Reuters News Now

Highlights

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday following talks with Saudi Arabia’s king and crown prince about the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi. Turkey hopes to enter the Saudi consul’s residence in Istanbul in connection with the disappearance of the Saudi journalist.

Breaking Views: Japan’s big banks may be hoping to benefit from the retreat of global rivals from Riyadh. The accusation that Saudi Arabia engaged in state-sponsored murder has led top U.S. and European bank bosses to pull out of attending next week’s Future Investment Initiative, writes Una Galani. For Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Mizuho Financial Group, though, the fallout could present an opportunity to snag more of Saudi’s fee wallet.

Exclusive: OPEC has urged its members not to mention oil prices when discussing policy in a break from the past, as the oil producing group seeks to avoid the risk of U.S. legal action for manipulating the market, sources close to OPEC say.

World

An internal World Health Organization report reviewed by Reuters concluded in April that two cases of a potentially dangerous strain of Zika confirmed in early 2017, along with the microcephaly cases identified since then, provided “strong evidences” of a Zika-linked microcephaly cluster in Angola. When a Zika epidemic was at its height in the Americas two years ago, diagnostics makers began working feverishly to create diagnostic tests for a virus that few in the U.S. had heard of. Why is Zika so hard to diagnose?

When Central African Republic (CAR) pleaded for help last year to fight marauding militias, former colonial ruler France offered guns it had seized off Somalia. But Russia objected and donated its own weapons instead. Russia has signed at least 19 military cooperation deals with governments in sub-Saharan Africa since 2014, when it came under Western sanctions for annexing Crimea and stepped up efforts to diversify its economic and diplomatic partnerships.

It would not hurt Europe if Britain was allowed to remain in the European Union customs union and internal market beyond an agreed transitional arrangement, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said. Catch up on the latest Brexit negotiations.

The chair of a United Nations inquiry that accused Myanmar’s military of genocide is likely to brief the Security Council this month after Britain, France, the United States and six other members requested the meeting, diplomats said on Tuesday.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two @Reuters journalists, have been imprisoned in Myanmar since Dec. 12, 2017. Follow the case: https://reut.rs/2CPhtai

12:37 PM - 16 Oct 2018