Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. OECD troubled by allegations Canada meddled in SNC-Lavalin case

A major intergovernmental economic group expressed its concern on Monday over allegations the Canadian government tried to interfere in a criminal case against a major construction firm and reminded Ottawa of its promise to respect the independence of prosecutors. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is mired in a crisis over allegations that top officials pressured a former attorney general to direct prosecutors to strike a deal with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc rather than go ahead with a corruption trial on charges of bribing officials in Libya. U.S. says North Korea diplomacy 'very much alive,' but watching rocket site

The chief U.S. envoy for North Korea said on Monday that "diplomacy is still very much alive" with Pyongyang despite a failed summit last month, but cautioned that Washington was closely watching activity at a North Korean rocket site and did not know if it might be planning a new launch. Stephen Biegun told a conference in Washington that although U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un parted on good terms after their Feb. 27-28 summit in Hanoi, big gaps remained between the two sides and North Korea needed to show it was fully committed to giving up its nuclear weapons. Desperate Venezuelans swarm sewage drains in search of water

As Venezuela's five-day power blackout left homes without water, Lilibeth Tejedor found herself looking for it on Monday in the last place she would have imagined - a drain pipe feeding into a river carrying sewage through the capital, Caracas. Tejedor, 28, joined dozens of people who had flocked to the Guaire river, which snakes along the bottom of a sharp ravine alongside Caracas' main highway, to fill up a four-gallon (15 liter) plastic container. Venezuela congress declares 'state of alarm' over blackout

Venezuela's opposition-run congress on Monday declared a "state of alarm" over a five-day power blackout that has crippled the OPEC nation's oil exports and left millions of citizens scrambling to find food and water. Much of Venezuela remained without power on Monday, although electricity had largely returned to the capital of Caracas following an outage on Thursday that President Nicolas Maduro called an act of U.S.-backed sabotage. Algeria's Bouteflika abandons re-election bid after weeks of protest

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika abandoned his bid for a fifth term in power on Monday, bowing to weeks of mass demonstrations against his 20-year rule by people demanding a new era of politics in a country dominated by an old guard. The veteran revolutionary also postponed an election that had been set for April, and promised social and economic reform. Last Islamic State enclave in eastern Syria pounded in U.S.-backed assault

Islamic State's final enclave in eastern Syria was pounded with air strikes and artillery on Monday in a U.S.-backed assault aimed at wiping out the last shred of its territorial rule that once spanned a third of Syria and Iraq. Fires raged after dark in the enclave at Baghouz near the Iraqi border as it was targeted with rockets and thick plumes of smoke rose from the area, Reuters TV footage showed. Heavy gunfire could be heard and flares lit up the night sky. Algeria's Bouteflika - from revolutionary to ailing recluse

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a veteran of Algeria's war for independence who has ruled for two decades, announced on Monday he had reversed his decision to seek a fifth term following weeks of mass demonstrations. Bouteflika, 82 and rarely seen in public since a stroke in 2013, had returned to Algeria on Sunday after medical treatment in Switzerland - coming home to a country in the grip of protests against his decision to stand again in the elections. May urged by some lawmakers to pull vote on Brexit deal: The Times

British Prime Minister Theresa May has been urged by senior Conservative lawmakers to pull Tuesday's vote in parliament on her Brexit deal because she is likely to be badly defeated, The Times newspaper reported. Frenchman convicted to life in Jewish museum attack, tells jury 'life goes on!'

French citizen Mehdi Nemmouche was sentenced to life in jail on Monday for shooting dead four people in a Jewish museum in 2014, telling the court "life goes on" in his last words to the jury. The families of victims and survivors of the attacks voiced relief at the end of a two-month-long jury trial dogged by controversy over what they denounced as conspiracy theories put forward by Nemmouche's defense lawyers. U.S. says 737 MAX safe to fly after Ethiopia crash, Boeing shares dip

The United States told airlines it was safe to fly 737 MAX 8 planes on Monday as investigators found two black box recorders that will help piece together the final moments of an Ethiopian Airlines jet before it plunged to the ground on Sunday. China and Indonesia grounded their fleets of 737 MAX 8 aircraft earlier on Monday, citing safety concerns, contributing to a drop in Boeing Co shares that wiped billions of dollars off the market value of the world's biggest plane maker.