Trump cuts, Kofi Annan, Pope Francis, U.N. agency: World news round-up

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Trump cuts more than $200 million in U.S. aid to Palestinians

The United States is cutting more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians, the State Department said on Friday, amid a deteriorating relationship with the Palestinian leadership. A senior State Department official said without elaborating that the funds, originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza, would address "high-priority projects elsewhere."

Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to be buried in Ghana on September 13: president

Former United Nations chief and Noble prize laureate Kofi Annan will be buried in his home country Ghana on Sept 13, the West African nation's president said on Friday. Nana Akufo-Addo told a delegation of Annan's family that Annan would have a full state burial, "befitting his status as a global icon, diplomat, and statesman".

Pope travels to transformed Ireland as abuse crises rage

Pope Francis will arrive in Ireland on Saturday to find a society transformed since the last papal visit 39 years ago and beset by the kind of abuse scandals that have mired the Catholic Church in crisis again. More than three-quarters of the Irish population flocked to see Pope John Paul II in 1979 at a time when divorce and contraception were illegal. Today, Ireland is no longer staunchly Catholic and over the past three years, voters have approved abortion and gay marriage in referendums, defying the will of the church.

U.N. agency sees Venezuelan exodus nearing a crisis point

The exodus of migrants from Venezuela is building toward a "crisis moment" comparable to events involving refugees in the Mediterranean, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday. Growing numbers are fleeing economic meltdown and political turmoil in Venezuela, where people scrounge for food and other necessities of daily life, threatening to overwhelm neighboring countries. Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a way forward.

Trump scraps Pompeo trip to North Korea, citing stalled nuclear diplomacy

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday abruptly canceled his top diplomat's planned trip to North Korea, publicly acknowledging for the first time that his effort to get Pyongyang to denuclearize had stalled since his summit with North Korea's leader. Trump partly blamed China for his lack of progress with North Korea and suggested that talks with Pyongyang, led so far by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, could be on hold until after Washington resolved its bitter trade dispute with Beijing. It was a dramatic shift of tone for Trump, who had previously hailed his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a success and said the North Korean nuclear threat was over, despite no real sign Pyongyang was willing to give up its nuclear weapons.

U.S. sanctions on Russia tied to UK attack to take effect Monday

U.S. sanctions against Russia tied to a nerve agent attack in Britain, which were announced earlier this month, will come into effect on Monday, the U.S. government said on Friday, adding to the array of economic penalties it has imposed on Moscow in recent years. The new measures, detailed in a notice posted at the Federal Register, will terminate foreign assistance and some arms sales and financing to Russia, as well as deny the country credit and prohibit the export of security-sensitive goods and technology.

Egypt orders detention of ex-diplomat, opposition figures: MENA news agency

Egypt's public prosecutor on Friday ordered the detention for 15 days pending investigation of a former diplomat and other opposition figures who have criticized President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the state-run MENA news agency reported. Masoum Marzouk, a former ambassador, and two other prominent opposition activists were arrested on Thursday. Marzouk had recently called for a referendum on Sisi's rule, in rare public criticism of the former general.

Brazil's Lula plays kingmaker from his prison cell

It is Thursday outside a government building in this tidy city in southern Brazil. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the country's former president, is receiving visitors to plot his political future. Never mind that this compound, the regional federal police headquarters, doubles as a prison for corrupt politicians. Or that Lula, as this leftist icon is universally known, is serving a 12-year sentence for graft.

German conservative says community service would help migrants integrate

Completing a year of community service would improve the integration of refugees into German society and their acceptance by the public, the general secretary of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party said on Saturday. Many members of the Christian Democrat Union supported either reinstating the military draft or a year of community service, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers and the French newspaper Ouest-France in an interview published on Saturday.

U.S. official says EU aid for Iran sends 'wrong message'

The top U.S. envoy on Iran criticized a European Union decision to give $20.7 million in aid to Tehran on Friday, saying it sent "the wrong message at the wrong time," and he urged Brussels to help Washington end the Iranian threat to global stability. "Foreign aid from European taxpayers perpetuates the regime's ability to neglect the needs of its people and stifles meaningful policy changes," Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)