Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his ratings battered by a scandal over suspected cronyism, is hoping a series of summits including one with U.S. President Donald Trump will restore his popularity ahead of a crucial ruling party leadership contest. Abe is expected to meet Trump around April 18 in Washington to discuss Trump s planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in late May. Tokyo has also not ruled out a meeting with Kim Jong Un.

Prime Minister Theresa May filed formal Brexit divorce papers on Wednesday, pitching the United Kingdom into the unknown and triggering years of uncertain negotiations that will test the cohesion of the European Union.

President Donald Trump is proposing immediate budget cuts of US$18 billion from programs like medical research, infrastructure and community grants so US taxpayers, not Mexico, can cover the down payment on the border wall. The White House documents were submitted to Congress amid negotiations over a catchall spending bill that would avert a partial government shutdown at the end of next month. The package would wrap up US$1.1 trillion in unfinished spending bills and address the Trump administration's request for an immediate US$30 billion in additional Pentagon spending.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to denuclearise and meet U.S. officials, China said on Wednesday after an historic meeting with President Xi Jinping, who promised China would uphold its friendship with its isolated neighbour. After two days of speculation, China and North Korea both confirmed that Kim had visited Beijing and met Xi during what China s Foreign Ministry called an unofficial visit to China from Sunday to Wednesday.

Tweeting from what he called “Toilet at Terminal 2,” a Kenyan opposition politician said Wednesday he was still detained in the “filthy” facilities at the country’s main airport after he refused an attempt to deport him. Authorities should be punished for disregarding a High Court order on Tuesday for the immediate release of Miguna Miguna and his court appearance Wednesday, said James Orengo, a lawyer for the politician.

Speculation that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was in Beijing for his first ever foreign trip was rife Tuesday after Japanese media reported the arrival and departure of a special train met by an honour guard. Heightened security at possible venues for a high-level meeting, motorcades driven under police escort, and a non-denial from Chinese authorities also fuelled the belief that Kim had come to pay his respects to President Xi Jinping. If confirmed, it would mark Kim s first trip abroad since coming to power in 2011 and signal an intriguing twist in a rapid diplomatic thaw that has opened the door to separate summits between Kim and the presidents of South Korea and the United States. Japan s Kyodo news agency reported the train s departure from a Beijing station but said it was not clear if Kim was aboard, a day after its arrival sparked rampant speculation about the mystery passenger s identity. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying side-stepped a request to confirm if Kim or another high-level North Korean official was visiting, saying she was "not aware" of the situation. "If we have information, we will publish it," Hua said, while adding that China was willing to work with North Korea to "continue to play a positive and constructive role in order to realise the denuclearisation of the peninsula." Some analysts had suggested China -- the North s only major ally -- had been sidelined by Pyongyang s approaches to Seoul and Washington, but a visit by Kim would put Beijing firmly back at the centre of the diplomatic scrum. Bill Bishop, publisher of the Sinocism China Newsletter, said Xi likely wanted to meet with Kim before a summit with US President Donald Trump, which could take place in May. "They re concerned about being left out, with the North Koreans directly cutting a deal with the Americans that doesn t necessarily reflect Chinese interests," Bishop told AFP. At the Diaoyutai guest house, where Kim s late father Kim Jong Il stayed during his visits to Beijing, there was an unusually heavy police presence with officers stationed every 50-100 metres in front of the imposing compound. An AFP photographer saw a motorcade of limousines leave the guest house under a police escort on Tuesday morning. There was also heightened security at two possible venues for a high-level meeting -- the Great Hall of the People and Zhongnanhai, the central leadership compound next to Beijing s Forbidden City. South Korean media speculated that the visitor might also have been Kim s sister Kim Yo Jong, or the country s ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam. The mystery began after Japanese broadcaster Nippon TV showed footage of a train -- similar to that used for foreign visits by Kim Jong Il -- pulling in to Beijing Station and being met by a military honour guard and a convoy of black limousines. China s Weibo micro-blog was censoring searches for Kim Jong Un s name and variations on it Tuesday. Beijing often tightens news controls during sensitive political periods. South Korean broadcaster SBS TV said that guests at a hotel in the border city of Dandong, overlooking the train link from China to North Korea, had been asked to leave and curtains were drawn across the hotel windows. Kim Jong Il, who was known to be fearful of flying, visited China several times on his private, armoured train. His visits were confirmed by Chinese and North Korean state media only after he had left the country. The younger Kim has not undertaken any official trip abroad since taking power following his father s death in 2011. And he has yet to host a single head of state, having snubbed the president of Mongolia who visited Pyongyang in 2013. In Washington, the White House said it was unable to confirm Kim s presence in Pyongyang and the government in Seoul said only that it was closely monitoring the situation. For decades Beijing has been Pyongyang s key diplomatic protector and main source of trade and aid, but their relationship has soured in recent years. Kim broke with tradition by not travelling to Beijing to pay his respects to Xi after the Chinese leader came to power, and Beijing has become increasingly frustrated with its neighbour s nuclear weapon programme -- showing a new willingness to agree to, and enforce, tougher UN sanctions. At the same time, Beijing fears the collapse of the regime in Pyongyang and the instability it would bring, potentially sending waves of refugees into China and the possibility of US troops stationed on its border in a unified Korea. High-level inter-Korean talks are scheduled for Thursday to pave the way for a summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in late April. Discussions have also begun on a possible summit with Trump in May.

