World News Summary: U.S. expelled Chinese officials after they drove onto military base: NYT

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. U.S. expelled Chinese officials after they drove onto military base: NYT

The U.S. government covertly moved to expel two officials from the Chinese embassy earlier this year, after they drove onto a military base, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The newspaper reported on Sunday that one of the two Chinese officials is believed to be an intelligence officer operating under diplomatic cover. Clashes rock Beirut for the second night as security forces fire tear gas at protest

Smoke engulfed central Beirut as security forces fired tear gas at a protest near Lebanon's parliament on Sunday in the second night of clashes. Hundreds of people had returned to demonstrate in Beirut despite a fierce crackdown by security forces at a protest the night before when clashes wounded dozens. Police fire tear gas as Delhi protesters vent anger at citizenship law

Indian police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who were torching vehicles in Delhi on Sunday as protests against a new citizenship law continued for a fifth straight day across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government says the new law will save religious minorities such as Hindus and Christians from persecution in neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan by offering them a path to Indian citizenship. But critics say the law, which does not make the same provision for Muslims, weakens India's secular foundations. Hong Kong mall protests flare with leader Lam in Beijing

Small groups of anti-government protesters gathered in shopping malls across Hong Kong on Sunday amid sporadic scuffles with riot police, with Chief Executive Carrie Lam away on a visit to Beijing. In the peak shopping season ahead of Christmas, groups of masked protesters, clad in black, marched through malls chanting slogans including "Fight for freedom" and "Return justice to us". Militants kill 22 in eastern Congo despite claims of security progress

Suspected Islamist militiamen killed at least 22 people overnight in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said on Sunday, as the rebels kept up attacks on civilians despite government claims to have them on the defensive. Similar attacks have killed at least 179 civilians, researchers say, since the Congolese army launched an offensive on Oct. 30 against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group active in eastern Congo. Netanyahu says Brazil committed to move embassy to Jerusalem in 2020

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he has been given assurances by the son of Brazil's president that Brazil will follow the United States and move its embassy to Jerusalem next year. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signaled before he intends to move his country's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, but senior officials later backtracked for fear of damaging trade ties with Arab countries. Major states snub calls for climate action as U.N. summit wraps up

A handful of major states resisted pressure on Sunday to ramp up efforts to combat global warming as a U.N. climate summit ground to a close, angering smaller countries and a growing protest movement that is pushing for emergency action. The COP25 talks in Madrid were viewed as a test of governments' collective will to heed the advice of science to cut greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly, in order to prevent rising global temperatures from hitting irreversible tipping points. Welcoming new lawmakers, British PM Johnson vows a speedy Brexit

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will welcome 109 new Conservative lawmakers to parliament on Monday, promising to honor his election pledges to get Brexit done as soon as possible and boost funding to the state health service. After winning a commanding majority in last week's election, Johnson will seek to speed up the approval by parliament of his withdrawal agreement with the European Union, and to start ploughing money into health, education and policing. Turkey could close Incirlik air base in face of U.S. threats: Erdogan

Turkey could shut down its Incirlik air base, which hosts U.S. nuclear warheads, in response to threats of U.S. sanctions and a separate U.S. Senate resolution that recognized mass killings of Armenians a century ago as genocide, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday. "If it is necessary for us to take such a step, of course we have the authority ... If this is necessary, together with our delegations, we will close down Incirlik if necessary," Erdogan said on A Haber TV. Colombia peace court exhumes bodies in extrajudicial killings case

Colombia's special justice tribunal has begun to exhume bodies from a grave in the country's northwest as part of an investigation into as many as 50 possible extrajudicial killings allegedly committed by the army. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a tribunal created under a 2016 peace deal to prosecute former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and military leaders for alleged war crimes, has started exhumation work in a cemetery in the municipality of Dabeiba, it said in a statement late on Saturday.