Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Picture emerges of well-to-do young bombers behind Sri Lankan carnage

Details began to emerge in Sri Lanka on Wednesday of a band of nine, well-educated Islamist suicide bombers, including a woman, from well-to-do families who slaughtered 359 people in Easter Sunday bomb attacks. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks on three churches and four hotels. If that connection is confirmed, the attacks looks likely to be the deadliest ever linked to the group. Exclusive: Gold worth billions smuggled out of Africa

Billions of dollars' worth of gold is being smuggled out of Africa every year through the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East – a gateway to markets in Europe, the United States and beyond – a Reuters analysis has found. Customs data shows that the UAE imported $15.1 billion worth of gold from Africa in 2016, more than any other country and up from $1.3 billion in 2006. The total weight was 446 tonnes, in varying degrees of purity – up from 67 tonnes in 2006. Three members of Sudan military council resign after demand by opposition

Three members of Sudan's ruling Transitional Military Council have resigned, but their resignations are yet to be accepted, the TMC said late on Wednesday. Lieutenant-General Omar Zain al-Abideen who heads the TMC's political committee was one of the resigning members, the TMC said in a statement. The two others were Lieutenant-General Jalal al-Deen al-Sheikh and Lieutenant-General Al-Tayeb Babakr Ali Fadeel. Russia offers passports to east Ukraine, president-elect decries 'aggressor state'

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed an order simplifying the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, prompting calls for more international sanctions from Kiev. Five years of war between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces have killed 13,000 people despite a notional ceasefire signed in 2015. Japan's incoming imperial couple offers the nation something new

Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Masako, represent a lot of firsts for an imperial couple: university-educated, multilingual and with years of experience living overseas, during which Naruhito even did his own laundry. As they prepare to carve out identities as Japan's emperor and empress, hopes are high they will make the office both more international and more in touch with the lives of ordinary Japanese. Scaffolding firm says workers smoked at Paris' Notre-Dame

A scaffolding firm that has worked on the roof of Notre-Dame said some of its workers had smoked on the site, but ruled out that a cigarette butt might have started the fire that destroyed the cathedral's oak-framed roof last week. A spokesman for family-owned Le Bras Freres, confirming a report in French weekly Le Canard Enchaine, told Reuters that some workers of its Europe Echafaudage scaffolding unit had informed police that they had "sometimes" smoked on the scaffolding, despite a smoking ban on the site. Exclusive: Iran's Zarif believes Trump does not want war, but could be lured into conflict

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif does not believe U.S. President Donald Trump wants war with Iran, but he told Reuters on Wednesday that Trump could be lured into a conflict. "I don't think he wants war," Zarif said in an interview at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York. "But that doesn't exclude him being basically lured into one." 325 detained migrants evacuated as war reaches Tripoli

The United Nations refugee agency evacuated 325 African refugees on Wednesday from Qasr Ben Gashir detention centre in southern Tripoli because of deteriorating security and escalating violence. The refugees - mainly Eritrean, Sudanese and Nigerian - were taken to a detention centre in Zawiya, a town west of the Libyan capital, where they were at "reduced risk", the UNHCR said in a statement. Spurned by Washington, North Korea's Kim seeks a friend in Putin

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday at a summit designed to show that Washington is not the only power able to set the agenda on Pyongyang's nuclear program. The two men will sit down together on an island off the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok two months after Kim's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump ended in disagreement, cooling hopes of a breakthrough in the decades-old nuclear row. Anger over Brexit sparks new grassroots drive for Scottish independence

Supporters of an independent Scotland will launch a new grassroots campaign on Thursday ahead of a possible second referendum on secession from the United Kingdom, hoping to harness Scottish voters' anger over Brexit. Scots rejected independence in 2014 and support since then has remained stuck at around 45 percent, opinion polls suggest. But Scots also voted to remain in the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, in which England and Wales voted to leave.