Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sharply criticised U.S. military intervention in the Middle East on Monday as he began a first official visit to Iraq, aimed at shoring up Tehran s influence and expanding trade ties. The visit also sends a strong message to Washington and its regional allies that, in the face of U.S. sanctions, Iran still plays a dominant role in Iraqi politics.

British Prime Minster Theresa Mays Brexit deal faces a heavy defeat in parliament on Tuesday because she has so far secured no major changes from the European Union, the leaders of two major eurosceptic factions in parliament said on Sunday. Just 19 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, Mays is scrambling - so far unsuccessfully - to secure last-minute changes to an EU exit agreement before a vote on Tuesday on whether to approve the deal.

The infant son of Shamima Begum, a teenager who left London to join the Islamic State group in Syria, has died, a spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Friday. Begum, whose first two children also died, was stripped of her British citizenship last month on security grounds after she was discovered in a detention camp in Syria.

The European Union says Brexit discussions with British officials ``have been difficult and that there has been no breakthrough ahead of a key vote in the UK parliament next week. The latest set of talks between EU negotiator Michel Barnier and his U.K. counterparts started Tuesday are aimed at finding new legal phrasing on how to deal with a border provision between the EU s Ireland and the U.K. s Northern Ireland.

Britain s relationship with the United States is more important than ever and will prosper as Britain leaves the European Union, Washington s ambassador to London Woody Johnson said on Wednesday. He added that the chances of a future trade deal between the two countries should not be damaged by false concerns over U.S. farming practices which he said had been largely driven by the European Union to create barriers to U.S. farm products.

United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Wednesday that she regretted Israel s "immediate dismissal" of a U.N. report on its security forces killing protesters in Gaza "without addressing any of the very serious issues raised". Independent U.N. investigators found last week that Israeli security forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in killing 189 Palestinians and wounding more than 6,100 at weekly protests in Gaza last year.

Police deployed Wednesday in the Algerian capital with water cannons, a day after thousands of students demonstrated against ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika s re-election bid. Although the city remained calm, security forces were bracing for further protests on Friday as demonstrators have vowed to take to the streets until the 82-year-old leader resigns.

Thousands of people protested in the Algerian capital and other cities on Tuesday demanding that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down, and the army chief warned that he would not allow a breakdown in security. The ongoing unrest poses the biggest challenge yet to the ailing Bouteflika and a ruling elite still dominated by veterans of the 1954-1962 independence war against France.

U.S. President Donald Trump looked set to open a new front in his trade wars on Monday with a plan to end preferential trade treatment for India that allows duty-free entry for up to $5.6 billion worth of its exports to the United States. India played down the impact of the move, saying it was keeping retaliatory tariffs out of its talks with the United States, but the opposition could seize on the issue to embarrass Prime Minister Narendra Mod ahead of general elections this year.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will on Monday set out plans for a 1.6 billion pound ($2.11 billion) fund to help to boost economic growth in Brexit-supporting communities with ministers denying it was a bribe to win support for her EU exit deal. The "Stronger Towns Fund", details of which appeared in newspapers last month, is seen by many as part of May s efforts to win support for her Brexit deal from opposition Labour lawmakers who represent areas, particularly in northern England that voted strongly in favour of leaving the European Union. Britain is due to leave the bloc at the end of the month and May, whose exit deal with Brussels was rejected by a large majority of lawmakers in January, has promised parliament will get to vote on a revised deal by March 12.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday officially suspended Russia s participation in a key Cold War-era arms treaty, after the US first moved to ditch the INF deal. Putin "signed a decree regarding the suspension of Russia s participation in the agreement between the USSR and the US," the Kremlin said in a statement. The move was taken following "a violation of the United States of its obligations under the treaty," it said.

The United States said on Sunday it was trying to find out if Pakistan used U.S.-built F-16 jets to down an Indian warplane, potentially in violation of U.S. agreements, as the stand-off between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors appeared to be easing. Pakistan and India both carried out aerial bombing missions this week, including a clash on Wednesday that saw an Indian pilot shot down over the disputed region of Kashmir in an incident that alarmed global powers and sparked fears of a war.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that North Korea does not have any economic future with nuclear weapons as the Pentagon confirmed the United States and South Korea had agreed to end joint large scale spring military exercises. “North Korea has an incredible, brilliant economic future if they make a deal, but they don t have any economic future if they have nuclear weapons,” Trump said at a Conservative Political Action Conference. He added that the relationship with North Korea seemed to be “very, very strong.”

More than 1,000 anti-government protesters demonstrated in and around Sudan s capital Khartoum on Thursday, witnesses said, the first rallies since President Omar al-Bashir announced new emergency powers to combat more than two months of unrest. Security forces fired tear gas at about 400 protesters at Omdurman Grand Market, in Khartoum s twin city across the Nile, witnesses said. The protesters, who are calling for an end to Bashir s 30-year-rule, chanted "Down, that s it".

Talks between President Donald Trump and North Korea s Kim Jong Un collapsed Thursday after the two sides failed to bridge a standoff over U.S. sanctions, a dispiriting end to high-stakes meetings meant to disarm a global nuclear threat. Trump blamed the breakdown on North Korea s insistence that all the punishing sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Pyongyang be lifted without the North committing to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump met in Hanoi on Wednesday for their second summit, with the U.S. president saying he was not walking back on U.S. demands for North Korea s denuclearisation. Kim and Trump shook hands and smiled briefly in front of a row of their countries flags at the Metropole hotel in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. Trump told reporters he thought the talks would be very successful, while he was “not walking back on denuclearisation".

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced on Tuesday the "yellow vest" protesters who allow themselves to get mixed up in violent demonstrations, at a time when public opinion is growing increasingly irritated with ongoing violence. "Those who join violent demonstrations are complicit with the worst," he told a meeting of legislators from eastern France.

President Hassan Rouhani held back from accepting the resignation of his foreign minister on Tuesday, standing by a leading ally in Iran s moderate faction who has been targeted by hardliners over a 2015 nuclear deal with the West. Zarif - a U.S.-educated veteran diplomat who helped craft the pact that curbed Iran s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief - gave no reason for his decision to quit when he announced it on Instagram on Monday.

Hundreds of students protested on the main campus of the University of Algiers on Tuesday against ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika s bid for a fifth term, in the latest rally against his candidacy. University guards locked the gates of the city centre campus to prevent students from spilling onto the streets of the capital, which had seen a massive anti-Bouteflika protest on Friday, AFP reporters said.

U.S. President Donald Trump says sanctions on North Korea are "on in full" ahead of his summit with leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi this week, but analysts say time is running out on Washington s "maximum pressure" campaign. Kim and Trump will meet for the second time this week after their historic meeting in Singapore last year led to general commitments to improve relations and denuclearise the Korean peninsula, but no concrete agreements. North Korea s mission to the United Nations released a memo last week warning the country is facing a food shortfall, blaming the weather as well as "barbaric and inhuman" sanctions it says have blocked much-needed farming supplies.

Britain said on Monday it would ban Hezbollah, adding the Lebanese Shi ite group in its entirety to its list of banned terrorist organisations. "Hezbollah is continuing in its attempts to destabilise the fragile situation in the Middle East – and we are no longer able to distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party," Home Secretary (interior minister) Sajid Javid said.