Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Hong Kong police get more powers, masks to be banned in bid to end crisis: media

Hong Kong has loosened guidelines on the use of force by police as it struggles to stamp out anti-government protests that have rocked the Asian financial hub for nearly four months, according to documents seen by Reuters on Thursday. The city is also expected to ban face masks under a colonial-era emergency law that has not been used in half a century, media reported. How the Trudeau campaign scrambled to sidestep political disaster

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his election campaign team were on the way to the airport in Nova Scotia on Sept. 18 when Time magazine journalists called with alarming news. Within hours, the magazine would publish a picture that could doom his bid to win another four years in power. The 2001 image showed a 29-year-old Trudeau at an Arabian Nights party, his face covered in dark makeup, evoking racial stereotypes that seemed contrary to everything he stood for. UK tells EU: over to you now on Brexit

Britain has made a constructive Brexit proposal to the European Union and is now willing to negotiate on the details to get a new exit deal with the bloc, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said on Thursday. "We are focused on getting a deal because we think this is the best way forward," Barclay said. "These are serious proposals and clearly we need to have a negotiation with the EU on taking them forward." Russia PM visit shows support for Cuba amid U.S. hostility

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev kicks off an official two-day visit to Havana on Thursday in a strong show of Russia's support for the communist-run island as it faces escalating pressure from the United States. Moscow has sought to renew its commercial, military and political ties with Cuba in recent years, as part of a broader strategy to expand its presence in Latin America as a counterweight to China and the United States. High ambitions: Uruguay cannabis firm targets booming global market for medical marijuana

In a white, sterilized laboratory on the outskirts of Uruguayan capital Montevideo, biochemist Javier Varela and his team are carefully cultivating plants for a booming multibillion-dollar global market in medical marijuana. The company Varela works for, Fotmer Life Sciences, has just made the first commercial shipment of medical cannabis from Latin America, 10 kg (22 lb) of dried flowers with high levels of active ingredient THC destined for patients in Australia. Death toll climbs as Iraqi protests escalate for third day

Police and gunmen exchanged fire in a southern Iraqi city on Thursday killing one person, after 11 others were killed overnight as nationwide anti-government protests escalated into one of the worst security challenges in years. At least 19 people have been killed since the protests erupted three days ago, seemingly independent of any organized political party and taking the security forces by surprise. North Korea says successfully tested new submarine-launched ballistic missile: KCNA

North Korea successfully tested a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) Wednesday morning, state news agency KCNA said on Thursday. North Korean leader "Kim Jong Un sent warm congratulations" to those who had carried out the successful test-firing of the new type of SLBM, called Pukguksong-3, KCNA said, indicating that Kim was not at the site. ‘All I can do is pray’: A family in limbo as U.S. slows refugee admissions

Somali refugee Ramlo Ali Noor will never be reunited with her 16-year-old son in her new home in Columbus, Ohio. She had been waiting since applying to the U.S. government in 2015 to bring over her three boys from Uganda, but their cases faced hold-ups in refugee processing under the Trump administration. On Sept. 22, the youngest of the three teenagers – Abdiaziz - died suddenly from a brain infection. Iran says it foiled plot to kill Quds chief Soleimani

A senior Iranian official said on Thursday that Tehran had foiled a plot by Israeli and Arab agencies to assassinate Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force. State media quoted Hossein Taeb, the Revolutionary Guards security chief, as telling a conference that the plotters had planned to buy a property adjacent to the grave of Soleimani's father and rig it with explosives to kill the commander. Attacker fatally stabs officer in Paris police station, is then shot dead

An assailant fatally stabbed a police officer inside the Paris police headquarters on Thursday then was shot dead by another policeman, a police union official said. There was no word on the motive for the attack, which took place in the heart of the French capital near Notre-Dame Cathedral.

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