Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny appeared in court on Monday after he and more than 1,000 other people were arrested at an anti-corruption protest in Moscow. The United States and the European Union voiced deep concern about the detentions, with the State Department describing them as an "affront to democracy".

China and the countries surrounding the South China Sea should set up a cooperation mechanism to boost exchanges in efforts ranging from disaster relief to safety of navigation, a senior diplomat said in comments reported on Monday.

It is "extremely likely" that French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been the subject of wiretapping in the course of a judicial investigation, a campaign aide said on Sunday, in the latest accusations to be made by the Fillon camp against the authorities.

Leaders of the European Union met in Rome on Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty and demonstrate that the EU can survive the impending departure of major power Britain.

French anti-terrorism judges have charged two men suspected of involvement in supplying a weapon to the gunman killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking soldiers, a judicial source said Saturday.

British MPs were preparing to return to parliament on Thursday after a lightning attack attributed by police to "Islamist-related terrorism", which saw four people killed and 40 wounded. The attack unfolded on Wednesday across Westminster Bridge in the shadow of Big Ben, a towering landmark that draws tourists by the millions and stands over Britain's Houses of Parliament -- the very image of London.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has directed US diplomatic missions to identify "populations warranting increased scrutiny" and toughen screening for visa applicants in those groups, according to diplomatic cables seen by Reuters.

The United States and Britain on Tuesday banned larger electronic devices from the passenger cabin on flights from some airports in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa. American officials warned that extremists are seeking "innovative" ways to attack airliners with smaller explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics bigger than smartphones.

The Scottish parliament was expected to vote for a second independence referendum on Wednesday -- amid dire warnings about the damage that ongoing constitutional wrangling was having on Scotland's economy.

China and the European Union curtailed meat imports from Brazil on Monday after police, in an anti-corruption probe criticized by the government as alarmist, accused inspectors in the world's biggest exporter of beef and poultry of taking bribes to allow sales of rotten and salmonella-tainted meats.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will skip a NATO meeting in April but travel to Russia the same month, officials said Tuesday, fuelling fears about Washington's commitment to the alliance. Tillerson will be replaced by his deputy at the Brussels meeting on April 5 and 6, despite Washington's efforts to quash questions about US President Donald Trump's support for NATO and quest for better ties with Moscow.

Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Wales on Monday as part of a plan to engage with all the nations of the United Kingdom before she formally launches Britain's departure from the European Union.

President Michel Temer, confronting a corruption scandal tarnishing Brazil's lucrative meat industry, met on Sunday with executives and foreign diplomats to assuage health concerns tarnishing a sector responsible for US$12 billion in annual exports.

US President Donald Trump claimed that German news agency reporter Kristina Dunz was interested in "fake news" when she asked him about isolationist policies. In her report, Dunz later wrote, "It is no longer a custom in the White House that hard, uncomfortable questions receive factual answers."

Turkey on Sunday accused Germany of supporting the network of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric it blames for last year's attempted coup, comments likely to aggravate a diplomatic feud between Ankara and Berlin. On Saturday, German news magazine Der Spiegel published an interview with the head of the BND foreign intelligence agency, who said Ankara had failed to convince it that the cleric Fethullah Gulen was responsible for the coup attempt.

Turkey has never been less likely to join the European Union than now and the bloc should seek a special relationship with Britain, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said as relations between Ankara and Berlin hit a low point.

A heavily armed pupil injured his head teacher and two other people during a shooting at a French high school on Thursday, rattling nerves in a country repeatedly the target of Islamist militant attacks, police and officials said.

A UN agency report published on Wednesday accused Israel of establishing an "apartheid regime" targeting Palestinians, prompting outrage from Washington and its closest ally in the region. "The evidence supports beyond a reasonable doubt the proposition that Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity," the report said, citing international law for the finding.

The day before it is supposed to go into effect President Donald Trump's revised travel ban will be scrutinized in federal courtrooms across the country on Wednesday.

The Dutch tested their own tolerance for immigration and Islam on Wednesday in an election magnified by a furious row with Turkey, the first of three polls in the European Union this year where nationalist parties are seeking breakthroughs. The center-right VVD party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, 50, is vying with the PVV (Party for Freedom) of anti-Islam and anti-EU firebrand Geert Wilders, 53, to form the biggest party in parliament.

Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday she would be given the power to start Brexit talks within days but declined to name a date for a process already disrupted by Scotland's independence bid.