CHINA: US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis will visit Beijing this week as the countries spar over US arms sales to Taiwan and a possible trade war.

Washington is set to start taxing $34 billion in Chinese goods in a fortnight while Beijing has vowed to retaliate with its own tariffs on US products.

The US may well depend on China for help getting North Korea to deliver on denuclearisation promises made at Mr Trump’s summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

SAUDI ARABIA: The world’s last remaining ban on women driving was lifted today when the House of Saud finally allowed women to take the wheel.

For nearly three decades, Saudi women faced arrest for defying the ban even as women in other conservative Muslim countries drove freely.

The Saudi monarchy and its international apologists have passed this step off as emblematic of royal “modernising” tendencies.

GREECE: Police announced the detention at the weekend of four people suspected of attacking two participants in the thousands-strong Thessaloniki Pride rally and march.

They are suspected of verbally abusing a Greek and a Brazilian participating in the march, one of whom was holding a rainbow flag, before throwing them into the sea.

The two victims, who were separated from the main contingent, sustained no injuries.

MACEDONIA: Thousands of people protested outside the Skopje parliament at the weekend against a deal with Greece to end a long dispute over Macedonia’s name.

The protest, organised by student body Youth for Macedonia, was called under the slogan, Never North, always Macedonia.

They demanded the government’s removal, chanting “Traitors!” at politicians who voted to rename Macedonia “North Macedonia.”