World News Roundup: Mass murderer Breivik to apply for parole; Indian, China troops exchanged gunshots twice last week as tensions rose and more

In recent months, these care workers have taken to calling themselves "priso-nurses." Chances of Brexit deal fading every day, EU Commission chief says The head of the European Commission said on Wednesday the chances of reaching a trade deal with Britain were fading by the day as the British government pushes ahead with moves that would breach their divorce treaty.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Mass murderer Breivik to apply for parole: report

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik will seek to apply for parole, his lawyer told daily VG on Wednesday. The far-right extremist killed eight people with a bomb in Oslo and shot dead 69 others on an island nearby, many of them teenagers attending a Labour Party youth camp in July 2011, in what is Norway's worst peacetime atrocity.

Indian, China troops exchanged gunshots twice last week as tensions rose

Indian and Chinese border troops had an exchange of gunfire last week just days before a meeting of their foreign ministers, Indian officials said on Wednesday, in a further breach of a decades-old restraint at the frontier. The two sides have had a long-standing agreement for troops not to use firearms at the poorly defined Line of Actual Control or the informal border and for 45 years no shot has been fired.

Maduro security forces committed crimes against humanity: U.N.

Venezuelan security forces and allied groups have committed systematic human rights violations including killings and torture amounting to crimes against humanity, U.N. investigators said on Wednesday. Reasonable grounds existed to believe that President Nicolas Maduro and his interior and defense ministers ordered or contributed to the crimes documented in the report in order to silence opposition, they said.

WikiLeaks' Assange was careful to protect informants, court hears

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange was careful to ensure that the names of informants in hundreds of thousands of leaked secret U.S. government documents were never published, his London extradition hearing was told on Wednesday. Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting against being sent to the United States, where he is charged with conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law over the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011.

Pandemic 'hero' Filipino nurses struggle to leave home

From across the Philippines, they gathered to pray by Zoom. They were praying to be allowed to leave: To be allowed to take up nursing jobs in countries where the coronavirus is killing thousands in hospitals and care homes. In recent months, these care workers have taken to calling themselves "priso-nurses."

Chances of Brexit deal fading every day, EU Commission chief says

The head of the European Commission said on Wednesday the chances of reaching a trade deal with Britain were fading by the day as the British government pushes ahead with moves that would breach their divorce treaty. The British government unveiled draft legislation last week which it acknowledges would violate its international legal obligations and undercut parts of the divorce deal it signed before Britain formally left the European Union in January.

Japan's Suga crafts 'continuity cabinet' after voted prime minister

Japan's Yoshihide Suga was voted prime minister by parliament on Wednesday to become the country's first new leader in nearly eight years, appointing a new cabinet that kept about half of the familiar faces from predecessor Shinzo Abe's lineup. Suga, 71, Abe's longtime right-hand man, has pledged to pursue many of Abe's programmes, including his "Abenomics" economic strategy, and to forge ahead with structural reforms, including deregulation and shutting down bureaucratic turf battles.

Greece struggles to bring migrants into temporary camp after fire

Greek authorities were still struggling on Wednesday to move thousands of migrants sleeping rough into a temporary camp, a week after the overcrowded Moria migrant camp burned down, while fears grew over a coronavirus outbreak on the island of Lesbos. More than 12,000 people, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, Africa and Syria, were left without shelter, proper sanitation or access to food and water by the fire that tore through Moria, Greece's biggest camp for migrants reaching its islands by sea.

Exclusive: U.S. pushes arms sales surge to 'Fortress Taiwan,' needling China

The United States plans to sell as many as seven major weapons systems, including mines, cruise missiles and drones to Taiwan, four people familiar with the discussions said, as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on China. Pursuing seven sales at once is a rare departure from years of precedent in which U.S. military sales to the island were spaced out and carefully calibrated to minimize tensions with Beijing.

'Hotel Rwanda' hero could face maximum life in prison, prosecution says

Paul Rusesabagina, portrayed as a hero in a Hollywood movie about Rwanda's 1994 genocide, may face 25 years to life in prison if convicted of various offences, the prosecution said. Rusesabagina, who once called for armed resistance to the government in a YouTube video, was charged in a Kigali court on Monday with 13 counts including terrorism, complicity in murder and forming or joining an irregular armed group.

(With inputs from agencies.)