Challenges facing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) extend beyond pressures against its budget. Russia s military expansion outside its borders and into regions such as Crimea, Ukraine and Syria is causing the ire of NATO member states. Also raising tensions in the organisation are the anticipated repercussions of Russia s imminent withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

The European Union will grant Prime Minister Theresa May a second delay to Brexit at an emergency summit on Wednesday but leaders will debate a longer extension with conditions to prevent any future British leader jeopardising the bloc. In what was cast in London as a national humiliation, May dashed to Berlin and Paris on the eve of the summit to ask Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron to allow her to postpone a divorce that was supposed to have been Britain s liberation .

Algeria s parliament appointed on Tuesday its upper house chairman Abdelkader Bensalah as interim president following the resignation of ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika after weeks of mass demonstrations against his rule. His appointment is in keeping with Algeria s constitution but protesters, who want sweeping democratic reforms, oppose figures like Bensalah, a close associate of Bouteflika and his inner circle who dominated Algeria for decades.

Sudan s army deployed around its Khartoum headquarters Monday as thousands of protesters urging the military to join calls for leader Omar al-Bashir s resignation defied tear gas to demonstrate for a third day, witnesses said. Since protests erupted across Sudan in December agents of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and riot police have cracked down on demonstrators, but the army has not intervened.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced the departure of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, underscoring his intent to toughen immigration policy amid a surge in illegal crossings along the southern border. Nielsen s exit marks the end of a difficult relationship with her boss, who was said to be unhappy with her performance despite her unswerving loyalty and full-throated defense of the president s most controversial policies.

Sudan s army deployed around its Khartoum headquarters Monday as thousands of protesters urging the military to join calls for leader Omar al-Bashir s resignation defied tear gas to demonstrate for a third day, witnesses said. Since protests erupted across Sudan in December agents of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and riot police have cracked down on demonstrators, but the army has not intervened.

At least 2,200 people have fled from fighting south of the Libyan capital Tripoli since April 4, the United Nations humanitarian office said in a report on Monday, and many civilians were trapped and cut off from emergency services. "The fast increasing deployment of forces could potentially result in significant population displacement," the report said. It said aid agencies on the ground had enough emergency medical supplies and trauma kits to treat up to 210,000 individuals and 900 injuries for three months.

Turkey s main opposition candidate in Istanbul said on Thursday a recount of Sunday s local election votes was partially complete and the difference between him and the ruling AK party candidate remained around 20,000. Initial results from the elections showed the opposition Republican People s Party (CHP) had narrowly won control of Turkey s two biggest cities, Istanbul and Ankara, in an upset for President Tayyip Erdogan s ruling AK Party (AKP).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, just five days before parliamentary elections at home. The vote is largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has campaigned on his foreign policy prowess and relations with world leaders.

Algeria s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to a groundswell of public pressure after weeks of mass protests against his 20-year rule. The ailing, 82-year-old leader announced he was standing down in a statement carried by state news agency APS, shortly after the army chief of staff demanded immediate action to remove him from office.

Turkish electoral authorities on Wednesday began recounting votes from Istanbul districts after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan s ruling AKP challenged tallies showing an opposition candidate narrowly won a weekend local election. The AKP won most votes nationwide in Sunday s municipal ballot, but results also showed the party lost the capital Ankara and the country s economic hub Istanbul in one of its worst setbacks in a decade and a half in power.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will chair several hours of cabinet meetings on Tuesday in an attempt to plot a course out of the Brexit maelstrom as she comes under pressure to either leave the European Union without a deal or call an election. Nearly three years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a shock referendum result, British politics is in crisis and it is unclear how, when or if it will ever leave the club it first joined in 1973.

Continued reforms are needed in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in order to increase labour productivity and encourage innovation and competition, the World Bank said in a report published on Monday. The World Bank s biannual MENA Economic Update report said that the growth in the region in 2018 was led by developing oil importers such as Egypt, which accounted for 8 percent of MENA s GDP that year, with a forecast of 5.5 percent growth in 2019.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday acknowledged that the demands of anti-government protesters were "legitimate" but said they had been expressed unlawfully causing several deaths. Protests have rocked the east African country since December, with demonstrators calling on the veteran leader to step down.

British MPs will try again to chart a new Brexit path on Monday after rejecting Prime Minister Theresa May s deal for a third time, but the EU warned its patience was wearing thin. Less than two weeks before Britain risks crashing out of the European Union, MPs will hold a second round of votes on various options to try to break the political deadlock.

The Arab League (AL) issued a closing statement at the end of the proceedings of the 30th Arab Summit, which was held in the Tunisian capital on Sunday, stressing the importance of Arab cooperation to build a "stable and secure future, as a way to reinstill hope for the Arab peoples who have suffered from the debilitating impact of grave and exhausting circumstances." The Arab League reaffirmed the centrality of the question of Palestine to the Arab nation, and the Arab identity of occupied East Jerusalem, as a capital for the state of Palestine.

Brazil opened a new trade mission to Israel in Jerusalem on Sunday, appearing to edge back from earlier signals it would follow the United States by moving its full embassy to the city. The announcement came during a visit by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro - an outspoken admirer of President Donald Trump who broke global consensus by recognising Jerusalem as Israel s capital in late 2017 and moving the US embassy there last May.

The European Union says it will not recognize Israel s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, despite the U.S. policy reversal on the disputed territory. The EU Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement Wednesday that it was the "unanimous position of all 28 member states not to change their stance in line with U.N. resolutions that identify the Golan Heights as occupied territory and reject the seizure of land by force.

Britain s parliament will discuss a motion relating to Brexit on Friday, the government s leader in parliament Andrea Leadsom said on Thursday, but it was not yet clear whether this would result in a formal third vote on the government s Brexit deal. Last week, parliament s speaker, John Bercow, said another vote on the deal could only be held if it was different to the one lawmakers have already rejected.

Algeria s army chief of staff called on Tuesday for a constitutional procedure that would see President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika declared unfit for office, arguing this would meet the demands of protesters seeking an end to his 20-year rule. Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaed Salah, addressing army officers in a speech broadcast on two private Algerian TV stations, called for a unified stand to resolve the crisis, which has seen weeks of mass anti-government protests.

In 2016, President Donald Trump compared Hillary Clinton s campaign to the lumbering federal bureaucracy. Now he s building one of his own. From an office tower across the Potomac River from Washington, from the bowels of the Republican National Committee s headquarters on Capitol Hill and from field offices across the country, Trump is assembling an army of operatives to fight for victory in what stands to be a legacy-defining political battle. Even with a sea of still-unfilled desks, his 2020 campaign is already unrecognizable from the fly-by-night operation of the last effort, when Trump won the White House despite his inexperienced campaign team.