Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. European lawmakers to consider tougher climate law: draft

European Union lawmakers are considering toughening the bloc's planned climate law, with stricter near-term emission goals and a binding commitment for every member state to decarbonize by 2050, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. Such goals are required if the world is to stick within limits scientists say are needed to avoid devastating fallout from global warming, the lead author of the document, Swedish lawmaker Jytte Guteland, said. Australia annoyed as U.S. pushes Wuhan lab COVID-19 theory

Australian officials are frustrated that their push for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus is being undermined by the White House, which has sought to link the outbreak to a Chinese lab, government, diplomatic and intelligence sources told Reuters. Washington's attack on China has given Beijing room to argue that Australia's request for an independent inquiry is part of a U.S.-led agenda to blame it for the coronavirus outbreak, the sources said. China open to probe of origins of coronavirus, says envoy: report

China is open to an independent investigation to determine the origins of the coronavirus now sweeping the world, its ambassador to Berlin told a German magazine on Friday, amid U.S. allegations that it came from a laboratory. China has dismissed as groundless U.S. and Australian questioning of how it had handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had been open and transparent, despite growing scepticism about the accuracy of its official death toll. Wuhan market had role in virus outbreak, but more research needed: WHO

A wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan played a role in the outbreak of the novel coronavirus last year, as the source or possibly as an "amplifying setting", the World Health Organization said on Friday, calling for more research. Chinese authorities shut down the market in January as part of efforts to halt the spread of the virus and ordered a temporary ban on trade and consumption of wildlife. North Korea lashes out at South Korean military drills, sends greetings to China

North Korea lashed out at South Korea over recent military drills, while leader Kim Jong Un sent a personal message to China's Xi Jinping to congratulate him on that country's success in controlling the coronavirus, state media reported on Friday. A North Korean military representative said on Friday that recent South Korean military drills were a grave provocation that demanded a reaction, according to a statement carried by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). As deaths mount in Brazil's Amazon, official COVID-19 toll under scrutiny

The death toll from COVID-19 in the worst hit part of Brazil's remote Amazon region may be three times the official count, according to data from public notaries reviewed by Reuters, as the spread of the disease overwhelms the public health system. Officials in Manaus, state capital of Amazonas, said they were out of hospital beds and struggling to keep pace with the burials needed. The largest of nine states in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, Amazonas has registered nearly 19.4 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents, compared to 4.4 for all of Brazil, according to a Reuters calculation based on the death toll released by the federal Health Ministry on Thursday. Israel to discuss with U.S. reported Sinai peacekeeper cutback plan: Israeli minister

Israel said on Friday it would discuss with its closest ally the United States a newspaper report that the U.S.-led peacekeeping force in the Egyptian Sinai may be scaled back, calling its nearly four-decade-old presence "important". U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is pushing to pull out some American troops from the international peacekeeping force it heads in the Sinai Peninsula, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing current and former U.S. officials. EU executive defends China envoy over censored op-ed

European Union headquarters in Brussels on Friday defended the bloc's ambassador to China after admitting he did not consult the bloc's national envoys in Beijing on an opinion piece they authored for the official China Daily but that was censored. The ambassador, Nicholas Chapuis, on Thursday said it was "regrettable" that part of the article on EU-China relations had been removed before publication, the latest example of how troubled ties are between the bloc and Beijing. China needs more nuclear warheads: Global Times editor

China should expand its stock of nuclear warheads to 1,000 soon, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on Friday, even as U.S. President Donald Trump repeats his call for China to join an arms control treaty. The Global Times is published by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party. The party has been known to float ideas and guide public sentiments via the Global Times, which tends to take a nationalistic stance on issues involving other countries. Putin uses WW2 anniversary for bridge-building with U.S., Britain

President Vladimir Putin sent telegrams on Friday to U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggesting the need to rekindle their nations' cooperation during World War Two to solve today's problems. Putin's overture was the latest in a series of contacts with Washington with whom Moscow is keen to rebuild relations frayed over everything from election hacking allegations to Syria.