Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Ex-Hong Kong official sentenced to three years in prison in U.S. bribery case

A former Hong Kong government official was sentenced to three years in prison on Monday by a U.S. judge following his conviction for bribing officials in Chad and Uganda in exchange for contracts for a Chinese energy company. Chi Ping Patrick Ho, 69, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan federal court, where he had been found guilty of seven criminal charges last December. Ho, who has been in jail since his arrest 16 months ago, had sought a sentence of time served, while prosecutors had sought five years. Venezuela blames 'attack' as another crippling blackout hits

Venezuela blamed an "attack" on its electric system for a blackout on Monday, the second to hit the OPEC nation this month, that shuttered businesses, plunged the main airport into darkness and left commuters stranded in the capital. Power went out in much of Caracas and nearly a dozen states in the early afternoon, stirring memories of a week-long outage earlier in the month that was the most severe in the country's history. Canadian judge says ex-Guantanamo inmate's war crimes sentence has expired

A judge in Alberta, Canada, ruled on Monday that the war crimes sentence of a Canadian man formerly held at U.S. military base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has expired, making Omar Khadr a free man. Khadr was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay, charged with throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Army Sergeant Christopher Speer. Trump, allies attack president's critics after he is cleared of Russia collusion

President Donald Trump, cleared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller of conspiring with Russia in the 2016 U.S. election, vented his anger on Monday at the inquiry and vowed investigations into unnamed political enemies who did "evil" and "treasonous things." The Republican president and his allies in Congress went on the offensive a day after the release of a summary of Mueller's report gave him a political victory ahead of his 2020 re-election bid, with no allegations of criminal wrongdoing brought against him at the end of a nearly two-year-long inquiry. Israel, Hamas clash over Gaza, then truce reached

Israel launched air strikes on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza and deployed extra troops to the border on Monday in response to the longest-range Hamas rocket attack to cause casualties in years. After a day of intense cross-border fighting, Palestinian officials said Egypt had mediated a ceasefire, though the frontier did not remain calm for long. Brazil's Israel embassy move requires more study: president's spokesman

Brazil's decision on whether to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem deserves deeper study, and that is what President Jair Bolsonaro is doing, his spokesman said on Monday. General Otavio Rego Barros also told reporters in Brasilia that there was no timeline for Brazil to forfeit special and differential treatment in World Trade Organization negotiations, part of a series of agreements reached with the United States during Bolsonaro's trip to Washington last week. 'Time's up, Theresa'? PM May urged to set her own exit date to get Brexit deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May was under pressure on Monday to give a date for leaving office as the price to bring Brexit-supporting rebel lawmakers in her party behind her twice-defeated European Union divorce treaty. At one of the most important junctures for the country in at least a generation, British politics was at fever pitch and, nearly three years since the 2016 referendum, it was still unclear how, when or if Brexit will ever take place. Trump recognizes Golan Heights as Israeli, boosting Netanyahu and angering Syria

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday recognized Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights in an election boost for visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, prompting a sharp response from Syria, which once held the strategic land. With Netanyahu looking over his shoulder at the White House, Trump signed a proclamation officially granting U.S. recognition of the Golan as Israeli territory - a dramatic shift from decades of U.S. policy. U.S. envoy says fight against Islamic State militants will go on

The U.S.-led coalition fight against Islamic State in Syria is not over, even though the group no longer controls territory, the chief U.S. diplomat for Syria warned on Monday and said the whereabouts of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were unknown. U.S. envoy for Syria, Jim Jeffrey, speaking to a briefing at the State Department, said Islamic State's loss of its last territorial stronghold in Syria over the weekend was a "great day" but the fight against the group will go on and U.S. forces would remain in Syria in limited numbers to help. Boeing readies 737 MAX software fix as families wait for crash report

Boeing Co will provide airlines that have bought the 737 MAX with free software upgrades, the U.S. manufacturer said on Monday, as Ethiopian Airlines told Reuters it expected a preliminary crash report this week or next. Any fixes to the MAX software, the focus of investigations in two deadly crashes that have prompted worldwide groundings of the aircraft, must still get approval from governments around the world.