The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors.

While some cities would launch fireworks over empty streets, others, such as London and Singapore, called off their displays. Paris, Rome and Istanbul were under curfew.

The suit argues that Pence has the constitutional authority to ignore votes cast for Biden in states where Republicans have tried to cast doubt on the results.

The separation at midnight on January 1, 2021, ends a five-decade partnership and turns the page on Brexit.

Police said the ex-pharmacist was arrested on suspicion of reckless endangerment, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property.

The WHO's review found that the vaccine met the must-have criteria for safety and efficacy and that the benefits of using the vaccine offset potential risks.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane told Reuters the Australian Church was not aware of any such transfers.

One medical centre's example shows how how quickly simple mathematical tools can become scapegoats for people's decision-making flaws.

Prosecutors succeeded in asking the city's highest court to send Jimmy Lai back to detention.

Ten people remain missing after a landslide in southern Norway, with rescuers deploying drones and dogs to negotiate unstable clay soil.

China's foreign minister wants improved relations. He should be taken seriously but sceptically.

Department spokesman John Elder said the incident happened about 6.15pm while officers were carrying out a traffic stop with a man suspected of a felony.

China, which claims democratically run Taiwan as its own territory, has been angered by stepped-up US support for the island nation.

Yemen's internationally recognised government said Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired four ballistic missiles at the airport.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors.

Jonathan Pollard, one of the most prolific spies in US history, was greeted by Netanyahu holding Israeli ID cards.

The officials spoke as two B-52 bombers carried out a round-trip, 30-hour mission from North Dakota to the Middle East.

The Mexican president guided viewers through direct comparisons between himself and some of the other heads of government in a global survey.

The landslide struck a residential area in the municipality of Gjerdrum, about 30 kilometres north of the capital Oslo.

Critics of the deal argue that Europe is knitting itself closer to an increasingly authoritarian China at a time when Beijing has shown little inclination to follow rules.

Lockdown measures in England will be extended but the government has resisted calls to close schools, despite a mutated version of COVID-19 spreading out of control across the country.

Striking a note of reconciliation, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi told former prime minister Kevin Rudd that "there are better chances we can find solutions".

Boris Johnson's Brexit deal has passed the House of Commons, bringing to an end four years of political deadlock that cost his predecessor, Theresa May, her job.

European Union officials and Chinese President Xi Jinping have concluded a business investment deal that has the potential to irk the new US administration.

The return of the group's spiritual leader Rizieq Shihab from Saudi Arabia had fuelled concern within Indonesia's government that he could harness opposition.

Legalisation was a striking rebuke of Pope Francis, who on the eve of the vote had praised a women's group for its activism against abortion.

Britain on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve the vaccine developed by Oxford University as it battles a highly contagious virus strain.

Wang Yi has called for future relations to be improved, saying a confrontation between the US and China would "spell disaster" for "humanity as a whole".

The best photos from the international wire services as chosen by our picture editors.

The deal was sealed after China committed to ratifying the United Nations' rules on forced labour, but some European Parliament MPs have doubts.

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal illness similar to mad cow disease and cases have been reported in deer and elk in at least 24 American states.

Labour opposition, which formally backed Remain during the referendum, is split with several high-profile MPs set to defy Leader Keir Starmer's order to back the deal.

The President-elect said “it’s going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people” at the current pace. 

“They are trying to put me behind bars for failing to die," tweeted the opposition leader who was poisoned in Russia in August.

Judge warned in 2017, “political corruption will slowly corrode the foundations of our democracy until it collapses under its own weight”.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck a town in Croatia on Tuesday, with the emergency services saying many people had been injured.

Britain is struggling to roll out vaccines before the National Health Service is overwhelmed, with paramedics reporting queues of ambulances outside hospitals.

McConnell's move was just the beginning of a saga that is likely to engulf the Senate for the rest of the week.

Ireland began its COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Tuesday by giving a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to a 79-year-old woman at a hospital in Dublin, the health service said, as coronavirus cases surge in the country.

French couturier Pierre Cardin, who made his name by selling designer clothes to the masses, and his fortune by being the first to exploit that name as a brand for selling everything from cars to perfume, died on Tuesday, aged 98.

In terms of national mythmaking, Soviet achievements in the space race are outmatched only by the victory over the Nazis.

She and her husband Mossimo Giannulli were sent to prison for paying $US500,000 in bribes to get their daughters accepted into university as athletic recruits.

Russia has reported 20.5 per cent more deaths during the pandemic compared with last year, according to the state statistics service.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors.

They arrive with broken limbs, open wounds and tales of atrocities, bearing photos of families killed or lost. One doctor-turned-refugee tends them all.

The main target is the Secretariat of State, the most important part of the Vatican administration, which must relinquish management of its funds.

President-elect Joe Biden slammed the Trump administration for withholding information on key national security areas.

Lin Qi had been suffering from "acute symptoms of illness" and initially said he was in a stable condition and improving before his death was announced.

It was a friendly chat. But Anthony Quinn Warner's answer to the question 'Is Santa going to bring you anything good for Christmas?' hinted at his plans.

"We thought it best to take a little village route to evade capture," said a leading Brexiteer after Switzerland imposed a retrospective isolation order.