Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. U.S. lawmakers criticize Saudi Arabia, ask about weapons restrictions

The chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee said on Wednesday he was troubled by a report that Saudi Arabia transferred weapons to extremist groups in Yemen and questioned whether Congress should consider more restrictions on weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition. Later on Wednesday, the committee voted 25 to 17, along party lines, in favor of a war powers resolution that would prevent the U.S. military from providing any support to the Saudis and other countries waging war on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen's civil war. Trump says may declare Islamic State defeated next week

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he expected a formal announcement as early as next week that the coalition fighting Islamic State militants has reclaimed all of the territory previously held by the extremist group. "Their land is gone. It's a big factor - their land is gone," Trump told foreign ministers and other senior officials from 79 countries that have worked alongside the United States in fighting the militant group in Syria and Iraq. Work urgently with me on Brexit: Britain's May appeals to EU

Prime Minister Theresa May will call on the European Union on Thursday to work with her to change a divorce deal and help her win the support of a divided parliament to smooth Britain's departure from the bloc. Before arriving in Brussels for talks with EU leaders, May acknowledged that her task - to force change to a deal agreed almost three months ago - would not be easy, and a government source said a breakthrough on Thursday was not expected. Nigeria leader's ally says foreigners who intervene in poll face 'body bags'

A key ally of Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday said people from overseas who sought to intervene in the country's election to be held in little over a week would go back in body bags. Nasir El-Rufai, governor of the northern state of Kaduna, made the comments during a discussion program on the Nigerian Television Authority when the topic of the international community's role in elections was raised. It followed an international outcry over the suspension of Nigeria's top judge. 'Get out of Syria,' Iran tells U.S.

Senior Iranian figures said on Wednesday that Syria was a top foreign policy priority and American troops should withdraw, as planned by U.S. President Donald Trump. "Whether they want to or not, the Americans must leave Syria," Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reported as saying. Colony or not, we're British, say Gibraltarians. And keep the border open

With London fuming over whether Gibraltar should still be called a "colony", residents of the British outpost on the southern tip of Spain said they were more worried about life after Brexit than about which word best explained their status. In the latest Brexit quarrel between Britain and the European Union, Her Majesty's Government complained last week that the peninsula of 33,000 residents should not have been described as a "colony" in a draft EU text on visa-free travel. Afghan Taliban: no date yet for U.S. troops drawdown

A Taliban official said on Wednesday that no timetable had been agreed with the U.S. government for the partial withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and that negotiations were still underway. Earlier, Russia's RIA news agency had quoted a Taliban official at peace talks in Moscow as saying that Washington had promised to pull out half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April. Libya's sovereign wealth fund chairman detained: official

The chairman of Libya's sovereign wealth fund, Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed, was detained on Wednesday for an investigation into alleged "corruption and exploitation of (his) position," an official in the attorney general's office said. Mohamed had been appointed by the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli. Venezuela opposition plans U.S. fund to secure oil money

Venezuela's opposition on Wednesday disclosed a key step to secure financing in its effort to dislodge President Nicolas Maduro, the opening of a U.S. fund to receive oil income, and decried the government's overseas gold sales. The U.S. fund would receive income accrued by state-run oil firm PDVSA's U.S. unit Citgo Petroleum Corp since last month, when U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Juan Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate head of state, opposition legislator Carlos Paparoni told Reuters. Mexico to send police and military force of 10,200 to murder hot spots

Mexico began beefing up law enforcement in its most violent districts this week, officials said on Wednesday, sending the first of 10,200 troops and police to reduce murder rates in 17 hot spots, in the first phase of a program it plans to expand. Homicides rose by one-third last year, breaking a record for the second consecutive year and underscoring the challenge facing Mexico's new president to rein in the violence that has spiraled over the last decade amid a military-led war on drug trafficking.