Releasing a Sino-Russian joint statement as the opening ceremony began made it clear the Winter Games would be the backdrop for a Cold War superpower summit.

More than 60 women employed at the embassy, one of Australia’s largest foreign missions, have lodged complaints with Royal Thai Police.

To mark her Platinum Jubilee, the Queen was filmed looking at gifts from loyal subjects over the decades, but Candy the dorgi wanted her attention.

The day after the Chancellor rebuked Johnson, two more MPs called for him to resign, three more criticised his conduct and another ‘Partygate’ photo emerged.

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

The party’s national committee said the two Republicans on the House committee probing last year’s riot were helping to persecute ordinary citizens.

The Wall Street Journal said the hack dated back as far as February 2020, and that reporters’ emails and Google documents had been exposed.

Australia’s nuclear submarine treaty is criticised as Putin and Xi release joint statement saying there are “no forbidden areas of cooperation” between them.

The country where the coronavirus outbreak emerged two years ago has launched a locked-down Winter Olympics.

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

Beijing’s opening ceremony, which starts at 11pm tonight, gives President Xi Jinping his best chance to use the Games to burnish his country’s image.

Decades collide as friends gather, lurid-coloured cocktails in hand, in a COVID-safe plastic dome at the hotel forever linked with the downfall of a president.

With mounting resignations, loss of support from his MPs and a police investigation into ‘partygate’, the UK Prime Minister has called on Australian strategists in a desperate attempt to save his leadership.

Police will soon be able to check vaccination status at traffic stops in the first Western democracy to make the jabs compulsory for almost all adults.

A sleepless night across Syria’s northern Idlib province on Thursday brought alarming sounds, deadly violence and a barrage of breathless rumours.

Johnson’s premiership is facing a growing crisis in the wake of anger over a series of alcohol-fuelled parties held at his Downing Street office and residence during coronavirus lockdowns.

Rescuers said on Friday they have managed to get down oxygen and water to him, and got a response from him. 

The Biden administration is making a concerted effort to publicise the intelligence in the hopes that it dissuades Russia from moving forward with an invasion of Ukraine.

The 45-year-old Iraqi had been an important leader in Islamic State’s precursor, the Islamic State of Iraq - an offshoot of al Qaeda.

The global leader of the Islamic State network has died, along with his wife and children, during a counterterrorism raid by US forces in north-western Syria.

The so-called “living drug” treatment can attack cancer immediately, then stay inside the body for years and evolve there to keep the disease at bay.

American scientists said it was premature of the Australian National Maritime Museum to announce the Endeavour was found, and called it “a breach of contract”.

The police sting on the alleged drug dealers bore a striking resemblance to the kind depicted on The Wire, where Williams gained fame playing the bandit Omar Little.

Tourists from Australia cannot enter until July, and travellers from the rest of the world will be kept out for another eight months, until October.

The best photos from around the world

From Tuesday, even if you test positive, there is no requirement to self-isolate.

Local outlets reported that the blockade is aligned with the Freedom Convoy, whose protests in Ottawa over the weekend sparked “several criminal investigations”.

Police are investigating 12 different gatherings at the heart of the British state for breaches of the government’s own COVID-19 public health laws following an internal inquiry.

The US has approved the deployment of 3000 additional troops across eastern Europe to shore up its NATO allies amid the threat of Russian aggression.

A dengue fever surge has left 20 children dead in a month just as Omicron has made its way into the community.

Australia’s largest warship will bring back COVID samples from Tonga in an attempt to find the origins of the Pacific nation’s first virus outbreak.

No matter the politics, nor the COVID, the first thing that strikes you about the Beijing Olympics is the warmth of the volunteers and staff.

It can be used folded up when eating just to cover the nose, and unfolded to cover both the nose and the mouth after eating. And it’s gone viral online.

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

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

In an extraordinary move, US health authorities have urged Pfizer to apply earlier than it had planned.

Even as the former US president flirts with a 2024 election bid, he faces a widening civil investigation into his business and his role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

A closer look at developments suggests that far from drawing a line under the “partygate” saga, the report will bring a period of deep uncertainty and political danger.

Megaflashes snake through regions of high electric field and can travel for hundreds of kilometres while lasting more than 10 seconds.

Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, and Western countries say they fear Putin may be planning to invade.

A pregnant New Zealand journalist who was stranded in Afghanistan by her home country’s COVID-19 border policy said on Tuesday that she will return home after her government offered her a pathway back.

Many US hospitals have refused to transplant organs in unvaccinated patients due to high mortality rates among those who contract COVID-19.

It runs to just 12 pages, but the long-awaited report into the COVID lockdown scandal engulfing Boris Johnson’s government makes explosive reading.

The British PM will turn to his longtime ally, Lynton Crosby, to help save his leadership in the wake of the ‘Partygate’ scandal.

Researchers have unveiled the world’s largest forest database, showing that 2000 more species of tree are to be discovered across Australia and Oceania alone.

On this day in 1952, news broke that King George VI had died, and his elder daughter Princess Elizabeth would be proclaimed the new Queen and Head of the Commonwealth. We revisit the Herald's coverage of that momentous day.

When librarians discovered The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis in the children’s section, they put a bar code on it. Now everyone wants to read it.

The brief clip posted on China’s version of TikTok raised many questions, and social media users demanded answers. Who was she? Why was she locked up?

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

Negotiators have agreed to return to the 2015 deal, but the decision must be signed off by Biden and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.