A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower said on Tuesday that Canadian company AggregateIQ worked on software called Ripon which was used to identify Republican voters ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. AggregateIQ did not immediately respond to request for comment on the remarks by Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower formerly of British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

The Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats on Monday and ordered Russia s consulate in Seattle to close, as the United States and European nations sought to jointly punish Moscow for its alleged role in poisoning an ex-spy in Britain. Senior Trump administration officials said all 60 Russians were spies working in the U.S. under diplomatic cover, including a dozen at Russia s mission to the United Nations. The officials said the administration was taking the action to send a message to Russia s leaders about the "unacceptably high" number of Russian intelligence operatives in the U.S

Aid experts say the number of Congolese in need of aid, including food, has doubled over the past year. President Joseph Kabila has refused to leave office despite an election mandate that expired at the end of 2016. A humanitarian is crisis rapidly worsening on several fronts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a top European Union aid official warned Sunday.

Weeping Syrians boarded buses out of a ravaged pocket of Eastern Ghouta on Sunday, in a new wave of evacuations to clear another part of the former rebel bastion. Five weeks since the Syrian regime launched an all-out assault on Ghouta, it holds more than 90 percent of the onetime opposition stronghold on the edge of Damascus.

China s air force has held another round of drills in the disputed South China Sea and the Western Pacific after passing though Japan s southern islands, the air force said on Sunday, calling such exercises the best preparation for war. China is in the midst of an ambitious military modernisation programme overseen by President Xi Jinping with a heavy focus on its air force and navy, from building stealth fighters to adding aircraft carriers.

Tens of thousands of Americans gathered across the country on Saturday at March For Our Lives rallies to demand tighter gun laws, led by survivors of last month s Florida school massacre which reignited public anger over mass shootings. Students from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were killed on Feb. 14 were set to speak at the biggest event, in Washington, where organizers said as many as 500,000 people were expected to demonstrate near the Capitol and call on Congress to fight gun violence.

Police scuffled with protesters in Paris and fired teargas and water cannon in the western city of Nantes as strikes broke out across France on Thursday in a challenge to President Emmanuel Macron s economic reforms. Train conductors, teachers and air traffic controllers walked out to join more than 150 mostly peaceful marches in cities and towns - the first time public sector workers have joined rail staff in protests since Macron came to office in May.

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday warned EU leaders that Russia posed a threat to the whole bloc as she sought united backing against Moscow after the poisoning of an ex-spy in England. May told her colleagues at a Brussels summit the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury using a deadly Soviet-developed nerve agent showed the Russian threat "doesn t respect borders".

An Arab Summit in Riyadh where states will seek to prevent Israel from gaining a rotating seat on the UN Security Council will take place on April 15, the Arab League chief said in a statement on Tuesday. The summit was postponed from March because the original date clashed with Egypt s upcoming presidential election, the Arab League said last month.

Declared this month by supporters as Burundi s “eternal supreme guide,” President Pierre Nkurunziza now wants changes to the constitution that would let him rule until 2034. The referendum in May could spark further deadly violence in the African nation that the UN human rights chief has called one of “the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.” Nkurunziza is just the latest African leader to seek the dismantling of term limits to stay in power. Critics call his latest move a bid to be president for life.

The United States warned its NATO ally Turkey on Monday that it is "deeply concerned"after a Turkish-led assault on the Syrian city of Afrin triggered an exodus of Kurdish civilians. Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Syrian Arab fighters have over the past 48 hours surged into the city in northwest Syria, once defended by the Kurdish People s Protection Units (YPG) militia.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is facing his biggest political crisis since taking office more than five years ago, as suspicions swirl about a land sale to a school operator with ties to his wife. Abe has denied that he or his wife, Akie, intervened in the heavily discounted sale of state-owned land to the school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, or that he sought to alter documents related to the deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin basked in a landslide re-election victory on Monday, extending his rule over the world s largest country for another six years at a time when his ties with the West are on a hostile trajectory. Putin s victory will take his political dominance of Russia to nearly a quarter of a century until 2024, the longest rule since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, by which time Putin will be 71. He has promised to use his new term to beef up Russia s defences against the West and to raise living standards.

A Spanish aid group says Italy has seized one of its migrant rescue boats because it refused to cave in to death threats by the Libya coast guard and hand over the migrants. Proactiva Open Arms on Monday confirmed reports that the rescue vessel Open Arms was sequestered Sunday in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo and that Italian authorities are investigating the group for suspected criminal association and aiding illegal immigration.

Russians voted Sunday in an election set to hand President Vladimir Putin a fourth Kremlin term, as the country is embroiled in a crisis with Britain and its allies over a spy poisoning. With the vast country stretching across 11 time zones, polls opened in the Russian far east at 2000 GMT on Saturday and will close in Kaliningrad, the country s exclave on the EU border, at 1800 GMT on Sunday.