Squabbles erupted among G7 nations on Saturday as their leaders gathered for an annual summit in the French resort of Biarritz, news wires reported. French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit host, planned the three-day meeting as a chance to unite a group of wealthy countries that has struggled in recent years to speak with one voice.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday authorized the deployment of troops to help fight the wildfires in the country's Amazon region as EU leaders warned that the fires posed a danger to the entire planet and should be on the G7 summit agenda. The army was also ordered to prevent "environmental crimes," the daily O Globo reported, cited by dpa.

Leaders of the G7 nations arrive in France on Saturday for a three-day summit which will take place in the Atlantic seaside resort of Biarritz amid sharp differences over a clutch of global issues that risk further dividing a group of countries already struggling to pull together, news wires reported.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho has called his American counterpart, Mike Pompeo, a "poisonous plant of American diplomacy", vowing to "shutter the absurd dream" that US sanctions will force a change in Pyongyang.

Brazil's Amazon rainforest is burning at an unprecedented rate, with scientists warning that it could strike a devastating blow to the fight against climate change. According to country's space research center, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), satellite data show a record number of fires raging in the Amazon rainforest in 2019. Most specifically, there have been 72,843 fires in Brazil this year, with more than half in the Amazon region, INPE said.

Russia and China have asked the United Nations' Security Council to meet on Thursday over "statements by US officials on their plans to develop and deploy medium-range missiles". Moscow and Beijing want to convene the 15-member council under the agenda item "threats to international peace and security", a request obtained by Reuters news agency shows.

Hong Kong got a rare moment of calm this past weekend, when not a single canister of tear gas was fired - a rarity in a city where the use of the chemical has quickly become something normal over the past two months of protests.

Joy and celebration turned into horror and carnage when a suicide bomber targeted a packed Afghan wedding hall, killing at least 63 people in the deadliest attack to rock Kabul this year, officials and witnesses said Sunday.

Brazil’s backsliding on Amazon conservation under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and a likely Peronist return to power in Argentina could delay or even derail ratification of an EU-Mercosur trade agreement that took two decades to negotiate.

Sudan's military council and protest leaders on Saturday signed a hard-won "constitutional declaration" that paves the way for a transition to civilian rule. The agreement was signed by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, deputy chief of the military council, and Ahmed al-Rabie, representing the Alliance for Freedom and Change protest umbrella, an AFP reporter said.