Reuters World News Summary

Biden seeks five-year extension of New START arms treaty with Russia U.S. President Joe Biden will seek a five-year extension to the New START arms control treaty with Russia, the White House said on Thursday, in one of the first major foreign policy decisions of the new administration ahead of the treaty's expiration in early February.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Witness implicates Mexican soldiers in mass student kidnap, president says

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador confirmed on Thursday that a witness implicated soldiers in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero that rocked the country. The attack on the trainees from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College on Sept. 26, 2014 sparked widespread protests across the country. Swiss court to rule in Steinmetz trial over Guinea mining deal

A Swiss criminal court will rule on Friday whether Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz is guilty of corruption and forgery charges in one of the mining world's most high-profile legal disputes. The battle for control of the world's richest untapped deposits of iron ore, buried in the remote Simandou mountain range of Guinea, has triggered probes and litigation around the world and thwarted efforts to extract the lucrative commodity. 'The nightmare is over': Optimism in Mexico as Biden rolls back Trump's immigration policies

Dozens of asylum seekers crowded the U.S. port of entry in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez on Thursday after U.S. President Joe Biden began his term in office by reversing many of former President Trump's hardline immigration policies. In its first public announcement, Biden's Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday it would end all enrollments in a controversial Trump program - known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) - that since 2019 has forced more than 65,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings, sometimes for months or even years. UK bans passengers from Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo to control spread of COVID variant

Britain is banning all arrivals from Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo from Friday to stop the spread of the South Africa COVID-19 variant, transport secretary Grant Shapps said in a tweet on Thursday. "All passengers from these countries except British & Irish Nationals and third country nationals with residents rights will be denied entry," Shapps wrote in his tweet. In blow to Trudeau, queen's representative in Canada quits after harassment allegations

Canadian Governor General Julie Payette, the representative of the country's head of state, Queen Elizabeth, quit on Thursday amid allegations of workplace harassment in an embarrassment for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The resignation has no immediate implications for the Liberal government. The governor general has a largely ceremonial job such as swearing in governments and formally signing legislation, but can on rare occasions be asked to settle constitutional questions. Exclusive: Pfizer-BioNTech agree to supply WHO co-led COVID-19 vaccine scheme - sources

Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to supply their COVID-19 vaccine to the World Health Organization co-led COVAX vaccine access scheme, two sources familiar with the deal said, the latest in a series of shots to be included in the project aimed at lower-income countries. The deal is expected to be announced on Friday, according to the sources, who declined to be named due to the confidentiality of the agreement. Biden seeks five-year extension of New START arms treaty with Russia

U.S. President Joe Biden will seek a five-year extension to the New START arms control treaty with Russia, the White House said on Thursday, in one of the first major foreign policy decisions of the new administration ahead of the treaty's expiration in early February. "The President has long been clear that the New START treaty is in the national security interests of the United States. And this extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial as it is at this time," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing. First big suicide attack in Baghdad for 3 years kills at least 32

Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in a crowded Baghdad market on Thursday, killing at least 32 people in Iraq's first big suicide bombing for three years, authorities said, describing it as a possible sign of the reactivation of Islamic State. Islamic State claimed early on Friday that two of its men blew themselves up in Tayaran Square in the centre of Baghdad, according to a statement posted on the group's Telegram communications channel. Russia rounds up allies of Kremlin foe Navalny in protest warning

Police in Moscow on Thursday detained several allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, including his spokeswoman, for making calls online to join unauthorised street protests to demand his release. Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic, was detained at the weekend and later jailed for alleged parole violations after flying back to Russia for the first time since being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent. Mexico stops truck carrying migrants from Central America

Nearly 130 migrants from Central America were discovered in the back of a shipping truck in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz on Thursday after officials heard pounding and screams for help, Mexico's National Guard said. The driver of the truck was pulled over for not using a seatbelt on a highway in the southern part of Veracruz, the National Guard said in a statement.

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