Reuters World News Summary

Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Southeast Asian nations vow to combat plastic debris in oceans

Southeast Asian nations vowed on Saturday to fight against plastic pollution in the ocean, as their leaders adopted a joint declaration during a summit in Bangkok. The Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in ASEAN Region was adopted by leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes four of the world's top polluters. Arab ministers to discuss financial support for Palestinian Authority: agency

Arab finance ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss helping the Palestinian Authority cope with a deepening cash crunch amid a persistent dispute with Israel over payments to families of jailed and deceased militants. The meeting comes ahead of a U.S.-led economic conference in Bahrain expected to call for a $50 billion global investment fund for the Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon which the Palestinian Authority is boycotting. North Korea's Kim says will consider letter received from Trump

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un received a personal letter from U.S. President Donald Trump and will put serious thought into its content, state-run North Korean news agency KCNA said. In a report published early on Sunday in Asia, KCNA did not give details on the letter but said Kim described it as "of excellent content." "Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content," according to the report. Poll gives conservatives 9 point lead over ruling Syriza for Greek snap vote

Greece's conservative New Democracy party has a 9 percentage-point lead over the ruling leftist Syriza party ahead of a snap election on July 7, according to a poll published on Saturday. Kyriakos Mitsotakis's New Democracy was on course to win 38.5% of the vote, while Syriza would get 29.5%, the poll by Metron Analysis for weekly To Vima newspaper showed. UK PM favorite Johnson reiterates desire for October 31 Brexit

Boris Johnson, the favorite to be the next British Prime Minister, reiterated his desire to leave the European Union in October with or without a deal as he avoided questions at a campaign event on Saturday about a police visit to his home. Johnson, a leading figure in the 2016 referendum campaign to leave the European Union, had raised some doubts about his commitment to leave by the latest deadline when he described it as only "eminently feasible" in a televised debate this week. Palestinians reject Kushner 'economy first' approach to Mideast peace

Palestinian officials on Saturday dismissed proposals unveiled by President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner for big money projects to form the first economic portion of the Trump administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan. Senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi said Kushner's plans were "all abstract promises" and said only a political solution would solve the conflict. Bogus Brexit murder plot and other lies planted online by Russian accounts: study

In August 2018, Spanish authorities uncovered a plot by anti-Brexit campaigners to assassinate leading Brexiteer and now favorite to be Britain's next prime minister, Boris Johnson. Or did they? That story and others like it were created by a network of social media accounts operating from Russia which have attempted to seed false narratives across 30 different online platforms, a study by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab has found. Exclusive: White House's Kushner unveils economic portion of Middle East peace plan

The White House on Saturday outlined a $50 billion Middle East economic plan that would create a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies, and fund a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza. The "peace to prosperity" plan, set to be presented by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner at an international conference in Bahrain next week, includes 179 infrastructure and business projects, according to details of the plan and interviews with U.S. officials. The approach toward reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process was criticized by the Palestinians on Saturday. Ethiopia says coup attempt against leader of Amhara state failed

Ethiopia said there was a failed coup attempt against the head of one of the country's nine regional states on Saturday, underscoring the challenges facing the new prime minister as he tries to spearhead political reforms amid widespread unrest. "There was an organized coup attempt in Bahir Dar but it failed," Negussu Tilahun, spokesman for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, told state TV on Saturday, referring to the regional capital of Amhara state. Trump says new sanctions on Iran to start Monday, dials back rhetoric

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would impose fresh sanctions on Iran but that he wanted to make a deal to bolster its flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions following the shooting down of an unmanned U.S. drone this week by the Islamic Republic. On Thursday, an Iranian missile destroyed a U.S. Global Hawk surveillance drone, an incident that Washington said happened in international airspace. Trump later said he had called off a military strike to retaliate because it could have killed 150 people.