Reuters World News Summary

UK PM Johnson speaks to Biden, discusses COVID-19 and climate change British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he spoke to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday about working together on tackling climate change and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. EU seeks 'new transatlantic agenda' with Biden: chief executive

The United States and European Union need to forge a new transatlantic alliance in areas such as climate change and the digital economy under president-elect Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday. Europe, she said, should take the initiative, with an offer to work with the next U.S. administration, stressing it would not mean a return to the agenda of five years ago. Analysis: Putin draws Erdogan a red line on Russia's southern flank with Karabakh deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin has brokered a Nagorno-Karabakh peace deal that locks in territorial gains for Turkey-backed Azerbaijan. In doing so, he has thwarted a stronger Turkish presence in a region Moscow views as its backyard. Six weeks of heavy fighting between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the enclave have tested Moscow's influence in the South Caucasus, a swath of the former Soviet Union it views as vital to defending its own southern flank. Europe COVID death toll tops 300,000 as winter looms and infections surge

More than 300,000 people have died of COVID-19 across Europe, according to a Reuters tally on Tuesday, and authorities fear that fatalities and infections will continue to rise as the region heads into winter despite hopes for a new vaccine. With just 10% of the world's population, Europe accounts for almost a quarter of the 1.2 million deaths globally, and even its well-equipped hospitals are feeling the strain. UK PM Johnson speaks to Biden, discusses COVID-19 and climate change

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he spoke to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday about working together on tackling climate change and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. "I just spoke to @JoeBiden to congratulate him on his election," Johnson said in a tweet. Russia deploys troops to Nagorno-Karabakh after ceasefire deal announced

Russian peacekeeping troops deployed to the war-ravaged enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early hours of Tuesday as part of a ceasefire deal President Vladimir Putin said should pave the way for a lasting political settlement of the conflict there. The deal, agreed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, ushered in a full ceasefire from midnight Moscow time on Nov. 10, freezing a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced many more and threatened to plunge the wider region into war. UK PM Johnson to appoint director of communications Lee Cain as chief of staff: The Times

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is poised to appoint his director of communications Lee Cain as new chief of staff, The Times reported. Cain had earlier served under Johnson's aide Dominic Cummings in the 2016 Brexit "Vote Leave" campaign and his promotion is part of a shake-up of Johnson's Downing Street operation, the newspaper said. Report into disgraced ex U.S. cardinal shows failings by popes, top clerics

Pope John Paul II promoted ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2000 despite rumours of his sexual misconduct, a Vatican report found, one of a series of failings by popes and officials who let him rise through the ranks regardless of repeated allegations against him. McCarrick, a highly influential figure in the American Church, was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood last year after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power. Biden should seek early G20 meeting, former U.S. officials say

President-elect Joe Biden should push for a summit of the Group of 20 major economies early next year, former senior U.S. officials said on Tuesday, to renew the U.S. commitment to diplomacy and fight the global health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, now a professor at Harvard University, former senior Treasury official Mark Sobel and Matthew Goodman, a former White House official during the Obama administration, urged Biden to take early and decisive action to restart the global economy by calling world leaders together quickly. Special Report: Phantom oil buyers in Russia, advice from Iran help Venezuela skirt sanctions

On Aug. 21, a tanker called the Otoman docked at the Jose oil terminal on Venezuela's coast in the Caribbean to load 1.82 million barrels of heavy crude, according to the state oil company's internal documents. Yet no tanker with that name is registered in major global shipping databases. France, Germany push for tighter EU borders after attacks

France and Germany pushed on Tuesday to tighten European Union borders to head off what French President Emmanuel Macron called the "threat of terrorism" after suspected Islamist militants killed eight people in Paris, Nice and Vienna within a month. The attacks refocused the EU's attention on religious extremism, which fell off the top of the political agenda after the 2017 defeat of Islamic State forces in the Middle East.