North Korea said on Wednesday it would permanently abolish its key missile facilities in the presence of foreign experts, in a new gesture by leader Kim Jong Un to revive faltering talks with Washington over his country s nuclear programme. After a summit in Pyongyang, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the North was also willing to close its main nuclear complex but only if the United States took unspecified reciprocal action. The pledges Kim and Moon made at their third summit this year could inject fresh momentum into the stalled nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang and lay the groundwork for another meeting Kim recently proposed to U.S. President Donald Trump.

French President Emmanuel Macron s closest security officer, fired after video showed him beating May Day protesters, defended himself before a Senate inquiry on Wednesday, saying he was neither a police officer nor a genuine bodyguard. Alexandre Benalla, whose case erupted into a political scandal and accusations of unchecked abuses of power in the presidential palace, was questioned for more than two hours about the nature of his job as Macron s security shadow.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the shooting down of a Russian military plane near Syria s seacoast was the result of a chain of tragic and chance circumstances. Russia s Defence Ministry said earlier that the aircraft was shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft systems, but accused Israel of indirectly causing the incident, saying Israeli jets nearby had put the Russian plane in the path of danger. The ministry threatened to retaliate over what it called a hostile act.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday his "historic" summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore stabilised regional security, and that he expected further progress at an inter-Korean summit aimed at reviving stalled nuclear diplomacy. Kim thanked South Korea s President Moon Jae-in for bringing about the Singapore meeting in June as the two leaders began their third round of talks in Pyongyang.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to meet Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday as international concern mounts over an expected Syrian government assault on the rebel-held province of Idlib. The leaders of the two countries that are on opposite sides of the conflict but key global allies will discuss the situation in Idlib at Putin s residence in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, the Kremlin said.

Russia s defense ministry on Monday said it was releasing fresh information to back its claim that the missile that downed a Malaysia Airlines flight over war-torn Ukraine in 2014 was fired by Kiev s forces. At a briefing, the ministry said it was releasing the BUK missile s serial number for the first time and said that it was produced and sent to Ukraine in the Soviet era and had not been returned to Russian territory.

Typhoon Mangkhut rocked Hong Kong before striking mainland China on Sunday, injuring scores and sending skyscrapers swaying, after killing at least 49 people in the Philippines and ripping a swathe of destruction through its agricultural heartland. The world’s biggest storm this year left large expanses in the north of the main Philippine island of Luzon underwater as fierce winds tore trees from the ground and rain unleashed dozens of landslides.

The leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea were in Saudi Arabia on Sunday ahead of a meeting described as the signing of a peace accord between the two East African nations. Terms of the agreement to be signed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah remain unclear.

Yemen s humanitarian situation has worsened rapidly since UN peace talks collapsed and fighting resumed in the port city of Hodeidah, where hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance, the top UN aid official in Yemen said on Thursday. "The situation has deteriorated dramatically in the past few days. Families are absolutely terrified by the bombardment, shelling and airstrikes," UN humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said in a statement.

South Sudan s President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar signed a peace agreement on Wednesday in the margins of a regional summit in Ethiopia. South Sudan plunged into warfare two years after gaining independence from Sudan in 2011 when a political dispute between Kiir and Machar exploded into military confrontation.

Government forces shelled Syria s last major rebel bastion on Wednesday, hours after UN chief Antonio Guterres warned the Security Council any full-blown offensive in Idlib risks triggering a "bloodbath". As troops massed for a Russian-backed offensive in the northwest, Kurdish-led rebels launched a US-backed assault in the east to oust the Islamic State (IS) militant group from its last redoubt in the Euphrates Valley, the US-led coalition confirmed.

About 50 Brexit-supporting lawmakers in British Prime Minister Theresa May s party have met to discuss how and when they could force her out of her job, the BBC reported on Wednesday. Since her botched bet on a snap election in June 2017 lost her party its majority in parliament, May has faced persistent talk of a leadership challenge which has weakened her as she tries to clinch a Brexit deal with the European Union.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban rejected on Tuesday European Parliament efforts to impose sanctions on Budapest over accusations of corruption, rights abuses and authoritarianism, saying he had the right to ban migrants from the country. “Hungary will not accede to this blackmailing, Hungary will protect its borders, stop illegal migration and … if needed we will stand up to you,” Orban told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where he was applauded by far-right EU lawmakers.

Police in Russia detained at least 1,018 people in nationwide protests against a proposed government pension overhaul Sunday, a Russian independent monitoring group said. Protesters gathered in cities around Russia to rally against a government proposal to raise the country s retirement age. The protests were organized by supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is under administrative arrest for organizing an unsanctioned rally in the capital in January.

The United States has decided to close the Palestinian mission in Washington in the latest move against them by President Donald Trump, a Palestinian official said Monday, denouncing it as a "dangerous escalation." "We have been notified by a US official of their decision to close the Palestinian mission to the US," Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary-general Saeb Erekat said in a statement.

Swedes began voting on Sunday morning in an election dominated by fears over asylum and welfare, with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats vying to become the biggest party in a country long seen as a bastion of economic stability and liberal values. Far-right parties have made spectacular gains throughout Europe in recent years after a refugee crisis sparked by civil war in Syria and continuing conflicts in Afghanistan and parts of Africa.

With no long-range missiles on display, North Korea staged a military parade on Sunday focused on peace and economic development, filled with colored balloons and flowers to mark the 70th anniversary of the country’s founding. A sea of spectators watched the parade as tens of thousands goose-stepping soldiers and columns of tanks drove past a review stand where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took the salute.

A former advisor to US President Donald Trump whose contacts with Russians set off the investigation into possible collusion with Moscow was jailed Friday for lying to the FBI. US District Judge Randolph Moss sentenced foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos to 14 days in prison, acknowledging his guilty plea and his remorse, but noting that he “lied in an investigation that was important to national security.”

India s top court scrapped a colonial-era ban on gay sex on Thursday in a landmark judgement that sparked celebrations across the country where gay sex had been punishable by prison for up to 10 years. Gay sex is considered taboo by many in socially conservative India, and it was reinstated as a criminal offence in 2013 after four years of decriminalisation.

When the presidents of Russia, Turkey and Iran meet Friday in Tehran, all eyes will be on their diplomacy reaching a last-minute deal to avert a bloodbath in Idlib, Syria s crowded northwestern province and last opposition stronghold. The three leaders, whose nations are all under US sanctions, have an interest in working together to contain a potentially catastrophic offensive by President Bashar Assad s forces to recapture the province, but Idlib is complicated and they have little common ground when it comes to Syria.

South Korea said its envoys met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Wednesday to prepare for a third inter-Korean summit later this month, with hopes of putting momentum back into stalled talks between the North and the United States on denuclearization. Kim and US President Donald Trump reached a broad but unspecific agreement on denuclearization at a Singapore summit in June, but those talks have stalled since Trump canceled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo s trip to North Korea last month.