The official count of Venezuelans who participated in the election of an all-powerful constituent assembly was tampered with - off by at least one million votes - the head of a voting technology company said.

Ruling party candidate Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has been elected as the prime minister of Pakistan, the speaker of the lower house of parliament said.

A leading activist and an opposition candidate have been killed as voting gets underway in Venezuela for a controversial new assembly.

Pakistan's ruling party has named senior politician Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as successor to the deposed prime minister, a day after the Supreme Court removed Nawaz Sharif from office for concealing assets.

Venezuelan opposition leaders have called for supporters to escalate street protests after more than 7.1 million people rejected a government plan to rewrite the constitution and consolidate its power.

Cuban president Raul Castro has denounced US president Donald Trump's tougher line on relations with Havana, calling it a setback but promising to continue working to normalise ties between the former Cold War rivals.

The ruling clique is prolonging the agony by rejecting a democratic transition. The desperate, and repressed Venezuelan people deserve their country back, writes Enrique ter Horst.            

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said France must break the addiction to public spending that has left its economy trailing peers as he outlined plans to rein in the budget and cut taxes.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has vowed to bring the country's budget deficit under the European Union limit of 3% this year in his first major speech on the government's economic and social priorities.

Venezuela's president has said a stolen police helicopter fired on the country's Supreme Court in what he called a thwarted "terrorist attack" aimed at ousting him from power.

French polling agencies are projecting that President Emmanuel Macron's new centrist party will have a large majority in the powerful lower house of parliament and a clear mandate to overhaul the way France works and does business.

French voters are casting their ballots in the final round of parliamentary elections that could clinch President Emmanuel Macron's hold on power, as his fledgling party appears set to rout mainstream rivals.

The first round of parliamentary elections suggests the new president will get the majority needed to push through radical reforms, say Philippe Aghion and Benedicte Berner.

French voters are choosing politicians on Sunday in a vote that is crucial for newly-elected president Emmanuel Macron.

The French president has to build consensus across the spectrum to make his eurozone vision work, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

Moon Jae-in has taken the oath of office in Seoul hours after starting work as South Korea's new president.

If the the far-right Marine Le Pen and the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron square off in the second round of the presidential election, it will be a first in 60 years, says Zaki Laïdi.         

South Korea's embattled president has said she will resign if parliament produces a plan for the safe transfer of power.

The French Revolution was a triumph followed by a tragedy. Michael Duggan discovers some surprises from a seminal work on the period, among them the number of ambitious young lawyers involved    

Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega has been re-elected, setting the stage for his third consecutive term - but this time accompanied by his wife as vice president.

One of France’s charismatic ministers has unexpectedly resigned after objecting to President Francois Hollande’s push to revoke citizenship from convicted terrorists with dual nationality.

Venezuela’s opposition has won control of the National Assembly by a landslide, delivering a major setback to the ruling party and altering the balance of power after 17 years of socialist rule.

People in Venezuela took to the polls yesterday in what seems to have become a tightening race for control of the country’s national legislature.

With France still reeling from the attacks that killed 129 and wounded hundreds, France’s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, has voted to extend a state of emergency for three months. The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is likely to be approved.

No terrorist link to vehicle that crashed through Paris barricades

Two decades after the massacre at Srebrenica, Gwynne Dyer reports on how Serbia and its people, with some exceptions, refuse to accept it was an act of genocide

Three men who served long US prison terms for spying have received a standing ovation in Cuba’s parliament, as President Raul Castro declared that detente with Washington will not change the communist system he leads.

France’s National Assembly will vote on a largely symbolic resolution in favour of recognising a Palestinian state.

Ecuador’s highest court has endorsed and sent to the National Assembly a constitutional reform package that would allow indefinite re-election for President Rafael Correa.

The head of Burkina Faso’s armed forces has taken power after President Blaise Compaore resigned amid mass demonstrations against an attempt to extend his 27-year rule in the West African country.

Pakistan’s prime minister has denied asking the country’s military chief to mediate with opposition leaders and protesters who have camped outside parliament in Islamabad for two weeks, demanding his resignation over alleged voting fraud.

Under pressure French president François Hollande has faced the media over accusations that he is having an affair but he coolly side-stepped giving any details on his personal life.

South Africa is preparing for the arrival of a flood of world leaders for the funeral and memorial services for former president Nelson Mandela.

Tensions over Syria are expected to dominate a summit of the world’s major economies being held in Russia in the run-up to an expected US military assault which host Vladimir Putin has warned would be an act of aggression.

The death toll from two overnight bombings at a busy market in northern Pakistan rose to 49 today with 10 more people dying at a hospital, officials said.

Pakistan will hold a presidential election on August 6, officials announced today.

Newly elected members of Pakistan’s National Assembly were sworn in today, officially marking the first transition of power between democratically elected civilian governments in the nearly 66-year history of the coup-prone country.

A woman will become mayor of Paris for the first time in the city’s 2,000-year history, and voters will have a choice of two candidates.

Politicians brawled in Venezuela’s parliament yesterday amid rising tension over the nation’s presidential election.

French parliament approved a law allowing same-sex couples to marry and to adopt children, a flagship reform pledge by president François Hollande which sparked often violent street protests and a rise in homophobic attacks.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has launched his bid to succeed Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.