World News Roundup: Greek PM Mitsotakis takes over; Afghans, Taliban talk and more

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

New Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis takes over, Tsipras bows out

Conservative politician Kyriakos Mitsotakis was sworn in as Greece's new prime minister on Monday after storming to victory on a pledge to create jobs and lure investment to the crisis-hit nation. Mitsotakis's New Democracy party won an outright majority with 158 seats in the 300-seat legislature. His pledges for more investments, well-paid jobs and fewer taxes appeared to have won over Greeks worn out by years of EU-prescribed austerity and the euro zone's highest unemployment.

Afghans, Taliban talk in Qatar about a peaceful future as war rages at home

Wary representatives of Afghan society met Taliban officials in Qatar on Monday for a second day of talks, with bloody insurgent attacks back home casting a pall over efforts to end Afghanistan's years of war. The Taliban on Sunday detonated a car bomb outside a government security compound in central Afghanistan killing 14 people and wounding 180, including scores of children.

Iran makes new nuclear threats that would reverse steps in pact

Iran threatened on Monday to restart deactivated centrifuges and ramp up its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity as its next potential big moves away from a 2015 nuclear agreement that Washington abandoned last year. The threats, made by the spokesman for Tehran's nuclear agency, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the past week to nudge its stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the nuclear pact.

Rule of law has crumbled in Venezuela: jurists' group

The rule of law has crumbled in Venezuela under the government of President Nicolas Maduro which has usurped the powers of the legislative and judicial branches, an international legal watchdog said on Monday. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called on Venezuelan authorities to reinstate democratic institutions as part of a solution to the political, economic and humanitarian crisis engulfing the OPEC member.

Leak of ambassador's memos about Trump could harm UK-U.S. relations: British minister

The leak of confidential memos from Britain's ambassador to the United States in which he describes President Donald Trump's administration as "dysfunctional" and "inept" could damage relations, a British minister said on Monday. Trade Minister Liam Fox, who is on a visit to Washington, said he would apologise to the president's daughter Ivanka Trump who he is due to meet during his trip.

Iran's Zarif calls on UK to immediately release captured oil tanker

The capture of an Iranian oil tanker by Britain has set "a dangerous precedent and must end now", Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter on Monday. "Iran is neither a member of the EU nor subject to any European oil embargo. Last I checked, EU was against extraterritoriality. UK's unlawful seizure of a tanker with Iranian oil on behalf of #B_Team is piracy, pure and simple. It sets a dangerous precedent and must end now," Zarif tweeted.

Ireland to step up plans for 'significant' risk of no-deal Brexit

Ireland will step up its preparations for a disorderly Brexit this week given the chances of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal have never been higher, foreign minister Simon Coveney said on Monday. With close trade links and a shared land border, Ireland is considered the most vulnerable among remaining EU members to Brexit and lawmakers passed one of the largest-ever pieces of legislation in March to prepare as best it could for a no deal.

U.N.'s Bachelet 'appalled' at U.S. treatment of migrants and refugees

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is "appalled" at the conditions in which the United States is keeping detained migrants and refugees, including children, her office said in a statement on Monday. "As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions," the statement quoted Bachelet as saying.

Climate protesters arrested outside Swiss banks

Environmental activists, seeking to pressure Swiss banks into halting the financing of fossil fuels, blocked entrances to Credit Suisse in Zurich and UBS in Basel on Monday before police intervened and arrested some protesters. The action, initiated by groups calling for civil disobedience to draw attention to activities that accelerate climate change, halted streetcars and drew onlookers on Zurich's Parade Square as well as its Bahnhofstrasse luxury shopping mile.

Pope defends migrants after clashes between Italy and rescue ships

Pope Francis said on Monday that "no one is exempt" from helping migrants, in an indirect rebuke of Italy's hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini who has tried to shut the country's ports to non-governmental migrant rescue ships. Francis celebrated a closed-door Mass especially for migrants in St. Peter's Basilica on the sixth anniversary of his trip to Lampedusa, the southern island where tens of thousands of migrants from north Africa have arrived in recent years. Thousands have died at sea trying to make it there.