Reuters: World

Trump predicts Biden will stay in presidential race Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he expected President Joe Biden to remain in the race for the White House despite growing calls within Biden's Democratic Party for him to step aside for a younger nominee. Trump, 78, said on Monday that Biden, 81, would refuse to quit the campaign because of his ego and noted that the president had the Democratic nomination locked up because of all the convention delegates he won during the Democratic primary elections earlier this year. read more

French voters deliver a win for the left, a blow for Le Pen and a hung parliament France faced potential political deadlock after elections on Sunday threw up a hung parliament, with a leftist alliance unexpectedly taking the top spot but no group winning a majority. Voters delivered a major setback for Marine Le Pen's nationalist, eurosceptic National Rally (RN), which opinion polls had predicted would win the second-round ballot but ended up in the third spot, according to pollsters' projections. read more

Iranian voters pick moderate as president to replace hardline Raisi Iran's president-elect, a relative moderate who beat a hardline rival to win election but who will likely be constrained in how much change he can effect, urged Iranians on Saturday to stick with him on "the difficult road ahead". Masoud Pezeshkian, the sole moderate in the original field of four candidates, won Friday's run-off presidential vote against former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. He will replace hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in May. read more

New PM Starmer pledges to rebuild Britain after years of chaos Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged on Friday to use his massive electoral majority to rebuild the country, saying he wanted to take the heat out of politics after years of upheaval and strife. Standing outside his new office and residence at Number 10 Downing Street, Starmer acknowledged the scale of the challenge after his party's landslide victory in a parliamentary election ended 14 years of often tumultuous Conservative government. read more

Rival French parties seek to build anti-far right front Opponents of France's far right sought to build a united front to block the path to government of Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) on Monday, after the party made historic gains to win the first round of a parliamentary election. The RN and its allies won Sunday's round with 33% of the vote, followed by a left-wing bloc with 28% and well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron's broad alliance of centrists, who scored just 22%, official results showed. read more

Far right wins first round in France election, final result uncertain, exit polls show Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) party scored historic gains to win the first round of France's parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, but the final result will depend on days of horsetrading before next week's run-off. The RN was seen winning around 34% of the vote, exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe showed, in a huge setback for President Emmanuel Macron who had called the snap election after his ticket was trounced by the RN in European Parliament elections earlier this month. read more

Israel storms Gaza City neighbourhood, orders Palestinians to go south Israel stormed a neighbourhood in Gaza City on Thursday, ordering Palestinians to move south as tanks rolled in and bombing the southern city of Rafah in what it says are the final stages of an operation against Hamas militants there. Residents of the Shejaia neighbourhood in Gaza City said they were surprised by the sound of tanks approaching and firing in the early afternoon, with drones also attacking after overnight bombing of the city, which Israel had combed early in the war. read more

Bolivia coup attempt fails after military assault on presidential palace Bolivian armed forces pulled back from the presidential palace in La Paz on Wednesday evening and a general was arrested after President Luis Arce slammed a "coup" attempt against the government and called for international support. Earlier in the day, military units led by General Juan Jose Zuniga, recently stripped of his military command, had gathered in the central Plaza Murillo square, home to the presidential palace and Congress. A Reuters witness saw an armored vehicle ram a door of the presidential palace and soldiers rush in. read more

WikiLeaks founder Assange pleads guilty to espionage charge ahead of expected release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleded guilty to one charge of violating U.S. espionage law on Wednesday in a courtroom on the U.S. Pacific island territory of Saipan where he is expected to walk free after a deal with U.S. prosecutors. Assange, 52, arrived at the court house in a white SUV. He was wearing a black suit and smiled as he walked past security with his team and Australia's ambassador to the U.S. Kevin Rudd. read more

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange to be freed after pleading guilty to US Espionage Act charge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty this week to violating U.S. espionage law, in a deal that will end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia, ending a long legal odyssey. Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. read more

Blaze at South Korea lithium battery plant kills 22 workers A lithium battery factory in South Korea was set on fire after multiple batteries exploded on Monday, killing 22 workers, most of them Chinese nationals, fire officials said. The fire and a series of explosions ripped through the factory run by primary battery manufacturer Aricell in Hwaseong, an industrial cluster southwest of the capital Seoul. The victims likely succumbed to extremely toxic gas within seconds of the blaze getting out of control, the officials said. It was unclear what caused the explosions and the fire was largely extinguished in about six hours. read more

Israeli airstrike kills eight at Gaza aid centre, witnesses say Eight Palestinians were killed on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on a training college near Gaza City being used to distribute aid, Palestinian witnesses said, as Israeli tanks pushed further into the southern city of Rafah. The strike hit part of a vocational college run by the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA that is now providing aid to displaced families, the witnesses said. "Some people were coming to receive coupons and others had been displaced from their houses and they were sheltering here. Some were filling up water, others were receiving coupons, and suddenly we heard something falling. We ran away, those who were carrying water let it spill," said Mohammed Tafesh, one of the witnesses. read more