Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. U.S. calls for probe of bombing of hospital in Yemen

A U.S. State Department spokesman on Thursday called the bombing earlier this week of a Save the Children-supported hospital in Yemen "awful" and urged the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen to conduct an investigation. "I saw those reports, they're awful. The United States takes them seriously and we're seeking more information," spokesman Robert Palladino told a media briefing. The Philippine journalists taking the rap in Duterte's latest war

When Filipino journalist Pia Ranada fell into a ditch and injured her leg on election day, May 9, 2016, the presidential candidate she was reporting on drove her to hospital and sat with her as she was treated. Less than two years later, that same man, by then in the midst of a bloody crackdown on drugs in which around 5,000 suspects were killed by police, attacked her during a national broadcast. Wife of missing ex-Interpol chief says arrest in China politically motivated

The wife of the missing Chinese former head of Interpol on Thursday dismissed allegations by authorities in China accusing her husband of graft and said his arrest was politically motivated. China will prosecute former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei for graft after an investigation found he spent "lavish" amounts of state funds, abused his power and refused to follow Communist Party decisions, Beijing's anti-corruption watchdog said in a statement on Wednesday. Mosque victims' names read out to silent crowd at New Zealand memorial

Thousands stood in silence in a Christchurch park on Friday as the names of 50 people shot dead in two mosques were read out at a national memorial service, with speakers calling for the legacy of the tragedy to be a kinder, more tolerant New Zealand. Dozens of representatives of governments from around the world joined New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the remembrance service in Hagley Park, near the Al Noor mosque where more than 40 of the victims were killed by a suspected white supremacist during Friday prayers on March 15. Magnitude 6.1 quake hits off Russia's Kuril Islands: USGS

A magnitude 6.1 quake struck off Russia's Kuril Islands, southeast of the Kamchatka peninsula, which lies on the earthquake-prone Ring of Fire, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicenter of the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 6.5, was 168 miles (270 km) east of the small town of Severo-Kurilsk, the USGS said. Venezuela slowly gets back electricity after massive blackout

Several cities in Venezuela, including most of capital Caracas, recovered electricity gradually on Thursday, according to Reuters witnesses, after the second blackout in less than a month left the oil-rich country without power for days. President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday night blamed the outage, which began on Monday afternoon, on a "terrorist attack" on the Guri hydroelectric facility that provides electricity to most of the country, and announced a plan of "load management" for the coming days, without providing details. Chile court opens door for more Church sex abuse victims to seek damages

Chile's Catholic Church should prepare itself for an onslaught of new civil suits from victims seeking compensation for past cases of sexual abuse, a lawyer who successfully sued the Archdiocese of Santiago said on Thursday. Juan Pablo Hermosilla said a Chilean court's decision on Wednesday to force Chile's most influential archdiocese to pay his clients more than $400,000 in damages has opened the door for other "victims of abuse in church settings," to seek financial compensation. Brazil government, house speaker bury hatchet to save pension bill

Brazil's president, economy minister and speaker of the lower house of Congress patched things up publicly on Thursday, trying to move past days of finger pointing to focus on passing a thorny pension reform to save the country's public finances. Their pledge to bury the hatchet helped Brazilian markets rebound a day after a sharp plunge on fears that the bickering would sink the cornerstone of the government's economic agenda. Venezuela's Fabiana Rosales, a young activist, emerges into the political spotlight

Barely two months after emerging from obscurity in her home country of Venezuela, political activist Fabiana Rosales sat in the Oval Office across from U.S. President Donald Trump in a yellow armchair normally reserved for visiting heads of state. Rosales' husband is Juan Guaido, the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly who invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January. While she was drumming up support at the White House, Guaido was calling for protests against a nationwide blackout, the second to hit the oil-rich country in a month. UK PM May plans watered-down Brexit vote to secure departure delay

British Prime Minister Theresa May scrambled on Thursday for a way to secure a new delay to Brexit in the face of parliamentary deadlock by setting out plans for a watered-down vote on her EU divorce deal to be held on Friday. Lawmakers will vote on May's withdrawal agreement at a special sitting but not on the framework for future relations with the EU she negotiated at the same time, a maneuver which sparked confusion among lawmakers.