Reuters World News Summary

Austin arrived in Jordan earlier at the start of a Middle East tour that will also take him to Israel and Egypt in a show of support for its main regional allies against the growing threat posed by Iran, U.S. officials said. Fire destroys homes Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh A big fire at a camp for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh destroyed homes and sent thick black clouds of smoke through the area on Sunday before being brought under control.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Serbian nationalists march in protest against Kosovo talks

Hundreds of Serb nationalists and Orthodox Christians marched in Belgrade on Sunday to protest against a Western plan aimed at mending ties between Serbia and its former province Kosovo. Many Serbs view Kosovo, home to the Serbian Orthodox faith's main churches and monasteries, as the heartland of the Serb nation.

Pakistani police serve arrest warrants to former PM Imran Khan

Pakistani police on Sunday served arrest warrants to former prime minister Imran Khan to ensure his appearance in court on charges of misusing his office to sell state gifts, authorities said, after Khan's supporters tried to prevent police entry into his home. The election commission of Pakistan had in October found the 70-year-old cricket-hero-turned politician guilty of unlawfully selling gifts from foreign dignitaries.

Greeks protest over deadly train crash, station master jailed pending trial

A Greek railway employee was jailed on Sunday pending trial over a deadly train crash that killed at least 57 people, as Greeks seethed with anger over the worst rail disaster in living memory. Protests continued to reverberate days after a head-on collision of a passenger train and a freight carrier on the Athens-Thessaloniki route late in the evening of Feb. 28.

Jordan's king tells US defense secretary West Bank violence threatens stability

Jordan's King Abdullah told U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday a surge in West Bank violence threatened regional stability and asked for assistance to fight a growing drug war along its borders with Syria blamed on Iranian-backed militias, Jordanian officials said. Austin arrived in Jordan earlier at the start of a Middle East tour that will also take him to Israel and Egypt in a show of support for its main regional allies against the growing threat posed by Iran, U.S. officials said.

Fire destroys homes Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh

A big fire at a camp for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh destroyed homes and sent thick black clouds of smoke through the area on Sunday before being brought under control. The blaze erupted at Camp 11 in Cox's Bazar, a southeastern border district where more than a million Rohingya refugees live. Most of the refugees fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017, and the fire left some of them homeless again.

EU's von der Leyen says she will tackle US green subsidies, overcome e-fuels impasse

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday she is determined to counter challenges from U.S. subsidies for green technologies and to speed a currently blocked law on phasing out combustion engines from 2035. Visiting Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the German cabinet at the start of a two-day meeting near Berlin, von der Leyen said the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would bring huge tax breaks for clean technologies made in the United States.

China sets modest growth target of about 5% as parliament opens

China set a modest target for economic growth this year of around 5% on Sunday as it kicked off the annual session of its National People's Congress (NPC), which is poised to implement the biggest government shake-up in a decade. The economy gave one of its weakest performances in decades last year, when gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 3%, squeezed by three years of COVID controls, a crisis in the vast property sector and a crackdown on private enterprise.

Britain's Prince Harry invited to King Charles's coronation -spokesperson

Britain's Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have received an invitation to his father King Charles's coronation but will not yet confirm publicly whether they will attend, a spokesperson for Harry said on Sunday. Preparations for the event in May have been overshadowed by the couple's damning revelations about the King, Harry's elder brother Prince William and other royals in his recent memoir, a Netflix documentary and a series of TV interviews.

Estonia's Kallas in first place in parliamentary election

The Reform party of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas secured first place in Sunday's parliamentary election, a result that should ensure Tallinn remains one of Europe's most staunchly pro-Kyiv governments. Results with 98% ballots counted showed the far-right EKRE party in second place, with 16.1% versus 31.5% for Kallas' liberal group, reflecting concerns among some voters over the rising cost of living in the wake of Russia's Ukraine war.

French strikes over pension reform plans to disrupt public transport on Tuesday

Industrial action in France over the government's planned pensions overhaul will cause heavy disruption to public transport again on Tuesday, the transport minister and several public transport authorities said on Sunday. For the sixth time since the start of the year, unions are calling for a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations, aiming to repeat the large turnout seen on the first major protest on Jan. 19 when more than a million people marched against the pension reform.

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