WORLD

United Nations, United States | AFP |  The Democratic Republic of Congo was elected to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday despite opposition from the United States and a leading rights group. DR Congo was among the 15 countries who won seats during a vote at the UN General …

Berlin, Germany | AFP | German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced a regional vote test Sunday, after winning a fourth term with a disappointing showing that has forced her to embark on high-stakes coalition talks. Three weeks after German voters handed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union its worst result in decades, the leader …

Kabul, Afghanistan | AFP | Afghan police seized a lorry packed with explosives hidden under boxes of tomatoes in Kabul, officials said Sunday, averting a potentially deadly blast in the capital months after a massive truck bomb killed and wounded hundreds. Police shot and wounded the driver of the vehicle …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis declared 35 new saints on Sunday, nearly all of them martyrs drawn from the bloody history of Catholicism’s spread in Latin America. Before a crowd of some 35,000 in St Peter’s square, the pontiff carried out the rite of canonisation for 30 …

Washington, United States | AFP | US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Sunday denied that Donald Trump’s threat to tear up the Iran nuclear deal had weakened America’s chance of reining in North Korea through diplomacy. Asserting that Washington had “unified the international community” on the North Korean threat, Tillerson vowed …

Brussels, Belgium | AFP | EU leaders are set to extend an olive branch to British Prime Minister Theresa May at a summit in Brussels this week in a bid to break a deadlock in Brexit negotiations. The Europeans will announce that there has not been enough progress on divorce …

Washington, United States | AFP | The growing split between the United States and the rest of the world spilled into the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington this week. The US administration showed a diminished view of the Bretton Woods institutions that shaped …

Paris, France | AFP | France on Saturday urged the US Congress not to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, after President Donald Trump decertified Iran’s compliance with the 2015 agreement. “We strongly hope that Congress, which is now responsible for a possible rupture, does not jeopardise the deal,” French Foreign …

Nice, France | AFP | In Monaco, home to the super-rich on the French Riviera, a worker at the cathedral was caught literally red-handed stealing from the poor box. In early 2016, a newly arrived priest at the cathedral started to suspect the sexton of pilfering after noticing a drop …

San Francisco, United States | AFP | The death toll from California’s wildfires rose to 33 on Friday as firefighters made some progress in containing the infernos but said intensifying winds were a concern. “We’re not out of this emergency, not even close,” said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California …