07/19/19

The generals running Sudan since the fall in April of its dictator, Omar al-Bashir, reached a power-sharing accord with the pro-democracy movement that has been demanding an end to military rule.

The deal makes provision for the generals to lead a new Supreme Council, which will be the highest decision-making body, for 21 months. Civilians will take over for a further 18 months before elections.

A deal signed in 2015 to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb came closer to collapse after its three European signatories (Britain, France and Germany) said they were concerned that Iran was "not meeting several of its commitments".

The accord offered Iran relief from some economic sanctions in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme. But President Trump withdrew America from the deal last year and reimposed sanctions.

Iran has since breached caps on uranium enrichment. And tensions with the West rose after Britain seized a tanker carrying Iranian oil.

Negotiators for Taliban insurgents met representatives of the Afghan government to discuss a peace agreement for the first time, albeit unofficially. The talks were disguised as part of a bigger meeting of Afghan groups.

America has held seven rounds of negotiations with the Taliban about a possible withdrawal from Afghanistan, but also wants the government and the insurgents to speak directly.

Mexico's finance minister, Carlos Urzúa, resigned after claiming that the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had made his job impossible and had forced his ministry to hire unqualified people.

[01:43.32]Mr Urzúa, a social democrat, was a voice of prudence in the cabinet of the populist leftist president. The country's currency, the peso, tumbled after the announcement (though it later recovered).

A UN report accused Venezuela's security forces of killing almost 7,000 people between January 2018 and May this year. It singles out the country's special forces for carrying out most of the killings