Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Brazil's Bolsonaro accuses house speaker of trying to remove him from office

Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday accused the speaker of the lower house of Congress of turning state governors against him in the coronavirus crisis and seeking to remove him from the presidency. Bolsonaro fired Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta on Thursday, saying he was not adequately taking the economic fallout from coronavirus lockdowns into consideration. FBI official says foreign hackers have targeted COVID-19 research

A senior cybersecurity official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday that foreign government hackers have broken into companies conducting research into treatments for COVID-19, the sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. FBI Deputy Assistant Director Tonya Ugoretz told participants in an online panel discussion hosted by the Aspen Institute that the bureau had recently seen state-backed hackers poking around a series of healthcare and research institutions. COVID impasse: Bolivian and Peruvian migrants trapped at Chilean border

More than a thousand mainly Bolivian migrants are stranded near Chile's northern border after informal labor sources in their host country dried up but they were unable to return home because of shutdowns to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, refugee groups and both governments have confirmed. The migrants have been gathering for the past two weeks after Bolivia progressively tightened its border after allowing some returnees into quarantine within the country. Protests erupt after deaths at U.S. factories in Mexican border town

Protests have erupted outside factories in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez in recent days after the deaths of several workers, including some employed by U.S. companies, from what the protesters said was the coronavirus. So far, 82 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus in the city that lies across the border from El Paso, Texas, local authorities said on Thursday. A total of 19 have died, the city health department said. U.N. warns economic downturn could kill hundreds of thousands of children in 2020

Hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and tens of millions more could fall into extreme poverty as a result of the crisis, the United Nations warned on Thursday. The world body also said in a risk report that nearly 369 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition have now been forced to look elsewhere. Merkel's conservatives make big poll gains in midst of coronavirus crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc has won support during the coronavirus crisis, hitting its highest level in nearly three years, a poll showed on Thursday. Merkel's cautious approach during the emergency appears to have reaped rewards, as a relatively early shutdown of schools, many factories and shops has had some effect and Europe's biggest economy has announced small steps towards a relaxation. UK extends lockdown measures for at least three more weeks

Britain extended its nationwide lockdown on Thursday as stand-in leader Dominic Raab ordered Britons to stay at home for at least another three weeks to prevent the spread of a coronavirus outbreak which has already claimed over 138,000 lives globally. "We have just come too far, we've lost too many loved ones, we've already sacrificed far too much to ease up now, especially when we are beginning to see the evidence that our efforts are starting to pay off," he told reporters. Poor residents of Colombia's capital protest lack of aid during quarantine

Residents in poor parts of Bogota, the Colombian capital, blocked roads on Thursday to demand authorities make good on promises of aid so they can survive a national quarantine designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The quarantine, now in its fourth week, is set to last until April 27. U.S. gives $5 million to Palestinians amid pandemic, after years of aid cuts

The United States is giving $5 million to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic, a U.S. envoy said on Thursday. The donation announced by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman follows years of aid cuts by President Donald Trump's administration to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. El Chapo's daughter, Mexican cartels hand out coronavirus aid

A daughter of famed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and several Mexican cartels have been doling out aid packages to help cash-strapped residents ride out the coronavirus pandemic. In one video posted on Facebook, Guzman's daughter, Alejandrina, can be seen stuffing toilet paper and food into a cardboard box bearing slick logos and a designer stencil-style image of her father, the former Sinaloa cartel chief who is now in a maximum security U.S. prison.