Venezuela jailed two officials from the state oil company PDVSA for five years for providing the US with "strategic and sensitive" details of its sanctions-hit oil operations, prosecutors said Friday.

The US has moved to delist Yemen's Huthi rebels as a terrorist organization, removing a block that humanitarian groups said jeopardized crucial aid as the country's warring sides cautiously welcomed a push for peace by President Joe Biden.

Twelve police officers have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the deaths of 19 people whose charred bodies were found near Mexico's border with the US last month, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Turkey urged the United States on Friday to return to the Iran nuclear agreement and lift sanctions on the Islamic republic, clearing the way for improved trade between the two neighbours.

Any attempt to contain China is "mission impossible", the country's defence ministry warned the US on Thursday, as the Biden administration works to shore up its Asian alliances against Beijing.

US President Joe Biden was planning to announce new bans on oil and gas drilling on federal lands Wednesday as part of a raft of actions that take aim at climate change, according to reports and a White House memo.

Asian and European markets welcomed Joe Biden's first day as US president with broad gains Thursday as investors looked forward with optimism about his economic and Covid-19 recovery plans.

Mexico on Wednesday hailed US President Joe Biden's order to halt construction of Donald Trump's wall along the US-Mexican border, as well as his other immigration-linked reforms.

Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US was formally invited to President Joe Biden's inauguration in what Taipei said Thursday was a precedent-setting first since Washington switched recognition to Beijing in 1979.

New US President Joe Biden warned the worst of the pandemic is still to come, as the number of American coronavirus deaths surpassed the country's troop fatalities in World War II.