Factbox: Party time – Groups in EU parliament
National parties in the newly elected European Parliament line up in pan-EU groups. These are in some flux following the vote, especially on the eurosceptic right, but in the outgoing legislature the eight groups were:
China appoints its envoy on North Korea its ambassador to Japan
China has appointed its special envoy for North Korea, Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou, its ambassador to Japan, Chinese state media said on Tuesday.
Leader of Germany’s battered leftists faces calls to quit parliament post
The leader of Germany’s Social Democrats, Andrea Nahles, will face calls to resign as its parliamentary chief at a crisis meeting on Wednesday after the party’s double election defeat, three lawmakers said.
Northwest Nigeria violence drives 20,000 into Niger since April: UNHCR
Violence in northwest Nigeria has forced around 20,000 refugees to seek safety in neighboring Niger since April, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
New EU: Timeline to handover
European Union leaders meet in Brussels on Tuesday, two days after an election to the European Parliament returned a more fragmented pro-EU center and stronger nationalist groups.
As Shanahan heads to Asia, Iran tensions threaten Pentagon’s ‘great power’ focus
As acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan heads to Asia on Tuesday to deliver a major policy speech on the region, increasing tensions with Iran threaten to upend the Pentagon’s strategy to focus on “great power competition” and countering Russ…
Nechirvan Barzani elected president of Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Regional lawmakers elected Nechirvan Barzani as president of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a spokesman for the regional parliament told Reuters on Tuesday.
Turkish military launches operation against militants in northern Iraq
Turkey’s military launched an operation with commandos, backed by artillery and air strikes, against Kurdish militants in a mountainous area of northern Iraq, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
U.S. walks out of U.N. arms forum as Venezuela takes chair
The United States walked out of the Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday to protest Venezuela assuming the rotating presidency of the U.N.-sponsored forum – as it did a year ago when Syria took the chair.
North Koreans paying bribes to survive: U.N. report
North Koreans are forced to pay bribes to officials to survive in their isolated country where corruption is “endemic” and repression rife, the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday in a report that Pyongyang dismissed as politically motivated.
