thursday, with the UN and French President Emmanuel Macron calling for action as Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research reported nearly 2,500 new fires in the past 48 hours. Amid global concern about raging fires in the Amazon, Brazil’s government complained …

  Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says she is “annoyed” at Donald Trump’s decision to cancel his visit after being told Greenland was not for sale. “Our preparations were well under way,” she said, adding she had been looking forward to meeting the US president. Ms Frederiksen reiterated that the …

The government is launching a review of high-speed rail link HS2 – with a “go or no-go” decision by the end of the year, the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said. It will consider whether and how the project to connect London, the Midlands and northern England should proceed. Billions …

– Every 14th wedding celebrated in Germany between October 2017 and December 2018 was for same-sex couples, according to figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Destatis data sent to Xinhua showed that a total of 449,466 marriages were contracted in Germany during this period, of which 16,766 were between …

Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of sexual abuse, has failed in a legal bid to quash his convictions in Australia. Pell was jailed for six years in March after being found guilty of abusing two boys in a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s. He …

The Tory party has “failed” the UK and a general election is the “change of direction the country needs”, Jeremy Corbyn has said. The Labour leader said the UK is facing a Brexit “crisis” and vowed to do “everything necessary” to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal. …

A Syrian government air strike aiming to stop a Turkish convoy reaching a rebel-held town in northern Syria has killed three civilians, Turkey alleges. Another 12 people were injured in the attack in Idlib province on Monday, the Turkish defence ministry said. Idlib, one of the few areas not under …