The foreign office minister Alistair Burt arrived in Iran on Friday for the first such visit in several months, for talks on the imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as well as the future of the Iran nuclear deal. Burt, the minister for the Middle East, is the first UK minister to visit the country since the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May, dismaying the UK and other European nations.

He arrives two days after Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken to a prison hospital after a panic attack, following her return to jail from three days on temporary release with her daughter and other family members. Earlier in the week Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who has spent two years seeking her release over claims of spying, praised the new foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, for taking a closer interest in the matter than his predecessor, Boris Johnson.(theguardian)…[+]

Protests have erupted in Uganda’s capital after police prevented a pop-star-turned-opposition-politician from leaving for the US for treatment after he was allegedly tortured in detention. The actions by security forces have escalated a dispute between the government of the longtime president, Yoweri Museveni, and a youthful generation that fears he intends to rule for life after 32 years in power.

Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known to his fans as Bobi Wine, was stopped on Thursday night while trying to board a flight at Entebbe airport, his lawyer, Asuman Basalirwa, said. He was admitted to a hospital in the capital, Kampala, in a “worrying condition”, the lawyer said.

The 36-year-old had been freed on bail on Monday but faced no travel restrictions after he and several other politicians were charged with treason, over an incident in which the president’s motorcade was pelted with stones and Kyagulanyi’s driver was shot dead. A lawyer for the singer has called the charge false.(theguardian)…[+]

Japan’s defence ministry has requested a record budget as it seeks to counter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and respond to growing Chinese air and naval activity in the region. If approved by the cabinet and parliament later this year, the 5.3tn yen (£37bn) budget would be a 2.1% increase on last year and the seventh consecutive rise under Japan’s conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

The budget request, released by the ministry on Friday, includes 424bn yen for missile defence – a steep rise from the 180bn yen spent last year. A significant portion of that – 234.3bn yen – would go on two US-made Aegis Ashore missile defence systems that would be deployed on land specifically to track and intercept missiles from North Korea.

Japan’s military also wants funds for a ship-to-air SM-3 Block IIA interceptor with expanded range and accuracy, developed jointly by the US and Japan, as well as upgrades to fighter jets and destroyers to make them compatible with advanced interceptors. This week, defence officials said Japan must retain its hardline stance against the regime in Pyongyang, despite a slight easing in tensions following the summit in June between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. In its annual defence review, Japan said North Korea continued to pose a “serious and imminent threat”, having conducted three nuclear tests and launched 40 ballistic missiles since the start of 2016.(theguardian)…[+]

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after officers discovered an “unknown substance” during a routine raid, Scotland Yard said. The teenager was detained on suspicion of the “commission, preparation or instigation” of offences under the Terrorism Act after police searched a property in west London on Wednesday morning.

Local officers carried out the raid at about 9.55am and found an imitation firearm and cannabis plants as well as the unknown substance, Metropolitan police said. The latter find prompted an escalation to the counterterrorism command and the substance will be sent for urgent analysis to determine what it is, the force said.

The boy was also arrested on suspicion of possessing an imitation firearm and the cultivation of cannabis and is being held at a south London police station while inquiries continue.(theguardian)…[+]

Kenya’s president has complained that no British prime minister has visited the east African country for 30 years, delivering a diplomatic rebuke to Theresa May in a press conference on the final day of her visit to the continent. Uhuru Kenyatta told May he was pleased she had “found time” to visit and went on to struggle to remember Boris Johnson’s surname at the culmination of a three-day trip aimed at boosting Britain’s trade and diplomatic presence in the country.

The president began proceedings by saying he was glad May had “honoured our invitation to come and see for yourself our country and continent that has changed in the last nearly four decades since a UK prime minister visited”. The last British prime minister to visit Kenya was Margaret Thatcher in 1988. Since then, despite historic links between the two nations, the east African country has increasingly turned to China and the US for support and investment.Appearing at the state house in Nairobi in a joint press conference with May, Kenyatta was asked about an agreement to allow stolen funds in Britain to be returned to Kenyato fund health, education and other development projects.(theguardian)…[+]

More than 50,000 people evacuated their homes in central Myanmar on Wednesday after a dam breach flooded towns and villages and caused the closure of a major highway, two officials said. Fire authorities sent a team to the Swar irrigation dam after the breach at 5.30 am (11pm GMT) unleashed water into the nearby town of Swar and several other settlements.

No casualties have been reported, but thousands took shelter in temporary camps. Many people, including some not directly affected by flooding, had decided to leave their homes for fear the water level could rise further, said an official of the Natural Disaster Management Department. In all, 12,000 households or 54,000 people had bee

The Swar dam’s spillway structure, which regulates the release of water from the levee, broke as a result of heavy monsoon rains in the Bago region, authorities said, inundating about 100 villages and blocking the country’s main highway. As water gushed into the rural flatland region, footage showed people fleeing their homes on foot, clutching bags of belongings. The weight of the flood water also fractured part of a bridge on the Yangon to Mandalay highway, an important artery between Myanmar’s two biggest cities.

“We don’t have exact data about the number of victims, but the water has hit villages where more than 50,000 people live,” the director of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Phyu Lae Lae Tun, told Agence France-Presse. n displaced, said another official from the Department of Relief and Resettlement.(theguardian)…[+]

The Cabinet Office minister, David Lidington, has warned that relations between Britain and France are at “a fork in the road” – and the only alternative to the prime minister’s Chequers plan is a no-deal Brexit. Ministers are concerned the French government remains deeply sceptical about the approach spelled out in its July white paper, prompting Theresa May to fly to Emmanuel Macron’s holiday home earlier this month to try to win the president over.

In a speech delivered to French business leaders on Wednesday afternoon, Lidington, who in effect serves as May’s deputy, warned it was too late to go back to the drawing board. “With exactly seven months until the end of the article 50 process and less than two months ahead of the October European council we face the choice between the pragmatic proposals we are discussing now with the European commission, or no deal,” he said.(theguardian)…[+]

Don McGahn, the White House counsel, will resign from his position later this year, Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday. The US president said in a tweet that McGahn would depart in the autumn, by which time the administration hopes to have installed Brett Kavanaugh on the supreme court. McGahn has taken a leading role in handling Kavanaugh’s nomination.

“I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service!” Trump said.

Trump was reported to have been troubled by the recent disclosure that McGahn had cooperated extensively with Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. McGahn worked as an attorney on Trump’s presidential campaign before taking his job in the White House.(theguardian)…[+]

Russia will hold its biggest war games in nearly four decades next month, the country’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has told Russian news agencies.

The massive military exercise, which will also involve the Chinese and Mongolian armies, will take place in central and eastern Russian military districts. Vostok-2018 (East-2018) will involve almost 300,000 troops, more than 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets, and all its airborne units, agencies quoted Shoigu as saying.

The manoeuvres will take place at a time of heightened tension between the west and Russia, which is concerned about what it says is an unjustified build-up of the Nato military alliance on its western flank. Nato says it has strengthened its forces in eastern Europe to deter potential Russian military action after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 and backed a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine.(theguardian)…[+]