
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption on Monday (March 1) and handed a three-year prison sentence after a court in Paris convicted him for trying to illegally influence a judge during his time in office.

The new administration of president Joe Biden is in “no rush” to lift U.S. sanctions on Venezuela but would consider easing them if President Nicolas Maduro takes confidence-building steps showing he is ready to negotiate seriously with the opposition, according to White House sources.

The tide is changing and willingness to get a Covid-19 vaccine is on the rise compared to last year, according to a survey of six industrialized countries published on Monday. More people in the United Kingdom, the United States and even vaccine-skeptical France now accept the idea of getting a coronavirus jab, KekstCNC, an international consultancy, said in the survey conducted in February.

A US federal judge has given final approval to Facebook's US$650 million payment to settle a privacy dispute between the California group and 1.6 million users in the US state of Illinois. The decision was issued on Friday.

Argentina’s health minister Carla Vizzotti said on Friday she had tested positive for COVID-19 and would quarantine for several days. Vizzotti, a week on the job, replaced former minister Gines Gonzalez Garcia who resigned following reports that VIPs in Argentina had jumped the line to receive vaccination shots early.

All households in England with school or college-aged children will be offered two rapid Covid-19 tests per person per week to support the government's priority to get young people back in the classroom, the health ministry said on Sunday.

Foreign workers are leaving Britain at the fastest pace since World War II, presenting a challenge to an economy already roiled by Brexit and the coronavirus. London alone has lost 700,000 people over the last year, recent research suggests.

Prince William has warned that anti-vaccination messages are rife on social media and urged those eligible to get jabs, following a similar appeal by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

A military guard of honor and Royal Air Force fly-past marked the funeral on Saturday of Captain Sir Tom Moore, the World War Two veteran who raised millions of pounds for Britain's health service during the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Moore died on February 2, after contracting Covid 19.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that the country’s state-controlled companies should fulfill a social function and any different understanding by their chief executives was unacceptable.