Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Ethiopian Airlines flight crashes, killing 157

An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board and raising questions about the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new model that also crashed in Indonesia in October. Sunday's flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8:38 a.m. (0538 GMT), before losing contact with the control tower just a few minutes later at 8:44 a.m. Australia's ruling coalition loses 50th straight Newspoll

Australia's conservative government is heading for defeat in a looming election, a widely watched opinion poll showed on Monday, after disappointing news on the economy tarnished the credibility of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Notching its 50th poll loss in a row, the Liberal-National coalition trailed the center-left Labor Party by 54 percent to 46 percent on a two-party preferred basis. New Assad statue triggers protest in cradle of Syrian revolt

Hundreds of Syrians in the southern city of Deraa protested on Sunday at the erection of a new statue of President Bashar al-Assad's late father, nearly eight years after the original was toppled at the outbreak of Syria's civil war. Demonstrators and witnesses said residents walked through the war-ravaged old quarter of the city calling for Assad's overthrow, days before the eighth anniversary of the start of the conflict. Germany criticizes Turkey in row over reporters

Two German journalists left Turkey on Sunday after authorities there rejected their press accreditations, a step that drew condemnation from Germany's foreign minister and revived diplomatic tensions. The departure of Joerg Brase, a correspondent for ZDF television, and Thomas Seibert, who works for newspaper Tagesspiegel, came a day after Germany warned its citizens they risked arrest in Turkey for expressing views Ankara may not like. U.S.-backed Syrian force attacks Islamic State enclave

U.S.-backed Syrian forces launched an assault against the final Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria on Sunday, aiming to wipe out the last vestige of its self-declared "caliphate" that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria. While the Baghouz enclave represents the last shred of populated land held by the jihadists, the group is still widely seen as a big security threat operating in remote territory elsewhere and able to launch guerrilla attacks. Nerves fray, tempers flare as Venezuela blackout hits fourth day

Furious Venezuelans lined up to buy water and fuel on Sunday as the country endured a fourth day of a nationwide blackout that has left already-scarce food rotting in shops, homes suffering for lack of water and cell phones without reception. Authorities have managed to provide only patchy access to power since the outage began on Thursday in what President Nicolas Maduro called an act of U.S.-backed sabotage, but critics insist it is the result of incompetence and corruption. Spokesman of leading Rwandan opposition politician found dead

The spokesman for leading Rwandan opposition politician Victoire Ingabire has been found dead, a government official said on Sunday. It was not immediately clear how 30-year-old Anselme Mutuyimana had died. Without change, UK PM May's Brexit deal faces heavy defeat, warn eurosceptics

British Prime Minster Theresa May faces a heavy defeat in parliament on Tuesday if she asks lawmakers to vote again on her Brexit deal without having secured any changes to it, the heads of two key eurosceptic groupings in parliament said on Sunday. May's government is scrambling - so far unsuccessfully - to secure last-minute changes to an exit agreement with the European Union before a vote on Tuesday on whether to approve the deal. Exclusive: Two Belgian women, renouncing Islamic State, fear kids will never go home

Two Belgian women who joined Islamic State in Syria said on Sunday they were losing hope they will ever go home after a Belgian court overturned a ruling to repatriate them with their six children. Tatiana Wielandt and Bouchra Abouallal, each 26, said that as much as it pains them, they would send the children to Belgium for a better life and stay behind if it came to that. Ailing president returns to Algeria as mass protests swirl

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika flew home to Algeria on Sunday after spending two weeks in a Swiss hospital, state television said, returning to a country where crowds of protesters have mounted the biggest threat to his 20-year rule. A government plane transporting the ailing president arrived at Boufarik military airport near the capital, Algiers. Ennahar TV showed footage of what it said was a convoy of vehicles transporting him.