Reuters World News Summary

The siege centred on a Serbian Orthodox monastery near the village of Banjska in the Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged. New Zealand National Party prepared to join forces with NZ First to get into power New Zealand's National Party leader said on Monday he is prepared to work with the populist New Zealand First if there are numbers needed to form a majority after the election.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Ex-Goldman Sachs trader to lead Greece's leftist Syriza party

Former Goldman Sachs associate and political novice Stefanos Kasselakis on Sunday was elected leader of Greece's leftist Syriza party, the country's main opposition, which is hoping for a comeback after a heavy defeat in a national election. Syriza was catapulted to power at the height of Greece's debt crisis in 2015, but lost to the conservative New Democracy party in 2019 and in June 2023.

France to pull troops out of Niger following coup

France will pull its soldiers out of Niger following a July coup in the West African country, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, dealing a huge blow to French influence and counter-insurgency operations in the Sahel region. Macron said 1,500 troops would withdraw by the end of the year and that France, the former colonial power in Niger, refused to "be held hostage by the putchists".

Evo Morales announces candidacy for 2025 Bolivia presidential elections

Former Bolivia President Evo Morales will stand in the South American country's elections in 2025, he said on Sunday in a message on social media platform X, adding that he has been "obliged" by attacks against him. The announcement confirms a rift between Morales, one of Latin America's most prominent leftists, and Bolivia's sitting President Luis Arce, his former economy minister turned rival within the ruling MAS party.

Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead

Ethnic Serb gunmen in armoured vehicles stormed a village in north Kosovo on Sunday, battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the restive north that killed four people. The siege centred on a Serbian Orthodox monastery near the village of Banjska in the Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged.

New Zealand National Party prepared to join forces with NZ First to get into power

New Zealand's National Party leader said on Monday he is prepared to work with the populist New Zealand First if there are numbers needed to form a majority after the election. New Zealand is due to elect a new government on Oct. 14. The centre-right National Party is currently leading the polls but is unlikely to be able to govern without the support of at least one smaller party. Historically, it has joined forces with the right-wing ACT party.

Polls show Australia Indigenous referendum support slipping, likely to fail

Support for a referendum to constitutionally recognise Australia's Indigenous people slipped further, with the landmark proposal set to fail in a national vote roughly three weeks away, two opinion polls showed on Monday. Support for a "Voice to Parliament", an Indigenous committee to advise parliament on matters affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, fell to 33%, down 15 points since May, the Australian Financial Review (AFR)/Freshwater poll showed. The 'No' vote had reached 50%.

French centre-right keeps control of Senate, far-right wins 3 seats

France's centre-right Les Republicains (LR) party maintained its majority in the Senate after Sunday's vote, in which three senators from Marine Le Pen's far-right party were elected. "This senatorial renewal reinforces the senatorial majority of the right and the center and is a testimony of its territorial roots," Gerard Larcher, the leader of Les Republicains and president of the senate, said in a statement.

Canada House speaker apologizes for recognition of veteran who fought for Nazis

The speaker of Canada's House of Commons on Sunday apologized for praising an individual at a parliamentary meeting who served in a Nazi unit during World War II. Two days earlier, Speaker Anthony Rota had recognized 98-year old Yaroslav Hunka as a "Ukranian hero" before the Canadian Parliament. Hunka served in World War II as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, according to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group that demanded an apology.

Fleeing bombs and death, Karabakh Armenians recount visceral fear and hunger

After the village was bombed so hard there was no way to bury the truckloads of dead, he fled with his family and stuffed whatever possessions could be salvaged into two vans. Petya Grigoryan is one of the first ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to make it to Armenia after a lightning 24-hour Azerbaijani military operation defeated the Karabakh Armenian forces.

Karabakh's Armenians start to leave en masse for Armenia

Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh began a mass exodus by car on Sunday toward Armenia after Azerbaijan defeated the breakaway region's fighters in a conflict dating from the Soviet era. The Nagorno-Karabakh leadership told Reuters the region's 120,000 Armenians did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan for fear of persecution and ethnic cleansing.

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