Thieves snatched priceless treasures belonging to the Swedish crown jewels on Tuesday night in a daring raid on a cathedral, before fleeing and escaping by motorboat.

Their haul included two royal crowns of King Karl IX and Queen Kristina, as well as an orb.

Police said there had not yet been any arrests following the theft from Strängnäs Cathedral in southeastern Sweden, where the items were on public display.

A witness told Aftonbladet, a Swedish evening newspaper: "One of my friends saw two people running. I saw the boat just there, a white little boat, with a motor on the back.

"The two men hurriedly jumped on board. We contacted the police and they told us they had taken something from the Cathedral."

The police hunt included helicopters and motorboats, according to Thomas Agnevik, a spokesman for the police, who said the lost jewels were priceless.

“It’s 1-0 to them right now,” he told Aftonbladet.

“I have talked to someone at the county administrative board that says it is not possible to put an economic value on them – these are invaluable objects of national interest.”

Christofer Lundgren, dean of the cathedral, said: “This is part of the national cultural heritage – this is a theft from Swedish society.”

The stolen items date to the reign of Karl IX – youngest son of King Gustav I – who was king from 1604 until 1611.

His wife Queen Kristina became Queen Regent on his death in October 1611.

But her reign was short-lived. She held the throne for just two before her son reached the legal age to take over and become King Gustav II Adolf.

Georgia has accused Moscow of building up its forces and holding “unprecedented” war games in disputed territories as Russia warned of a "terrible conflict" if Nato allows the former Soviet republic to join. 

The sabre-rattling came on the 10th anniversary of the Russian invasion, which deprived Georgia of one-fifth of its territory.

The foreign affairs ministry in Tbilisi said Russia was conducting large-scale military drills involving thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 

It called the operations an “unprecedented attempt by Russia to demonstrate its military power” and threaten Georgia, a tiny Caucasian country sandwiched between Russia and Turkey on the Black Sea.

In the decade since the conflict, Moscow has failed to implement the ceasefire agreement brokered by the EU and “has further reinforced its illegal military presence on the ground”, it said. 

The five-day war began when Georgia shelled separatists in South Ossetia, giving Russian forces a pretext to pour over the border and cement control of the two breakaway regions, which seceded in the 1990s. 

Allies including the United States refrained from intervening. Only Russia and a handful of countries recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. 

“We shouldn’t be afraid to call things by their names. What Russia did and is doing against a sovereign government is a war between Russia Georgia, it’s aggression, it’s an occupation and it’s a violation of all international norms,” president Giorgi Margvelashvili told ministers from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine at a meeting in the capital Tbilisi.

“The aggressor’s appetite has only increased after the invasion,” he said.

Tensions have been running high in the region as the Western alliance holds its own competing war games in Georgia. Some 1,300 Georgian soldiers, 1,170 from the United States and several hundred from Britain and other Nato members are taking part in the two weeks of exercise. 

Nato has promised that Georgia will one day be able to join the alliance, the expansion of which has been a constant bone of contention with Vladimir Putin. 

Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev, who was president when Russia launched its 2008 operation, on Monday called the reaffirmation of this pledge at last month’s Nato summit an “absolutely irresponsible position” and a “threat to peace”. 

“There’s an unregulated territorial conflict no matter which position you take. And they’re going to admit such a country, such a government, into a military bloc?” Mr Medvedev said. “This could provoke a terrible conflict.” 

His comments echoed those of Mr Putin, who last month said Russia would “respond appropriately” to the “direct threat” of any new Nato military infrastructure near its borders.

He warned that Nato should think about the “possible consequences” of accepting Ukraine or Georgia into the alliance.

Russia’s angry rhetoric has prompted statements of support from Georgia’s allies in the West. 

Alan Duncan, the British foreign office minister, said in a video address it was a “tragedy that Georgia remains divided” and called on Russia to withdraw its forces from the country’s territory.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a call to Mr Margvelashvili that the United States supports Georgia’s attempts at a peaceful resolution of the conflict. 

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said the EU was “unwavering in our support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Mikheil Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia during the 2008 war, told independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Tuesday that “Putin didn’t achieve two-thirds of his goals in Georgia” after the conflict. 

“Georgia is continuing to slowly move toward Euro-Atlantic integration,” he said. 

A South Korean woman who was meant to be sleeping in a coffin as part of a spiritual ritual intended to bring her good fortune was found dead after suffocating in the sealed casket.

The woman, who has not been identified but was reportedly in her 40s, was taking part in a theraputic ceremony of what police described as a ‘pseudo religion’.

The ritual took place overnight and required three women to sleep in wooden coffins, under the belief that spending the night enclosed in the boxes would rid them of bad spirits and ensure they had better luck in the future.

The women got into the coffins at around 8pm on Thursday, in an apartment in the the city of Gumi, in the central region of South Korea, local police told the Yonhap news agency.

The two survivors told police that the woman who died tried to get out of her coffin after about two hours, complaining that she could not breathe and that it was too hot. She was convinced to carry on with the rite by her friends, who told her to endure the discomfort.

At around 6.30am the following morning, one of the other women woke and lifted the lids of the coffins to find one of her friends sleeping soundly but the other woman dead.

A police officer investigating the case told The Korea Times that the coffin was airtight and that the woman had apparently not noticed before she suffocated.

Investigators also said the women were members of a “pseudo religion”, one of a remarkable number of such cults that have popped up in South Korea in recent years promising to solve all sorts of personal, spiritual or financial problems through unconventional forms of worship.

Police said that an autopsy would be carried out but the results have not yet been released. An official said that the extreme heat affecting the entire Korean Peninsula in recent weeks – daytime temperatures have been hovering around 40C and nights only a few degrees cooler – may have contributed to the woman’s death.

