Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. UAE signs deal with U.S. to buy 50 F-35 jets and up to 18 drones: sources

The United Arab Emirates has signed an agreement with the United States to purchase 50 F-35 jets and up to 18 armed drones, people familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday. Although the UAE and the United States were working to ink a deal before President Joseph Biden took office on Wednesday, the new president has said he will re-examine the agreements. Biden swiftly begins sweeping away Trump's immigration barriers

U.S. President Joe Biden signed half a dozen executive orders on Wednesday to reverse several hardline immigration policies put in place by former President Donald Trump, although migration experts warn that it will take months or longer to unravel many of the restrictions imposed in the past four years. In a sharp departure from his Republican predecessor, Biden, a Democrat, also sent an immigration bill to lawmakers that proposes opening a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants living in the United States unlawfully.

U.N. aid coordinator halts Venezuela cash transfer programs, sources say The United Nations Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs has halted programs in Venezuela that provide cash transfers to the poor via local nonprofit organizations, according to five people familiar with the matter. The U.N. office known as OCHA is now asking the government of President Nicolas Maduro to establish clear rules regarding cash transfers, according to a U.N. letter circulating on social media whose veracity was confirmed by three sources.

China imposes sanctions on 28 Trump-era officials including Pompeo China said on Wednesday it wanted to cooperate with President Joe Biden's new U.S. administration, while announcing sanctions against "lying and cheating" outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and 27 other top officials under Donald Trump.

The move was a sign of China's anger, especially at an accusation Pompeo made on his final full day in office that China had committed genocide against its Uighur Muslims, an assessment that Biden's choice to succeed Pompeo, Anthony Blinken, said he shared. How world leaders are reacting to Joe Biden's inauguration

Here's how world leaders are reacting to U.S. President Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, replacing Donald Trump. EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYEN, IN A TWEET: Police discover first cannabis farm in London financial district

The first cannabis farm has been found in London's historic financial district, where office buildings have been emptied because of lockdowns to contain the spread of COVID-19, British police said on Wednesday. The City of London Police said 826 cannabis plants were found in a building near the Bank of England. The police said there were reports of a "strong smell of cannabis", which led to the raid. Mexico's president singles out Twitter employee for past opposition party work

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador singled out a local employee of Twitter on Wednesday and appeared to suggest his former connections to an opposition party could compromise the company's ability to be neutral. Lopez Obrador has been critical of social media for banning former U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom he had good relations. Prosecutors accuse Bermuda's ex-premier Brown of graft, pocketing millions

Prosecutors in Bermuda charged former Premier Ewart Brown with participating in a wide-ranging corruption scheme on Wednesday, accusing the ex-leader of pocketing millions of dollars and unlawfully helping his center-left Progressive Labor Party. The charges follow a decade-long investigation and mark the first time in the island's modern history that a former leader has been charged with graft. At least three dead in central Madrid building explosion

At least three people died and eleven were injured on Wednesday afternoon when a building in central Madrid was blown apart by an explosion, with four of the wounded requiring hospitalisation. All available evidence pointed to the blast in Calle Toledo, a street leading out from the city centre, being caused by a gas leak, Madrid's Emergency Services said, although the factors which triggered the leak were yet to be determined. New COVID-19 variant defeats plasma treatment, may reduce vaccine efficacy

The new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa can evade the antibodies that attack it in treatments using blood plasma from previously recovered patients, and may reduce the efficacy of the current line of vaccines, scientists said on Wednesday. Researchers are racing to establish whether the vaccines currently being rolled out across the globe are effective against the so-called 501Y.V2 variant, identified by South African genomics experts late last year in Nelson Mandela Bay.

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