Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Rural Ecuador faces coronavirus outbreak without doctors

When a group of villagers in the Ecuadorean fishing community of El Real came down with coughs and fevers in early April, nobody was sure if they had the coronavirus - and no health workers were available to diagnose or treat them. Their local doctor, like many of rural Ecuador's health workers, had been transferred to the country's biggest city, Guayaquil. There, the COVID-19 pandemic had overwhelmed hospitals and left authorities struggling to collect bodies. Rwanda genocide suspect Kabuga opposes transfer to U.N. tribunal: lawyers

Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga has the right to be presumed innocent and opposes being transferred from France to a U.N. tribunal based in Tanzania, his lawyers said in a statement. Kabuga, 84, is accused of bankrolling ethnic militias that massacred some 800,000 people in Rwanda's 1994 genocide and had been on the run for a quarter of a century until his arrest on Saturday in a Paris suburb. After U.S. warning, Iran says its navy will still operate in Gulf

The Iranian navy will maintain regular missions in the Gulf, the ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday, a day after the United States warned mariners there to stay away from U.S. warships. "The naval units of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman will continue their regular missions in accordance with professional principles as in the past," ISNA quoted an unnamed military official as saying. Man sentenced to death in Singapore on Zoom call

A judge in Singapore has sentenced a man to death via a Zoom video-call for his role in a drug deal, one of just two known cases where a capital punishment verdict has been delivered remotely. Punithan Genasan, a 37-year-old Malaysian, was told on Friday he would be hanged for masterminding a 2011 heroin transaction, court documents showed, as the country was under lockdown to try and curb its coronavirus outbreak. Swiss attorney general answers questions ahead of possible impeachment

Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber attended a meeting of the parliamentary judicial committee on Wednesday to answer questions about how he handled an investigation into corruption at soccer body FIFA. Lauber, who was narrowly re-elected for another four-year term last year, has been accused by anti-corruption campaigners of bungling a fraud trial over payments linked to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Britain sets out post-Brexit border plans with Northern Ireland

Britain said on Wednesday it saw no need for new customs infrastructure with Northern Ireland as it unveiled its proposals for how the border with the province would work next year when a status quo transition period ends with the EU. Britain left the EU in January and has until the end of this year to negotiate an agreement on future ties or start 2021 without a trade agreement, which some businesses say could cause costly delays and confusion at borders. 'It's up to us': how Merkel and Macron revived EU solidarity

It took a courtroom of scarlet-robed judges to spur Angela Merkel to make one of her boldest moves in 15 years as German chancellor: propose huge cash handouts to the European Union's weaker economies. Merkel was already worried about the future of the Union after the coronavirus pandemic struck Europe in February, triggering a wave of deaths and crippling lockdowns. UK's Cambridge University to hold all lectures online next year

Britain's Cambridge University became one of the first in the world on Wednesday to announce that all its lectures would be delivered online over the next academic year because of the coronavirus outbreak. The university, which shut its campuses to students in March after the British government introduced a strict lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, said teaching would be delivered virtually until summer 2021, although it was possible some smaller teaching groups might be able to occur in person. Strongest cyclone in over a decade slams into India, Bangladesh

A powerful cyclone barrelled into eastern India on Wednesday with heavy rain, wind and waves as millions of people were evacuated from there and neighbouring Bangladesh in an operation complicated by the campaign against the novel coronavirus. Cyclone Amphan had begun moving inland, the India Meteorological Department said in a bulletin at 3 p.m. (0930 GMT), after brewing for days in the Bay of Bengal to become one of the strongest storms to hit the region in about a decade. Taiwan president rejects Beijing rule; China says 'reunification' inevitable

Taiwan cannot accept becoming part of China under its "one country, two systems" offer of autonomy , President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday, strongly rejecting China's sovereignty claims and likely setting the stage for an ever worsening of ties. China responded that "reunification" was inevitable and that it would never tolerate Taiwan's independence.