Donald Trump on Tuesday urged tough action against the "animals" behind the suspected terror attack in Westminster.

The US president said on Tuesday morning in a tweet: "Another terrorist attack in London…These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength!"

A driver was arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after a car crashed into security barriers outside the Houses of Parliament at high speed on Tuesday morning.

At least three people were injured when the silver Ford Fiesta hit a group of cyclists and pedestrians waiting for traffic lights to change. Witnesses said the car mounted the pavement on the wrong side of the road at up to 50mph and travelled around 40 metres (130ft) before hitting a bollard.

Armed officers swooped in to arrest the driver, removing him from the vehicle at gunpoint.

Later images showed police holding the man, dressed in jeans and a black puffer jacket, in handcuffs as roads and Underground stations around parliament were sealed off.

"The driver of the car, a man in his late 20s… was arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences," said police.

"There was nobody else in the vehicle, which remains at the scene and is being searched. No weapons have been recovered at this stage."

Police have yet to identify the suspect, who was not cooperating with detectives, said Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu.

Mr Trump’s comments follow controversial remarks in the past surrounding terrorism and crime in London.

In July Mr Trump used a newspaper interview ahead of his visit to the UK to blame Sidiq Khan, the mayor of London, for terror attacks in the capital.

"Take a look at the terrorism that is taking place. Look at what is going on in London. I think he has done a very bad job on terrorism," he said.

Following the release of official figures in October last year, showing an increase in recorded crime, Mr Trump controversially linked the rise with the "spread of radical Islamic terror".

His interpretation of the statistics, which included offences ranging from burglary to fraud, prompted politicians to describe his comments as "inflammatory" and "ignorant".

French fisherman threatened to reignite a simmering “scallop war” after surrounding rival British boats and pelting them with stones in a row exacerbated by Brexit negotiations.

British fishermen have called on the Government to intervene, with some asking for Navy protection after UK boats were trapped by an armada of French fisherman furious at them stripping scallop beds before they are authorised to do so.

Rocks, smoke bombs and other projectiles were hurled at English and Scottish vessels during the confrontation in the early hours of Tuesday.

Dramatic footage showed boats colliding as an object was thrown toward them.

Some of the British vessels are said to have later returned to UK harbours…

An anaesthetist gassed his wife and daughter to death using a yoga ball filled with carbon monoxide, a Hong Kong court has heard.

Prosecutors told the High Court that Khaw Kim-sun left the inflatable ball in the boot of a car where the gas leaked out and killed them, according to reports from court Wednesday.

His wife and 16-year-old daughter were found on a roadside in a locked yellow Mini Cooper in 2015, in a case which initially baffled police.

The pair were certified dead at the same hospital where Khaw worked and a post-mortem concluded they had died from inhaling carbon monoxide.

Police found a deflated yoga ball in the back of the car.

Khaw cried Thursday as the pathologist who examined the bodies was called to testify and began to give details about the autopsy he carried out on his daughter, according to an AFP reporter in court.

Khaw has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder.

Prosecutors had said Wednesday that Khaw, a 53-year-old Malaysian national, was having an affair with a student and his wife would not grant him a divorce.

They accused him of hatching a deliberate plot to murder his wife, the South China Morning Post reported.

Prosecutors said it was likely that Khaw had not intended to kill his daughter.

The court heard that in a police interview, Khaw had said he had urged his younger daughter to stay at home and finish her homework on the day of the deaths, according to Apple Daily.

Khaw had been seen filling two balls with carbon monoxide at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he was an associate professor, reports said.

He told colleagues he planned to use the gas on rabbits but later told police that he had taken it to get rid of rats at home.

The family’s domestic helper Siti Maesaroh told the court Thursday that the couple’s three other children had gone to school on the day of the deaths, but Lily was having a holiday.

She said the children had a good relationship with their parents.

Siti added that Khaw and his wife had separate bedrooms and cooked their meals separately, but said she did not know anything about their relationship.

The couple’s eldest daughter is due to testify Friday.

India’s big gamble to ban its largest denomination notes failed to flush out stockpiled cash and hurt the economy, according to data from the country’s central bank.

The widely used Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were withdrawn from circulation in a shock announcement in August 2016, leaving the public only a couple of months to bank their cash before it became obsolete – resulting in riots as queues snaked around bank branches, leaving nearly 100 people dead.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) yesterday said that 99.3 per cent of the discontinued notes had returned to the banking system, rather than being spent in the wider economy as hoped by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has repeatedly defended the scheme.

The thinking behind the hugely controversial policy was to counter the culture of hoarding cash – especially in the locked, steel almaris (wardrobes) that are ubiquitous in Indian households – by forcing people to either spend it or put it into banks, where it could be taxed.

The plan was also intended to flush out “black money”, cash earned illegally, by making its owners either bank it or destroy it, claimed the Finance Ministry.

The replacement notes – a new Rs 500 and a Rs 2,000 note – were also aimed at battling forgery and reducing bribery, as well as promoting a digital economy, Mr Modi claimed.

But the result was chaos. For several months in 2017 there were cash shortages, with daily withdrawal amounts being reduced and tales of senior business executives having to borrow cash from their domestic staff as they had no access to any themselves.

Not as much cash was hoarded as believed, and what was kept at home was largely put back into savings accounts, according to RBI figures.

And while Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed that the policy had overall been a success, economists said the programme had cost the country 1 per cent of GDP and around 1.5 million jobs.  Today the rupee sits at an all-time low against the dollar.

Professor Mohan Guruswamy, of the Administrative Staff College of India, said: “The amount of black money is very little as cash; most of it is held abroad in the form of gold, property and other instruments. Even today, we’re still a cash economy so you need cash to pay daily.”