Reuters World News Summary

The United States has made preparations to withdraw diplomats from Iraq after warning Baghdad it could shut its embassy, two Iraqi officials and two Western diplomats said, a step Iraqis fear could turn their country into a battle zone.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. U.N. chief: time to fund global COVID-19 vaccine effort with money from national plans

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday it is time for countries to start using money from their national COVID-19 recovery and response plans to help fund the World Health Organization's global vaccine plan. The ACT-Accelerator programme and its COVAX facility has so far received $3 billion, but needs another $35 billion. It aims to deliver two billion doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of next year, 245 million treatments and 500 million tests. Kuwait's new emir to be sworn in at tense time for region

Kuwait's new emir takes the oath of office in parliament on Wednesday as the country prepares to lay to rest late ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah who helped steer the Gulf state through some of the Middle East's most turbulent decades. The cabinet of the OPEC oil producer and U.S. ally swiftly named designated successor Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah as new ruler on Tuesday following the death of Sheikh Sabah, 91, whose body is due to arrive in Kuwait on Wednesday from the United States were he had been hospitalised since July. Pompeo, in Rome, pushes criticism of religious freedom in China

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked China's record on religious freedom on Wednesday, during a visit to Rome that has been overshadowed by his criticism of the Vatican for pursuing closer ties with Beijing. "Nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than in China," Pompeo told a symposium hosted by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, saying the Chinese Communist Party was looking to "to snuff out the lamp of freedom ... on a horrifying scale". Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces fight new clashes, international tension mounts

Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces fought new clashes on Wednesday in the biggest eruption of their decades-old conflict since the mid-1990s, and France and Turkey traded recriminations as international tensions mounted. Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh said there were attacks from both sides along the line of contact that divides them. Quiet please: French jet's sonic boom shakes Paris, disrupts tennis

A French fighter jet broke the sound barrier on Wednesday as it scrambled to join a commercial jet that had lost contact with air traffic control, causing a sonic boom that reverberated through Paris and its suburbs, the defence ministry said. The boom rattled windows, scattered startled birds, briefly interrupted tennis at the French Open and prompted a flood of calls to emergency services. Pompeo warns Italy over China's economic influence

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday he was concerned about China's plans to extend its economic influence in Italy and warned Rome to be on its guard. Looking to reassure Pompeo, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told a joint news conference that the government understood U.S. worries over the development of advanced 5G technologies and said all contracts would be carefully reviewed. Iraq pledges to protect diplomats after U.S. embassy shutdown threat

Iraq will protect foreign mission buildings and ensure only the state has weapons, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi told 25 top diplomats on Wednesday, after Washington warned it could shut down its Baghdad embassy. The United States has made preparations to withdraw diplomats from Iraq after warning Baghdad it could shut its embassy, two Iraqi officials and two Western diplomats said, a step Iraqis fear could turn their country into a battle zone. Kremlin closely follows U.S. presidential campaign, will refrain from statements

Russia, like many other nations in the world, is closely following U.S. presidential campaign as the United States is one of the world's top economies, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a daily conference call on Wednesday. "But we do not want to make any statements as this could be viewed as an attempt to intervene (into the election process). Russia has never, is not and is not going to intervene in U.S. domestic affairs," Peskov said. Flight of Hong Kong protesters piles pressure on Taiwan

For some Hong Kong protesters, stripped of their passports and facing criminal charges, a perilous 600 km sea journey to Taiwan is their only hope of escape. For Taiwan, which has promised assistance to the people of Hong Kong but is wary of antagonising China, this brings a dilemma. People began fleeing to Taiwan from the early months of the Hong Kong protests last year, mostly legally by air, sometimes by fishing boat, said activists in Taipei who have helped Hong Kong citizens obtain visas. Numbering a few hundred, they included people who took part in the pro-democracy protests, as well as clergy, social workers and others who offered care and support to protesters. U.S., Taiwan to team up on infrastructure in pushback against China

The United States and Taiwan will work together on infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific region and Latin America, officials said on Wednesday, in an implicit pushback for China's own massive regional investment plans. Washington is deeply suspicious of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative to build roads, railways and other facilities to link China to Europe, Asia and beyond, viewing it as a plan to entrap countries into China's orbit with debt diplomacy.