Churchill Choken

Update:: The European Commission repeated on Monday that EU leaders would not renegotiate a Brexit treaty agreed last month with Prime Minister Theresa May and was pressing on with planning for Britain to crash out of the Union without a deal. "The deal that is on the table is the best and the only deal possible," chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters when asked about a phone conversation on Friday between May and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. "This deal will not be renegotiated." He also repeated that there were no talks planned between negotiators from the two sides as "negotiations are complete". Schinas repeated that Juncker's conversation with May on Friday was "friendly" and that the two would speak again this week. May has failed to win parliamentary support for the treaty she agree with fellow leaders of the European Union last month and is expected to put it to a vote next week. At a summit on De...

Nigerian soldiers have raided the main office of the private Daily Trust newspaper and confiscated computers. It follows the arrest of some staff at the newspaper's office in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency. The Daily Trust says it may be connected with its lead story on Sunday about the military preparing an operation to recapture territory. The army denies it recently lost control of some towns to militants

Update:: US President Donald Trump has said that a location for another summit with North Korea is being negotiated. Mr Trump told reporters in Washington DC that "a good dialogue" was taking place with North Korea, but sanctions on Pyongyang would remain in place. Mr Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last June, the first such meeting for a sitting US president. No tangible progress has been achieved so far on the main US goal: North Korea's denuclearisation. President Trump said last week that he had received a "great letter" from Mr Kim, although he did not reveal its contents.

Update:: President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has inaugurated Egypt's largest cathedral in the new administrative capital east of Cairo, a day after a deadly bomb blast near a Coptic church. The newly built Cathedral of Nativity had its first Mass under heavy security on Sunday, the eve of Coptic Christmas. On Saturday, a policeman died trying to defuse an explosive device hidden on a roof in Nasr City outside Cairo. Copts make up about 10% of Egypt's Muslim-majority population. Many say the state discriminates against them and does not offer them enough protection.