Reuters World News Summary

Europe, under fire for fumbling its vaccine roll-out and fighting a fresh wave of infections, is scrambling to speed up the pace of injections and avoid being left further behind by Britain and the United States. In Paris, the city's hallowed national soccer stadium is being transformed into a mass vaccination hub, while Italy - with 20,000 infections daily - has put the army and civil defence agency in charge, after new Prime Minister Mario Draghi fired the country's vaccine czar. Exclusive: Germany to propose Beirut port reconstruction with 'strings attached' - sources

Germany will next week present a multi-billion-dollar proposal to Lebanese authorities to rebuild the Port of Beirut as part of efforts to entice the country's politicians to form a government capable of warding off financial collapse, two sources said. A chemical explosion at the port last August killed 200 people, injured thousands and destroyed entire neighbourhoods in Lebanon's capital, plunging the country deeper into its worst political and economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. Veteran Hong Kong democrats found guilty in landmark unlawful assembly case

A Hong Kong court found seven prominent democrats guilty of unauthorised assembly charges, including 82-year-old barrister Martin Lee and media tycoon Jimmy Lai, 72, the latest blow to the city's beleaguered democracy movement. Lee, who helped launch the city's largest opposition Democratic Party in the 1990s and is often called the former British colony's "father of democracy," was accused of taking part in an unauthorised assembly on Aug. 18, 2019. U.S. says any approach to North Korea will have to be in 'lockstep' with allies

Denuclearization will remain at the center of U.S. policy toward North Korea and any approach to Pyongyang will have to be done in "lockstep" with close allies, including Japan and South Korea, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday. Price made the comments at a regular briefing ahead of a meeting on Friday between U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his counterparts from Japan and South Korea as the Biden administration concludes a review of its policy towards North Korea. UK regulator found total of 30 cases of blood clot events after AstraZeneca vaccine use

British regulators on Thursday said they have identified 30 cases of rare blood clot events after the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, 25 more than the agency previously reported. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said it had received no such reports of clotting events following use of the vaccine made by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc. Pope meets cardinal he fired, in apparent reconciliation

Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Thursday with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, according to the cardinal who was fired by the pontiff last September on accusations of embezzlement and nepotism. Becciu told Italian journalists that the Mass was said in the chapel of the cardinal's apartment in the Vatican. Boat carries 1,200 survivors from Mozambique militant attack to safety

A boat carrying 1,200 survivors of a deadly attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents in northern Mozambique reached safety in the port of Pemba on Thursday, some of them crying on arrival after spending days hiding in the bush. Aid workers were at the crowded port to give food to those disembarking from the green and white ferry, while police and soldiers kept control of crowds of people excited to see relatives rescued during the attack that began last week in Palma, a Reuters reporter at the port said. Suu Kyi faces new charge under Myanmar's secrets act; wireless internet suspended

Myanmar's deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been charged with breaking a colonial-era official secrets law, her lawyer said on Thursday, the most serious charge against the veteran opponent of military rule. Myanmar has been rocked by protests since the army overthrew Suu Kyi's elected government on Feb. 1 citing unsubstantiated claims of fraud in a November election that her party swept. Cooking oil or crude? Italian restaurant owner was mistaken target of U.S. sanctions

One of the final acts of the Trump administration was almost certainly one of the most confounding for Alessandro Bazzoni, a restaurant owner in Verona, Italy. As part of a crackdown on blacklisted Venezuelan crude, former President Donald Trump's Treasury Department accidentally slapped sanctions against his company on Jan. 19 in a case of mistaken identity. As WHO highlights COVID animal origins, China wildlife crackdown needs more teeth: experts

China and its neighbours must not only crack down on wildlife trade but also shut legal loopholes that allow disease-prone species to be farmed, experts said after an investigation team concluded that COVID-19 most likely originated in animals. A World Health Organization-led study, published Tuesday, said it was "likely to very likely" that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the global pandemic, was introduced to humans from bats via an intermediary species, with wildlife farming playing a crucial role.

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