Arsonists attacked asylum seekers' housing in the small town of Munkedal in southern Sweden early Tuesday, the latest in a wave of attacks as migrant numbers, and tensions, rise.

Since the start of the year, 15 arson attacks throughout the country have targeted refugee reception centers and apartments, reducing some to cinders.

Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has extended her lead over fellow White House hopeful Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic nomination race, while her leading Republican rival Donald Trump has done the same, polls showed Tuesday.

Clinton impressed in her party's first televised debate last week in Las Vegas, while Trump keeps rising as the billionaire real estate tycoon taps into nationwide anti-Washington sentiment.

Five years after winning office in a vote marred by violence, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara looks set to win a new mandate Sunday in an election seen as critical to sealing the peace.

Ouattara's election campaign has focused on his efforts to revive the economy of the world's top cocoa producer, ravaged by months of post-election violence in 2010-2011 in which some 3,000 people died.

France's foreign ministry summoned Russia's ambassador Tuesday after Moscow mistakenly accused a French military jet of flying "dangerously close" to a plane carrying a parliamentary delegation, a spokesman said.

Switzerland later admitted that it was one of its warplanes that had approached the Russian aircraft and Moscow has lodged an official complaint with the Swiss ambassador to Russia.

Uganda's army has begun its pull-out from neighboring South Sudan, in line with a peace deal aimed at ending nearly two years of civil war, an official said Tuesday.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni deployed troops to South Sudan in support of President Salva Kiir, who is fighting rebels led by former deputy president Riek Machar.

China's President Xi Jinping starts a pomp-filled four-day state visit to Britain on Tuesday as reports emerged of a multi-billion pound investment deal over Britain's new nuclear program.

Xi will stay with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, enjoy a state banquet and visit Downing Street, Prime Minister David Cameron's country residence Chequers and even Manchester City football club.

Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has begun preparations for a referendum on joining Russia but the Kremlin poured cold water on the idea Tuesday.

The Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away after civil wars in the 1990s that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian insurgents said Tuesday they had begun withdrawing tanks and smaller weapons from the frontline splitting the devastated Donetsk region in the ex-Soviet state's eastern war zone.

The pullback follows similar arms movements in the smaller separatist Lugansk province and falls in line with the terms of a new truce agreement struck by the warring sides on September 1.

Authorities in the Republic of Congo on Tuesday banned demonstrations in the country after the opposition called a protest over the president's bid to extend his three-decade stay in power.

Mobile communications were cut in the capital Brazzaville just ahead of a rally against a referendum Sunday that calls for constitutional change to allow President Denis Sassou Nguesso to run for a fresh term in office.

The defense ministers of South Korea and Japan held talks in Seoul on Tuesday, in a further sign that relations are beginning to emerge from an extended diplomatic deep freeze.

The meeting between South Korea's Han Min-Koo and his Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani took place ahead of a trilateral leadership dialogue involving the two countries and China.