U.S. President Donald Trump caused anger in France and Britain by suggesting looser gun laws could have helped prevent deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and linking knife crime in London to a handgun ban. In a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday, Trump mimicked the shooting of victims in the Paris rampage and said if civilians had been armed “it would have been a whole different story.” The French government issued its strongest criticism of Trump since he took office and one minister urged the leader to apologise, at a time when President Emmanuel Macron has been reinforcing bilateral ties following a state visit.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has ordered the closure of 13 diplomatic missions and most of Sudan s trade offices abroad, the state news agency reported late on Wednesday, in a bid to cut government spending amid serious economic woes. Sudan has been largely cut off from international financing in the past decades by U.S. sanctions. These were lifted in October but since then Sudan has struggled to attract investors to help prop up its flagging economy.

President Donald Trump has again asked a US court to dismiss a suit accusing him of flouting constitutional safeguards against corruption by refusing to separate himself from his business empire while in office, claiming “absolute immunity.” The lawsuit, filed by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia, accused Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s “emoluments” clause that bars US officials from accepting gifts or other payments from foreign governments without congressional approval. The same clause also bars the president from receiving gifts and payments from individual states.

South Korea said on Wednesday the issue of U.S. troops stationed in the South is unrelated to any future peace treaty with North Korea and that American forces should stay even if such an agreement is signed. “U.S. troops stationed in South Korea are an issue regarding the alliance between South Korea and the United States. It has nothing to do with signing peace treaties,” said Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House, citing President Moon Jae-in.

At least nine people were killed and dozens others wounded in Central African Republic’s capital Bangui in an attack by unidentified gunmen on a church, a morgue official at the Community Hospital told Reuters. Notre Dame de Fatima was attacked with gunfire and grenades during a morning service, witnesses said. It was not clear if all the people taken to the hospital were killed in the church.

EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s allegations of a secret Iranian atomic weapons programme do "not put into question" Tehran s compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. "We need to assess the details of the statement Prime Minister Netanyahu has made," Mogherini said in a statement on Monday night after Netanyahu said he had new "proof" of an Iranian plan that could be activated at any time to get an atomic bomb.

U.S. President Donald Trump has postponed the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, the European Union and Mexico until June 1, and has reached agreements for permanent exemptions for Argentina, Australia and Brazil, the White House said on Monday. The decisions came just hours before temporary exemptions from the tariffs on these countries were set to expire at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Tuesday.

Twin blasts in the Afghan capital Kabul killed 25 people on Monday, including journalists who had arrived to report on the first explosion and who were apparently targeted by a suicide bomber in a second attack, officials said. The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee said seven journalists had been killed and French news agency Agence France-Presse confirmed that its chief photographer in Afghanistan, Shah Marai, was among the dead. A Reuters photographer was slightly wounded.

Iran s supreme leader on Monday hit out at the United States a day after new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Riyadh, accusing Washington of trying to stoke a "regional crisis" by provoking its ally Saudi Arabia to confront Tehran. In remarks broadcast on state television, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated longstanding calls for the United States to "leave" the Middle East, which he called Iran s home, and said any power seeking to challenge Iran would be defeated.

New US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo underscored the need for unity in the Gulf during a brief visit to the Saudi capital on Sunday as Washington aims to muster support among allies for new sanctions against Iran. Pompeo reassured Saudi Arabia that the United States would abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, reached under President Donald Trump s predecessor Barack Obama, unless there is an agreement in talks with European partners to improve it to make sure the Islamic Republic never possesses a nuclear weapons.

North Korea promised to close its atomic test site next month and invite US weapons experts to the country, Seoul said Sunday, as Donald Trump expressed optimism about securing a nuclear deal in his summit with the secretive regime. The reported pledge from the North s leader Kim Jong Un follows weeks of whirlwind diplomacy that saw Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agree to pursue the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula during a historic summit on Friday.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman vowed in an interview Thursday to strike at any attempt by Iran to establish a "military foothold" in Syria, following an attack this month attributed to his country. Speaking with a news website run by a Saudi businessman that regularly interviews Israeli officials, Lieberman also threatened firm retaliation if Israel was attacked by Iran.

(CNN) French President Emmanuel Macron said he believes US President Donald Trump will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal next month “for domestic reasons,” describing the US as “insane” for its constant global policy U-turns, according to reports. Macron’s remarks appeared to be a concession that he may have failed to convince Trump to stay party to the agreement during his three-day visit to Washington.

Qatar is obliged to send its troops to Syria if the country does not want to lose the military protection of the United States, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said Wednesday. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that he wants countries in the Middle East to pay for what is happening in the region, and also wants those wealthy states to put soldiers on the ground, apparently referring to the fighting in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

A chilling Facebook message posted before a van plowed onto a crowded Toronto sidewalk has raised the possibility the suspect in the attack nursed grudges against women and it is bringing back memories of a 1989 massacre of 14 women that remains one of Canada’s most traumatic acts of violence. A crowd gathered late Tuesday in Toronto’s North York community to pay their respects to the van victims at a makeshift memorial of roses, candles and messages of condolence.

The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries have agreed to set up a working group to study Russia s “malign behavior,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday. G7 foreign ministers made the agreement, which has come amid heightened tensions with Russia over Syria and Ukraine, during a two-day meeting in Canada ahead of a G7 leaders summit in June.

Russia and China are asking U.N. member states to back a draft statement expressing "unwavering support" for the Iran nuclear deal, a senior Russian diplomat said on Tuesday, in a bid to put pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump not to withdraw from it. Russia s arms control envoy Vladimir Yermakov told a U.N. non-proliferation conference in Geneva that the Iran deal, known as the JCPOA, was fragile and any attempt to amend it would affect the global non-proliferation regime.

The European signatories of Iran s nuclear deal with major powers should convince US President Donald Trump not to exit the accord as there is no "plan B" for the agreement, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Tweeted on Monday. "It is either all or nothing. European leaders should encourage Trump not just to stay in the nuclear deal, but more important to begin implementing his part of the bargain in good faith," Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.

A group of Armenian soldiers joined an illegal anti-government protest in the capital Yerevan on Monday, the Armenian Defense Ministry said, promising they would be harshly punished according to the law. Images of hundreds of men wearing military uniforms marching with protesters had earlier appeared on a live stream of the demonstrations being broadcast on the Internet.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a Fox News interview on Sunday that he has no "plan B" for the Iran nuclear deal and that the United States should stay in the agreement as long as there is no better option. Macron also said the United States, France and other allies will have a "very important" role to play in rebuilding Syria after the war is over.

Armenian opposition lawmaker and protest leader Nikol Pashinian said he would meet on Sunday with Serzh Sargsyan, the president-turned-prime minister who has been the focus of mass protests in the former Soviet country “I will meet Serzh Sargsyan to discuss the conditions of his resignation and of a peaceful transfer of power,” said Pashinian in a video published to his Facebook page. The meeting is expected to take place at the Marriott hotel in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.