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.

A Syrian rebel and a war monitor said Russian air strikes had resumed against insurgents in Syria s northwestern Idlib province on Tuesday after several weeks. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sworn to recapture every inch of Syria and has made big gains against rebels since Russia joined his war effort in 2015.

Spain has halted the sale of a shipment of bombs to Saudi Arabia amid concerns about their use in the conflict in Yemen, the Spanish Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have denounced Western arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies in a war which the United Nations says has killed more than 10,000 people and left 8.4 million on the brink of famine.

Europe is not helping preserve the agreement on Iran s nuclear programme by asking for additional negotiations on issues like missiles, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a powerful anti-Western cleric, said Tuesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. Jannati is the head of the Assembly of Experts, an influential body that can select and dismiss the supreme leader, the highest authority in Iran.

The Irish government must treat the US president’s office with the respect it deserves when Donald Trump visits in November despite disagreeing with many of his policies, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said ahead of planned protests. Trump will travel to Ireland for the first time as president during a trip to Europe to attend a Nov. 11 commemoration in Paris of the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War One, the White House said on Friday.

Two Reuters journalists accused of breaching Myanmar’s state secrets law while reporting on a massacre of Rohingya Muslims were jailed for seven years Monday, fuelling further international outrage a week after the army was accused of genocide. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, who have been held in Yangon’s Insein prison since their arrest in December, were charged with violating the Official Secrets Act, a draconian British colonial-era law which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

The US military plans to cancel $300 million in aid to Pakistan due to Islamabad s lack of "decisive actions" in support of American strategy in the region, the Pentagon said Saturday. The US has been pushing Pakistan to crack down on militant safe havens in the country, and announced a freeze on aid at the beginning of the year that an official said could be worth almost $2 billion.