Reuters World News Summary

Global COVID-19 death toll tops 2 million The worldwide coronavirus death toll surpassed 2 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, as nations around the world are trying to procure multiple vaccines and detect new COVID-19 variants.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. End of Merkel era begins as German CDU picks new party leader

Germany's Christian Democrats elect a new chairman on Saturday, aiming to unite their conservative party behind a new leader who they hope can succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor when she steps down after federal elections in September. At stake is the leadership of Europe's biggest economy in the era after Merkel, who has vowed not to run again after becoming Europe's predominant leader since taking office in 2005 and proving a winner with German voters. India kicks off 'world's largest' vaccination campaign

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the "world's largest" vaccination campaign on Saturday as the populous nation tries to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control starting with two locally-manufactured shots. Modi will address healthcare workers through video conferencing but will not immediately take the vaccine himself as India is initially prioritising nurses, doctors and others on the front line. Guatemala detains hundreds of migrants at border as U.S.-bound caravan grows

The Guatemalan military has detained hundreds of migrants at its border as thousands of Hondurans, including many families with young children, continued to walk north on Friday as part of a caravan hoping to reach the United States. The Guatemalan military detained 600 migrants at the border crossing point in Corinto and transferred them to immigration authorities on Friday, according to military spokesman Ruben Tellez. Separately, Guatemalan authorities returned 102 Honduran migrants back to Honduras on Thursday, after the first groups in the caravan set off from San Pedro Sula. Exclusive: India's friction with U.S. rises over planned purchase of Russian S-400 defence systems

The United States has told India it is unlikely to get a waiver on its planned acquisition of Russian S-400 air defence systems, raising the risk of sanctions similar to those imposed on Turkey for buying that equipment, people aware of the matter said. The Trump administration has been telling the Indians to drop the $5.5 billion deal for five missile systems and avoid a diplomatic crisis, saying New Delhi did not have a wide waiver from a 2017 U.S. law aimed at deterring countries from buying Russian military hardware. Trump receives Morocco's highest award for Middle East work: official

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday received Morocco's highest award for his work in advancing a normalization deal between Israel and Morocco, a senior administration official told Reuters. In a private Oval Office ceremony, Princess Lalla Joumala Alaoui, who is Morocco's ambassador to the United States, gave Trump the Order of Muhammad, an award given only to heads of state. It was a gift from Morocco's King Mohammed VI. U.N. says U.S. blacklisting of Yemen group may hinder bid to avert oil spill

The United Nations is concerned that a U.S. plan to blacklist Yemen's Houthi movement on Tuesday will hinder its efforts to assess a decaying oil tanker that is threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off the war-torn country's coast. The tanker Safer has been stranded off Yemen's Red Sea oil terminal of Ras Issa for more than five years, and U.N. officials have warned it could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska. U.S. troops in Afghanistan now down to 2,500, lowest since 2001: Pentagon

The number of U.S troops in Afghanistan has been reduced to 2,500, the lowest level of American forces there since 2001, the Pentagon said on Friday. In November, President Donald Trump's administration said it would sharply cut the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by mid-January, stopping short of a threatened full withdrawal from America's longest war after fierce opposition from allies at home and abroad. Brazil airlifts emergency oxygen into pandemic-struck state, vaccine drive lags

Brazil's Air Force flew emergency oxygen supplies on Friday to the jungle state of Amazonas devastated by a resurgent pandemic and the government scrambled to organize nationwide vaccinations while President Jair Bolsonaro said he "should be at the beach." Doctors in Amazonas were using their own vehicles to transport patients, as locals sought to buy oxygen tanks on the black market, according to media reports. Desperate relatives, protesting outside hospitals in the state capital of Manaus, said patients had been taken off ventilators as oxygen ran out. Global COVID-19 death toll tops 2 million

The worldwide coronavirus death toll surpassed 2 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, as nations around the world are trying to procure multiple vaccines and detect new COVID-19 variants. It took nine months for the world to record the first 1 million deaths from the novel coronavirus but only three months to go from 1 million to 2 million deaths, illustrating an accelerating rate of fatalities. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi) Tunisian police clash with protesters after police beating

Tunisian police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the northern city of Siliana on Friday after a policeman beat a shepherd, witnesses said, in an incident that sparked anger, as the country celebrate the tenth anniversary of the transition to a full democracy. Hundreds of protesters burned wheels, blocked roads, and threw stones at the police, who followed the protesters and fired gas, witnesses added.

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