Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. U.S.-backed force won't release jihadists, but warns they could escape

Kurdish-led authorities in north Syria said on Monday they would not free foreign Islamic State detainees but countries must take responsibility for them, after U.S. President Donald Trump said jihadists would be freed unless Europe takes them back. Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the Kurdish-led region, said around 800 foreign fighters were being held in prisons, along with around 700 wives and 1,500 children in camps for the displaced. Dozens more detainees and relatives were arriving by the day. India says two masterminds of Kashmir bombing killed in clash

Indian security forces on Monday killed two suspected organizers of a suicide bombing in the disputed region of Kashmir that has fueled tension between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, police said, with four soldiers also killed in the clash. The suicide bomb attack on a paramilitary police convoy in Indian-controlled Kashmir last Thursday killed at least 40 men, the deadliest single attack on Indian forces in 30 years of insurgency in the Muslim-majority region. North Korea's 'socialist utopia' needs mass labor. A growing market economy threatens that

In January, thousands of North Korean students traveled to Mount Paektu, a sacred mountain where the ruling family claims its roots and where leader Kim Jong Un is building a massive economic hub at the alpine town of Samjiyon. It is one of the largest construction initiatives Kim has launched, part of his campaign for a "self-reliant economy" even as he seeks to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to lift economic sanctions at their second summit later this month. The five candidates running in Senegal's presidential election

Senegal, the most stable democracy in West Africa, is preparing for an election on Sunday with President Macky Sall facing off against four other candidates. Sall is widely expected to win a second term, after the country's two best-known opposition figures were barred from running because of corruption allegations, in moves critics said represented a worrying crackdown on dissent. Four Zimbabwe generals retired in Mnangagwa's first purge of military

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa retired four generals on Monday, in the first major shake-up of the armed forces since he took office and including the man who led a deadly crackdown against post-election protests in August. The quartet's removal also coincided with the absence abroad of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga - the retired general responsible for ousting former president Robert Mugabe in November 2017 and now widely viewed inside the country as the power behind Mnangagwa's administration. Poland pulls out of Israel summit in row over WW2 role

Poland pulled out of a planned summit in Israel on Monday, its prime minister said, after Israel's acting foreign minister said "many Poles" had collaborated with the Nazis in World War Two and shared responsibility for the Holocaust. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki branded the remarks "racist and unacceptable". He had previously said he would not join Tuesday's gathering of central European leaders in Israel but said that no Polish officials would now attend. Seven lawmakers quit UK Labour Party citing Brexit 'betrayal', anti-Semitism

Seven Labour lawmakers quit Britain's main opposition party on Monday over leader Jeremy Corbyn's approach to Brexit and a row over anti-Semitism, saying Labour had been "hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left." The departure of the small group of lawmakers underlines the mounting frustration with Corbyn's reluctance to change his Brexit strategy and start campaigning for a second referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. U.S. pressing Gulf states to keep Syria isolated: sources

The United States is lobbying Gulf states to hold off restoring ties with Syria, including the UAE which has moved closer to Damascus to counter the influence of its rival Iran, five sources told Reuters. The opposing approaches are an early test of whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can gain political and diplomatic credibility after a nearly eight-year civil war turned him into an international pariah. Alibaba is the force behind hit Chinese Communist Party app: sources

A Chinese government propaganda app that recently became a huge hit was developed by Alibaba, two people at the company told Reuters, at a time when the nation's tech firms are under global scrutiny over their ties to Beijing. "Xuexi Qiangguo", which literally translates as 'Study to make China strong' and is a play on the government propaganda theme of applying President Xi Jinping's thoughts, overtook Tik Tok and WeChat to become the county's most popular app on Apple's China app store last week. Polish NGO leaves to deliver sex abuse report to Pope

Representatives of a Polish NGO helping victims of child abuse committed by Catholic priests left Warsaw early on Monday hoping to deliver a report to Pope Francis in the Vatican about Polish bishops neglecting pedophilia cases. Their trip comes just days before an unprecedented Vatican conference on sex abuse gathering senior bishops from around the world to discuss how best the 1.3 billion-member Church can tackle a problem that has decimated the Church’s credibility.