Reuters World News Summary

Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won 48.4% of the votes on Sunday, just short of the majority needed for an outright win against the far-right Bolsonaro, whose surprisingly strong showing won him 43.2% of votes. North Korea conducts longest-range missile test yet over Japan Nuclear-armed North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile farther than ever before on Tuesday, sending it soaring over Japan for the first time in five years and prompting a warning for residents there to take cover.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

West Africa bloc mediator 'satisfied' after meeting Burkina Faso new military leader

The mediator sent to Burkina Faso by West Africa's main political and economic bloc ECOWAS, Mahamadou Issoufou, on Tuesday said he was satisfied by a meeting with the country's new military leader Ibrahim Traore. Issoufou added that the 15-member bloc would continue accompanying Burkina Faso's transition to constitutional rule after the country was hit by its second military takeover this year.

Yemen's U.N. envoy pushing for peace deal after truce ends

Yemen's warring parties should revive efforts for a broader deal to end its devastating seven-year conflict, the country's top United Nations envoy said on Tuesday after failed efforts to renew a truce deal on Sunday. The U.N. special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg told Reuters in Amman that this is a particularly sensitive period of time in Yemen. "Any small incident could spark something that could have devastating consequences."

In El Salvador, rising inmate numbers threaten humanitarian crisis: NGO

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's war against the country's criminal gangs could generate prison overcrowding and even a violent reaction from criminals, said a report by the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) released Tuesday. After a historic rise in homicides in March, Bukele asked Congress to authorize a state of exception, which suspends some constitutional rights, to launch an offensive against criminal gangs that have plagued the Central American country for decades. The measure is supported by the vast majority of the population.

Lula, Bolsonaro seek new allies for tight Brazil runoff

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist challenger were hunting endorsements on Tuesday, party officials said, as they fine tuned their campaigns for a runoff in an election that has proven more competitive than expected. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won 48.4% of the votes on Sunday, just short of the majority needed for an outright win against the far-right Bolsonaro, whose surprisingly strong showing won him 43.2% of votes.

North Korea conducts longest-range missile test yet over Japan

Nuclear-armed North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile farther than ever before on Tuesday, sending it soaring over Japan for the first time in five years and prompting a warning for residents there to take cover. U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke by phone and condemned the test in the "strongest terms," calling it a danger to the Japanese people, and Biden reinforced the "ironclad" U.S. commitment to the defence of Japan, the White House said.

White House urges Russia to provide counter-offer on Griner

The White House on Tuesday urged Russia to provide a counter-offer to U.S. attempts to trade for the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Washington has offered to swap jailed arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine.

Ukraine claims rapid pushback of Russian troops on two fronts

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that his country's military had made major, rapid advances against Russian forces and freed dozens of towns in the south and east over the last week. "This week alone, since the Russian pseudo-referendum, dozens of population centres have been liberated. These are in Kherson, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions all together," he said in a Tuesday nighttime address.

South Korea, U.S. conduct missile drill in response to North Korea missile test

South Korea and the U.S. military fired a volley of missiles into the sea in response to North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile over Japan, Seoul said on Wednesday, as Pyongyang's longest-range test yet drew international condemnation. Nuclear-armed North Korea test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) farther than ever before on Tuesday, sending it soaring over Japan for the first time in five years and prompting a warning for residents there to take cover.

Families seek answers after Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 15 dead

Relatives of inmates at a prison in Ecuador were waiting to find out if their loved ones were among the dead following a riot at the facility on Monday which saw at least 15 prisoners killed and 33 injured. As families waited, riots restarted on Tuesday morning at Cotopaxi prison in Latacunga, one of the largest in Ecuador, leaving a further 11 prisoners injured, according to the SNAI prison authority.

Nobel physics prize goes to sleuths of 'spooky' quantum science

Scientists Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for experiments in quantum mechanics that laid the groundwork for rapidly-developing new applications in computing and cryptography. "Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said of the laureates -- Aspect, who is French, Clauser, an American and Zeilinger, an Austrian.

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