Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro in COVID isolation after trip to U.N.

President Jair Bolsonaro, just back from the United Nations, isolated himself at home on Wednesday and canceled a trip after his health minister tested positive for COVID-19 and had to stay in quarantine in New York. Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa recommended that the entire presidential delegation to the U.N. General Assembly remain in isolation and undergo more tests. Bolsonaro’s only appointment on Wednesday was changed to a remote meeting.

Sunni scholars who left Afghanistan hope Islam’s tolerant message survives Taliban

Clerics from Egypt’s ancient seat of Sunni study Al-Azhar, who spent years teaching in Afghanistan and were planning to open an education centre for girls, hope their tolerant message of Islam will survive the return of the Taliban. The 1,‮0‬00 year-old institution had opened a mission in Kabul in 2007, promoting what its clerics describe as Islam’s peaceful tradition in a country where guerrillas have used religion as a justification for fighting for decades.

Germany seeks backing for Tedros at WHO helm as Africa quiet – diplomats

Germany is seeking support from other European Union members to ensure a second term for Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the helm of the World Health Organisation, but African states have yet to show their cards, government sources and diplomats said on Wednesday. The deadline for proposing candidates in the politically charged race is Thursday at 1600 GMT and no other candidate for the election in May is known to have surfaced, they said.

UK’s Truss urges Iran to return to nuclear deal negotiations in Vienna -UK government spokesman

British foreign minister Lizz Truss held her first meeting with Iran’s foreign minister and urged Iran to return rapidly to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiations in Vienna with a view to all sides coming back into compliance and reducing tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme, a UK government spokesman said on Wednesday. UK’s Truss and Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held their meeting to discuss bilateral, nuclear and regional issues, the spokesman added.

For asylum advocates, border expulsions strain faith in Biden

Confused and tired-looking toddlers clung to their parents at Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Tuesday, among the 360 family members rapidly expelled from the U.S. over the past three days. These scenes came after U.S. border agents on horseback on Sunday used whip-like reins to block Haitian migrants wading across the Rio Grande with food and supplies from Mexico to a squalid encampment with nearly 10,000 people on the Texas side.

Some Haitians at U.S. border released, others deported as pressure builds on Biden

Amid deteriorating conditions in migrant camps on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. authorities on Wednesday tried to deal with thousands of the mostly Haitian migrants that have gathered, releasing some in south Texas while deporting others on flights. Wade McMullen, an attorney with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization said several hundred people, mostly pregnant women and parents with children, had been released in Del Rio, Texas over the past several days, straining resources at a local volunteer-run welcome center. The center does not have overnight capacity, he said.

Mexico reports people-smuggling surge amid jump in migration

People-smuggling crimes in Mexico this year have more than tripled since 2020, the government said on Wednesday, as the country battles to cope with a sharp increase in illegal immigration at the U.S. border. Between January and August, Mexico registered 1,232 people-smuggling crimes, a jump of nearly 228% from the 376 logged during the same period in 2020, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez told a regular government news conference.

Exclusive-Echoes, uncertainty as Afghan pilots await U.S. help in Tajikistan

A U.S.-trained Afghan pilot was talking to Reuters on a smuggled cellphone from Tajikistan, where he is being held, when something strange happened – his voice started looping, repeating everything he had just said, word for word. His fiancee, an American nurse in Florida, was on the line too and started to panic. She shouted his name, but his words kept cycling back.

Ukraine left puzzled after assassination attempt on president’s top aide

Ukrainian police are trying to work out who ordered unidentified individuals to try to murder a top aide of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy after his car was sprayed with automatic gunfire on Wednesday morning in an attack that shocked the political elite. Serhiy Shefir, the top aide and a close personal friend of Zelenskiy’s, escaped unscathed, but his driver was badly wounded and hospitalised.

French envoy to return to U.S. after fence-mending Biden-Macron call

The U.S. and French presidents moved to mend ties on Wednesday, with France agreeing to send its ambassador back to Washington and the White House acknowledging it erred in brokering a deal for Australia to buy U.S. instead of French submarines without consulting Paris. In a joint statement issued after U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by telephone for 30 minutes, the two leaders agreed to launch in-depth consultations to rebuild trust, and to meet in Europe at the end of October.

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