Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. France hosts wary G7 in shadow of Trump snub, Brexit and yellow vests

France offered a wary welcome to foreign ministers from the Group of Seven on Friday for a meeting overshadowed by a snub from Donald Trump's U.S. administration, a meltdown in Britain over Brexit and months of anti-government protests at home. Protesters spray-painted slogans attacking President Emmanuel Macron in the sleepy coastal resort of Dinard where the ministers were due to gather to set the agenda for their leaders at the annual big power summit in August. How excess speed, hasty commands and flawed software doomed an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX

Minutes after take-off, the pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX were caught in a bad situation. A key sensor had been wrecked, possibly by a bird strike. As soon as they retracted the landing gear, flaps and slats, it began to feed faulty data into the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), designed to prevent stalls. Algeria protesters return to the streets as spy boss reported sacked

Protesters waving banners and calling for radical change marched through Algiers for a seventh successive Friday as Algeria's spy chief was reported fired in a further sign of high-level turmoil following the resignation of the country's veteran president. Thousands of demonstrators gathered in the capital to push for the removal of the entire political structure, built around the ruling party, army officers, businessmen, unions and veterans of a 1954-62 independence war against France. May asks for Brexit extension to June 30; EU could offer a year

British Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to Brussels on Friday asking for a delay of Brexit until up to June 30, while saying she aims to get Britain out of the EU earlier to avoid it participating in European elections. But Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits, has proposed a longer Brexit postponement of one year for Britain's feuding politicians to agree and ratify a plan, EU officials said. Gulf states, Egypt say will boycott parliament meet in Doha

Three Gulf Arab states and Egypt said they will not attend a global meeting of parliamentarians due to be held in Doha from Saturday because Qatar has not changed the kind of behavior which made them sever ties two years ago. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and non-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member Egypt cut diplomatic, transport and trade ties with Qatar in 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorism and their regional foe Iran - something Doha denies. Salvini plans rally to unite Europe's far-right ahead of vote

Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday he would host a major rally of European nationalist and far-right parties to promote a shared political vision ahead of May's EU parliamentary elections. Salvini leads the ruling League party and hopes to put together a bloc of like-minded, anti-immigration parties in the European parliament to challenge the traditionally predominant and mainstream center-left and center-right groups. Ukraine presidential rivals undergo televised drug tests

The two remaining candidates in Ukraine's presidential race underwent televised drug and alcohol tests on Friday, capping a week in which they traded jibes in tit-for-tat social media videos and goaded each other to agree to a live policy debate. President Petro Poroshenko is facing Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian with no political experience who plays a fictional president in a TV series, in a run-off on April 21 after neither obtained a majority of votes in the first round last Sunday. Erdogan says Turkey continues S-400 payments, criticises U.S. stance

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Turkey was continuing to make payments under its deal with Russia to buy S-400 missile defence systems and the United States had not presented the same terms when it offered to sell Patriot missiles. "The S-400 holds an important place in our talks. The United States' arguments are very wrong. We finished the S-400 process and our payments continue," Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul when asked about his planned talks in Moscow next week. Losing its luster - how Erdogan party's campaign put off Istanbul voters

It was midnight on election night when Turkey's main opposition party finally believed it had overturned a decade and a half of failure at the polls and delivered a stinging defeat to the country's master campaigner, President Tayyip Erdogan. The candidate of the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) for mayor of Ankara was comfortably ahead in the capital, but in Istanbul - the biggest prize in Sunday's local elections - Erdogan's ruling AK Party candidate had declared victory. U.N. chief to meet eastern Libya commander as fighters close in on Tripoli

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was due to meet eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi on Friday in a bid to avert renewed civil war as his forces advanced on the capital Tripoli to challenge the internationally recognized government. The military thrust by Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), which is allied to a parallel administration based in the east, marked a dangerous escalation of a power struggle that has dragged on since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.