Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. U.N. to replace head of Yemen truce monitoring mission: diplomats

The head of a United Nations mission tasked with overseeing a peace deal in Yemen's Hodeidah port city plans to step down next month and will be replaced with a Danish official, U.N. diplomats said on Thursday. Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert arrived in Hodeidah late last month to lead an advance team of monitors observing a ceasefire and redeployment of forces agreed by the Iranian-aligned Houthi group and Saudi-backed Yemen government forces. Exclusive: Syrian Kurdish YPG expects negotiations with Damascus soon

The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia believes talks with the government over the future of the northeast region will begin in days after a "positive" reaction from Damascus. Any deal between the YPG and President Bashar al-Assad's state could piece together the two biggest chunks of a nation splintered by eight years of conflict. Fear and favor chill newsroom at storied Japanese paper

Early in December, dozens of journalists and editors from the Japan Times gathered for an emergency meeting in a glass-walled conference room in their brand-new 14th floor office. On the agenda was a single, incendiary issue: the newspaper's new descriptions of how Japan compelled thousands of foreigners into military brothels and labor during World War Two. U.S. seeks to cut off money for Venezuela's Maduro, aid opposition

The United States is seeking to ensure that Venezuelan oil revenue goes to opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido, and to cut off money from increasingly isolated President Nicolas Maduro, a top U.S. official said on Thursday. Although short on details, the announcement signals that Washington is willing to go beyond traditional diplomatic measures and will seek to drain cash from Maduro's government, which is already struggling under an unprecedented economic meltdown. Pope says killing of women has become 'plague' in Latin America

Pope Francis urged Latin America's leaders on Thursday to shun corruption and tackle gang violence, drug trafficking and the killing of women, which he said had become a "plague" in his native continent. Francis, on the first full day of his trip to Panama for a Catholic youth festival, also addressed migration for the second straight day, saying more had to be done to overcome fears and suspicions because most migrants were seeking a better life for their families. Exclusive: U.N. expert to lead international inquiry into Khashoggi murder

The United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions told Reuters on Thursday she will travel to Turkey next week to head an "independent international inquiry" into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post and a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents at its consulate in Istanbul on Oct 2, provoking an international outcry. U.S. to begin returning asylum seekers to Mexico on Friday

The United States will return the first group of migrants seeking U.S. asylum to the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Friday, a Mexican government spokesman said on Thursday. In a major policy change, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration said on Dec. 20 it would send non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed. Protests rock Sudanese cities, one more dead

Protests raged across Sudanese cities on Thursday and another demonstrator died in the most widespread rallies of anti-government unrest that began last month. The 24-year-old man died from his wounds in Omdurman, a city across the Nile from the capital Khartoum, where crowds were railing against Sudan's three-decade ruler Omar al-Bashir. Brazil weakens law aimed at holding government to account

Brazil's new far-right government on Thursday gave hundreds more public servants the power to keep official records from the public for decades by labeling them "secret" and "ultra-secret." Vice President Hamilton Mourao, standing in while President Jair Bolsonaro was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, signed the decree expanding exceptions within the 2011 transparency law. 'El Chapo' trial reveals drug lord's love life, business dealings

On a typical day, Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman would wake at noon and make calls while strolling under the trees in the mountains of his native Sinaloa state, where he was in hiding, a witness recently testified at the kingpin's trial. The infamous gangster's personal life and business dealings have gone on public display since mid-November at a courthouse in New York, where Guzman faces 17 criminal counts and a possible life sentence.