Reuters World News Summary

In the United States, the din of voices weighing in to warn the generals to change course grew, as U.S. President Joe Biden said the military should step down and his security adviser said the administration was considering an executive order that could include sanctions.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. UK says 4,000 variants of virus that causes COVID-19 around the world

There are around 4,000 variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 around the world now so all vaccine manufacturers including Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc are trying to improve their vaccines, a British minister said. "Its very unlikley that the current vaccine won't be effective on the variants whether in Kent or other variants especially when it comes to severe illness and hospitalisation," Vaccine Deployment Minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky. Putin's approval rating holds steady despite Navalny crackdown: poll

Nationwide protests over the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and a sweeping police crackdown have so far had little impact on Russia President Vladimir Putin's approval rating, a survey by independent pollster Levada showed on Thursday. A court on Tuesday sentenced Navalny, a prominent Putin opponent, to three and a half years for parole violations he said were trumped up, ignoring calls from the West and protesters at home to release him. U.N. Security Council calls for release of Myanmar's Suu Kyi, Biden tells generals to go

The United Nations Security Council called for the release of Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others detained by the military and stressed the need to uphold democracy, but stopped short of condemning this week's coup. In the United States, the din of voices weighing in to warn the generals to change course grew, as U.S. President Joe Biden said the military should step down and his security adviser said the administration was considering an executive order that could include sanctions. Prominent Hezbollah critic Slim killed in Lebanon

A prominent Lebanese Shi'ite publisher who criticised the armed Hezbollah movement was shot dead in a car in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the first such killing of a high-profile activist in years. A judge said the body of Lokman Slim had four bullets in the head and one in the back. A security source said his phone was found on the side of a road. Scottish police lock down Kilmarnock hospital, street after 'serious incidents'

Police in Scotland locked down University Hospital Crosshouse and a main street in the town of Kilmarnock on Thursday as they dealt with what they said were three potentially linked serious incidents. The first occurred outside the hospital at 7.45pm, Police Scotland said, followed by a second around 20 minutes later on Portland Street, and the third, a serious road crash, on the A76 road around 8.30 pm. Facebook faces a reckoning in Myanmar after blocked by military

The Myanmar military's shutdown of Facebook access following the ouster of the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi caps years of tension between the social media company and the most powerful institution in a nation where Facebook is used by half the population. The junta on Wednesday banned Facebook Inc until at least Sunday after the regime's opponents began using it to organize. A new civil disobedience page had gained nearly 200,000 followers and the support of Burmese celebrities in the days after the coup, while a related hashtag was used millions of times. U.S. releasing hundreds of Central American families from increasingly busy custody

U.S. officials in Texas are releasing an increasing number of Central American migrant families from custody as local authorities in Mexico have baulked at taking them back and border patrol facilities risk becoming overcrowded. Two shelter managers told Reuters the U.S. Border Patrol began dropping off families last week at shelters in Laredo and Brownsville along the stretch of border with Mexico's Tamaulipas state, the busiest region for illegal immigration into the United States. Biden ends U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen, says war 'has to end'

President Joe Biden on Thursday declared a halt to U.S. support for a Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, demanding that the more than six-year war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, "has to end." Biden also named veteran U.S. diplomat Timothy Lenderking as the U.S. special envoy for Yemen in a bid to step up American diplomacy "to end the war in Yemen, a war which has created humanitarian and strategic catastrophe." U.S., E3 foreign ministers expected to discuss Iran soon -sources

The U.S., British, French and German foreign ministers plan to discuss soon, possibly as early as Friday, how to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Four of the sources said the virtual meeting, which was likely to cover other topics, could take place as soon as Friday, while two others said it could happen next week. All spoke on condition that they not be identified.

U.S. considering targeted sanctions after Myanmar coup: Sullivan The Biden administration is considering an executive order in response to the military takeover in Myanmar and potentially targeted sanctions on individuals and military-controlled entities, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday. Sullivan said there was bipartisan support on Myanmar, and the administration believed it could work with Congress "on a package of sanctions to impose consequences in response to this coup."