World News Roundup: North Korea tests ballistic missiles; Prince Charles and Camilla to visit New Zealand

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Canada police use drones, dogs in hunt for teenage murder suspects

Canadian police were using drones and dogs to scour harsh terrain in northern Manitoba on Thursday in the search for two teenagers wanted in the killings of three people, including an American woman and her Australian boyfriend. Late on Wednesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, with the second-degree murder of Leonard Dyck, 64, a botany professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Turkish military chiefs discuss possible offensive in Syria

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar met military officials on Thursday to discuss a possible offensive east of the Euphrates River in Syria as Ankara ramped up warnings of a cross-border operation. The meeting came a day after Turkey said it would launch an offensive unless agreement on a planned safe zone in Syria could be reached with the United States, saying it had run "out of patience" with Washington.

Bombs in Kabul kill at least 11 as U.S. steps up diplomacy in effort to end war

Three bombs rocked the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 45, officials said, as the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and NATO officials in the city. Ghani and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed in a phone call to step up efforts to reach a negotiated end to the nearly 18-year-old war in Afghanistan, the State Department said in a statement.

Venezuela opposition divided by proposal for Iraq-style 'oil-for-food' program

A proposal to modify U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela to allow crude exports to be bartered for food has divided the country's opposition between those who say the move would stave off famine and those who predict President Nicolas Maduro would abuse it. Henri Falcon, the former governor of western Lara state, said Thursday he wrote the United Nations and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs requesting such an exemption for food and medicine imports.

'I'll make Britain great again', PM Johnson says, echoing Trump

Boris Johnson promised on Thursday that Brexit would make Britain the greatest place on earth, echoing the patriotic rhetoric of U.S. President Donald Trump in his first speech to parliament as prime minister. Johnson, who was hailed by the U.S. president as Britain's Trump, has promised to strike a new divorce deal with the European Union and to energize the world's fifth-largest economy after what he casts as the gloom of Theresa May's premiership.

New UK PM Johnson to begin hiring 20,000 extra police officers

Britain's new Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to start hiring an extra 20,000 police officers in the next few weeks, reversing cuts made under previous governments in a pitch to voters concerned about rising violent crime. The police have suffered big staffing and funding squeezes under austerity measures by the last two Conservative-led governments.

Prince Charles and Camilla to visit New Zealand

Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will visit New Zealand in November, the South Pacific nation's prime minister said on Friday. It would be the pair's third joint trip to the country, having last visited in November 2015.

Britain begins escorting all UK vessels through Hormuz Strait

Britain has started sending a warship to accompany all British-flagged vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, a change in policy announced on Thursday after the government previously said it did not have resources to do so. Tensions have spiked between Iran and Britain since last Friday when Iranian commandos seized a British-flagged tanker in the world's most important waterway for oil shipments. That came two weeks after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar, accused of violating sanctions on Syria.

State Department's Pompeo says he would go to Iran 'if that's the call': Bloomberg

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a television interview on Thursday that he would go to Iran for talks if it was necessary, amid tensions between Tehran and Washington. Asked if he would be willing to go to Tehran, Pompeo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV: "Sure. If that's the call, I'd happily go there ... I would welcome the chance to speak directly to the Iranian people."

North Korea tests ballistic missiles, U.S. still hopeful for talks

North Korea test-fired two new short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, South Korean and U.S. officials said, its first missile test since Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to revive denuclearization talks last month. The U.S. State Department urged Pyongyang to refrain from further provocations and said it still hoped for a resumption of the working-level talks stalled since a failed summit in Hanoi in February.

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