Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Open homes, free rides: the people helping Hong Kong's protesters

Mak's children ran to her when they awoke to find a young man sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the middle of their toy room surrounded by a miniature play kitchen, blocks, trains, cars and drums. The legal professional had invited the man, a 21-year-old protester, to stay after he quit his job to devote more time to anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong and then didn't have enough money to pay rent. Hong Kong students' sewer escape thwarted as rows with UK, U.S. grow

Some anti-government protesters trapped inside a Hong Kong university on Wednesday tried to flee through the sewers, where one student said she saw snakes, but fireman prevented further escape bids by blocking a metal manhole into the system. Reuters witnesses said fewer than 100 protesters remained inside the Polytechnic University, ring-fenced 24 hours a day by riot police and barricades, after more than 1,000 were arrested from late on Monday. Vatican says Israeli-Palestinian peace process at risk after U.S. move

The Vatican said on Thursday the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians had been put at risk after the United States backed Israel's building of settlements in the occupied West Bank. "In the context of recent decisions that risk undermining further the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the already fragile regional stability, the Holy See reiterates its position of a two-state solution for two peoples, as the only way to reach a complete solution to this age-old conflict," the Vatican said in a statement. Malaysia's Mahathir says cabinet reshuffle on cards after by-election loss

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Wednesday he would consider a cabinet reshuffle to address growing public discontent over his young government's handling of the country, days after a stinging by-election loss. His Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition suffered its worst electoral defeat on Saturday since coming to power last May when the opposition scored a more than 15,000-vote majority in a by-election for the Tanjung Piai parliamentary seat. Twitter says Conservatives misled public, minister says voters 'don't give a toss'

Twitter accused Britain's ruling Conservative Party on Wednesday of misleading the public during a televised election debate, but Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said voters did not care about the cut and thrust of social media. Twitter spoke out after the Conservative Campaign Headquarters press office changed the name of its account from "CCHQPress" to "factcheckUK" while Prime Minister Boris Johnson was debating Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday night. China tortured me over Hong Kong, says former British consulate employee

A former employee of Britain's consulate in Hong Kong said Chinese secret police beat him, deprived him of sleep and shackled him in an attempt to force him to give information about activists leading pro-democracy protests. Hong Kong, which was returned to China by Britain in 1997, has been convulsed by sometimes violent protests and mass demonstrations, the biggest political crisis for Beijing since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Sri Lanka's prime minister to resign after election setback

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will resign this week, a spokesman from his office said on Wednesday, after his party's candidate lost a presidential election over the weekend. Sources had earlier told Reuters that Wickremesinghe's exit was imminent and local media separately reported that the new president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, would soon name an interim cabinet to govern the island until a parliamentary election, expected around April. Struggling with influx, Greece gets tough with asylum seekers

Greece will shut overcrowded refugee camps on its outlying islands and replace them with more restrictive holding centres, in a marked hardening of the stance towards asylum seekers from the country on the frontline of Europe's migration crisis. The new conservative government, which defeated the leftist Syriza in a July election, said on Wednesday it would tighten controls at Greece's borders and clear bottlenecks in asylum vetting procedures that have left thousands of people fleeing conflict in limbo. Algeria army arrests militants heading for Sahel region: ministry

Algeria's army has arrested eight people planning to join Islamist militants in the neighboring Sahel region, the defense ministry said on Wednesday. The eight were arrested on Tuesday in the Ghardaia and Relizane provinces, a ministry statement said without providing details. Israel launches air strikes in Syria, Damascus says two killed

Israel said its aircraft struck dozens of Iranian and Syrian military targets in Syria on Wednesday in retaliation for rockets fired towards Israel a day earlier. Syrian state media reported two civilians were killed and several others injured in the attacks, but said Syria's air defenses destroyed most of the missiles fired by Israeli jets over the capital Damascus before they reached their targets.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)