World News Roundup: Indian farm widows join protests against agriculture reforms; Europe set to approve COVID-19 vaccine in Christmas week and more

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Indian farm widows join protests against agriculture reforms

Hundreds of Indian women, including many widows of farmers who were believed to have killed themselves over debt, joined a protest on Wednesday against government reforms that farmers say threaten their livelihoods. Farmers have been protesting for nearly a month over the reforms, enacted in September, to deregulate the agriculture sector, allowing farmers to sell to buyers beyond government-regulated wholesale markets.

Exclusive-WHO vaccine scheme risks failure, leaving poor countries no COVID shots until 2024

The global scheme to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries faces a "very high" risk of failure, potentially leaving nations home to billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents say. The World Health Organization's COVAX programme is the main global scheme to vaccinate people in poor and middle income countries around the world against the coronavirus. It aims to deliver at least 2 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021 to cover 20% of the most vulnerable people in 91 poor and middle-income countries, mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Ten years on, anger grows in Tunisian town where 'Arab Spring' began

Ten years ago, a fruit seller set himself ablaze in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid after an altercation with a policewoman about where he had put his cart. Word of Mohammed Bouazizi's fatal act of defiance quickly spread, sparking nationwide protests that eventually toppled Tunisia's long-serving leader and helped inspire similar uprisings across the region - the so-called "Arab Spring".

Indonesian militant linked to Bali bombings flown to Jakarta for questioning

Indonesian authorities on Wednesday transferred 23 Islamic militants to the capital Jakarta for questioning, including one of the suspected bomb makers behind the 2002 attacks on the resort island of Bali. Zulkarnaen, thought to be one of the seniormost members of Al Qaeda-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiah, was arrested on Sumatra island last week along with 22 others in a series of raids.

Cuba rejects U.S. report on diplomat health incidents

Cuba on Tuesday rejected a U.S. government report concluding that directed radio frequency was the most plausible explanation for mysterious ailments suffered by U.S. diplomats in Havana and elsewhere, calling it more "very unlikely" hypothesis than "demonstrated fact." Between 2016 and 2018, dozens of U.S. embassy staff, largely in Cuba, reported symptoms that included hearing loss, vertigo, headaches and fatigue, a pattern consistent with mild traumatic brain injury that came to be known as the "Havana syndrome."

EU chief says UK trade pact closer but success not certain

Britain and the European Union moved closer to sealing a new trade deal but it was still not clear if they would succeed, the bloc's chief executive said on Wednesday. Britain and the EU are in the final stretch of talks to keep an estimated one trillion dollars of annual trade free of tariffs and quotas beyond Dec. 31, when the United Kingdom finally transitions out of the world's largest trading bloc.

Europe set to approve COVID-19 vaccine in Christmas week

Europeans are set to start getting coronavirus vaccines before the new year after the regional drug regulator accelerated its approval process following the launch of immunisation campaigns in the United States and Britain. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said an expert panel would convene on Monday Dec. 21 to evaluate the vaccine made by U.S. company Pfizer and German partner BioNTech. It had previously said the meeting could be as late as Dec 29.

Biden will keep using U.S. sanctions weapon but with sharper aim - sources

Joe Biden will not shy away from using President Donald Trump's weapon of choice - sanctions - as he seeks to reshape America's foreign policy, according to people familiar with his thinking. But when Biden takes office on Jan. 20, he is expected to quickly begin recalibrating Trump's blunt-force approach while taking time to deliberate before making any major changes with top sanctions targets like Iran and China, the sources said.

Russia dismisses media reports outing Navalny's alleged poisoners as 'amusing' reading

Russia on Wednesday rejected the findings of a joint media investigation that said it had identified Russian state security assassins behind the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, describing it as an "amusing" read. "We're already used to the fact that the United States and other Western countries make new accusations against Russia in the media, be it about hackers or revelations about the double or even triple poisoning of Navalny," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Erdogan says U.S. sanctions will not deter Turkey's defence industry

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday U.S. sanctions imposed on Turkey over its acquisition of Russian defence systems will fail in what he said was their aim of deterring Ankara's defence industry efforts. In a televised video conference address, Erdogan said the sanctions showed a hostile stance by the United States against its NATO ally, but that problems created by them would be overcome.