Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Austria's Kurz faces ax as far right opts to back no-confidence motion

Austria's parliament appeared all but certain to sack conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Monday after lawmakers from the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) agreed to support a motion of no-confidence in his caretaker government. Kurz's People's Party came out on top in Sunday's European Parliament election, only a week after a video sting scandal prompted far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache to step down and Kurz to scrap the coalition between their parties. Trump says Iran nuclear deal possible as sanctions bite

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday a deal with Iran on its nuclear program was possible, crediting economic sanctions for curbing activities Washington has said are behind a spate of attacks in the Middle East. "I really believe that Iran would like to make a deal, and I think that's very smart of them, and I think that's a possibility to happen," Trump said during a news conference with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo. Israel open to U.S.-mediated talks with Lebanon on sea border

Israel voiced openness on Monday to U.S.-mediated talks with Lebanon on resolving a dispute over the neighbors' maritime border that has dogged Mediterranean oil and gas exploration. Such talks, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz's office said in a statement after he met U.S. envoy David Satterfield, could be "for the good of both countries' interests in developing natural gas reserves and oil" by agreeing a border. 'Under one flag': two Belgiums seek one government after vote

Belgium was stunned on Monday by a Flemish separatist surge in national elections that will make forming a new federal government a tortuous task as the country's French-speaking region moved further to the left. Belgium, long an awkward marriage between its Dutch- and French-speaking communities, now risks a political impasse as the results in Sunday's federal parliamentary vote deepened a split between its more Germanic north and Latin south. North Korea says Bolton's missile comments 'more than ignorant': KCNA

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton is "more than ignorant" to argue that North Korea's recent missile tests violated U.N. resolutions, the North's foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday. Giving up missile tests would mean giving up the right to self defense, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the state KCNA news agency. Petition calling for impeachment of South Korea's Moon to force a response

A petition calling for South Korean President Moon Jae-in to be impeached had gathered more than 217,000 signatures as of Monday, passing a threshold that will require a government response and underscoring Moon's sagging approval ratings. The author of the online petition has not been identified but says he or she is a citizen who took part in candlelight protests in 2017 that helped lead to the impeachment and ouster of Moon's predecessor, Park Geun-hye. After EU election disaster, Britain's main parties gird for no-deal Brexit battle

Britain's two main parties set the stage on Monday for a battle over a no-deal Brexit, hoping to win back voters who abandoned them for a new movement led by eurosceptic Nigel Farage and other smaller parties in European elections. After a punishing night when deepening divisions over Britain's departure from the European Union were plain to see, contenders for the leadership of the governing Conservatives said the results were a demand to deliver Brexit no matter what. French police arrest three over Lyon bomb blast

French police have arrested three people, including a 24-year-old computer science student of Algerian nationality, in connection with last week's bomb blast in Lyon that injured 13 people, authorities said. The case is being handled as a terrorism investigation given the circumstances of the attack, committed in broad daylight, and the use of an explosive device capable of hitting a large number of people with screws and metal balls packed into a bag. Nationalists surge in EU Parliament, but pro-EU parties remain dominant

Pro-European parties kept a firm grip on the EU parliament on Monday as liberal and green parties matched a surge by eurosceptic parties, who won control of a quarter of seats in European elections for the first time. The far-right and nationalists in Italy, Britain, France and Poland came out on top in their national votes on Sunday, shaking up politics at home but failing to dramatically alter the balance of pro-European power in EU assembly. Trump presses Japan over trade gap, expects 'good things' from North Korea

U.S. President Donald Trump pressed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday to even out a trade imbalance with the United States and said he was happy with how things were going with North Korea but was in no rush to reach a peace deal. Trump told a news conference with Abe after their summit that his goal was to remove trade barriers to put U.S. exports on a fair footing in Japan. He said he hoped to have more to announce on trade very soon and said he and Abe had agreed to expand cooperation in human space exploration.