A firebrand Israeli minister says there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people. The remarks came as Israel’s new coalition government, its most hard-line ever, plowed ahead on Monday with a part of its plan to overhaul the judiciary. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition said it was pushing a key part of the overhaul — which would give the coalition control over who becomes a justice or a judge — before the parliament takes a monthlong holiday break next week. Also on Sunday, an Israeli and Palestinian delegation at a meeting in Egypt, mediated by Egyptian, Jordanian and U.S. officials, pledged to take steps to lower tensions roiling the region ahead of the sensitive holiday season.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is due to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a political boost for the isolated Russian president after the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes in Ukraine. Xi’s government gave no details of what the Chinese leader hoped to accomplish in his visit that starts Monday. Xi and Putin declared they had a “no-limits friendship” before the February 2022 attack on Ukraine, but China has tried to portray itself as neutral in the conflict. China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy and as a partner in opposing what both see as American domination of global affairs.

Archaeologists say they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates. The discovery further expands this young nation’s understanding of its pre-Islamic history. Archaeologists announced Monday that artifacts found in this town on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain date as far back as the late 6th century. While older pearling towns have been mentioned in historical texts, this represents the first time archaeologists say they have physically found one from this ancient era across the nations of the Persian Gulf.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles says his country made no promises to the United States that Australia would support its ally in any future conflict over Taiwan in exchange for American nuclear-powered submarines. U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom announced last week that Australia would purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. to modernize its fleet. Australian critics of the deal argue that the U.S. would not hand over as many as five of its Virginia-class submarines without assurances that they would be made available in a conflict with China over Taiwan. But Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday that his government gave the United States no assurances over Taiwan.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has invited his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi for the Group of Seven major industrial nations summit in May. He's later expected to announce a new plan for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Kishida met Modi in New Delhi during his two-day trip to India. The plan is a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at curbing China’s growing assertiveness in the region expected to include Japan’s support for human development in maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation. India says ties with Japan are key to stability in the region. India, Japan, the United States and Australia make up the Indo-Pacific alliance known as the Quad.

Global stock markets are lower after Swiss authorities arranged the takeover of troubled Credit Suisse amid fears of a global banking crisis ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting to decide on more possible interest rate hikes. Switzerland's share benchmark was down 1.8%, but Credit Suisse's shares plunged 63% and rival UBS, which is acquiring it, sank 14%. Hong Kong's main index slid almost 3%. London, Shanghai, Frankfurt and Tokyo also declined. Oil prices fell more than $2 per barrel. Regulators are trying to ease fears about banks after two U.S. lenders collapsed. Investors worry banks are cracking under the strain of unexpectedly fast, large rate hikes over the past year to cool economic activity and inflation.

Shares of Credit Suisse are down 63% in early trading on the Swiss stock exchange after the announcement that banking giant UBS would buy its troubled rival for almost $3.25 billion. The deal was orchestrated by regulators to stave off further market-shaking turmoil in the global banking system. UBS shares are down 14% in early trading. Swiss authorities urged UBS to take over its smaller rival after a plan for Credit Suisse to borrow up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) failed to reassure investors and the bank’s customers. Shares of Credit Suisse and other banks plunged after the failure of two banks in the U.S.

Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou will visit China next week in what a spokesman called a bid to ease tensions between the self-ruled island and the mainland. Ma presided over a period of warm ties with Beijing, but left office under a cloud after a trade deal with the mainland failed to win approval amid the island’s largest protests since the 1990s. Although the former president is visiting in a private capacity, his stature as a former leader gives the trip political overtones. Ma’s proposed visit comes as China’s People Liberation Army sends fighter jets towards Taiwan on a near daily basis, and as official communications between the two governments have broken off.

A team of volunteer specialist doctors has set up a mobile clinic in a cramped municipal building in a former front-line village in Ukraine. The clinic's front window is boarded up with plywood, but it's a lifeline for the residents. Access to specialist medical help was available only to those who could get to the city even before the war. But the village near the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk did have a primary care doctor. A Ukrainian-Israeli volunteer medical organization has been running mobile clinics staffed with specialist doctors in villages and towns near the front lines or in recently retaken areas to help improve the situation.

A major new United Nations report being released Monday is expected to provide a sobering reminder that time is running out if humanity wants to avoid passing a dangerous global warming threshold. The report by hundreds of the world’s top scientists is the first to summarize the research on global warming compiled since the Paris climate accord was sealed in 2015. It was approved by representatives from all U.N. member states during a week-long meeting of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in the Swiss town of Interlaken, meaning governments have accepted its findings as authoritative advice. At the start of the meeting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that more must be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Police have charged the first Australian veteran for an alleged murder in Afghanistan three years after a war crime investigation found that 19 Australian special forces soldiers could face charges for illegal conduct during the conflict. A police statement says a 41-year-old man was arrested Monday in New South Wales state and charged with the war crime of murder. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison if convicted. A military report released in 2020 after a four-year investigation found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation.

The toll from an earthquake that rocked Ecuador and Peru this weekend stands at 15 dead. And a day after Saturday's tragedy, residents of the hardest-hit coastal regions of southwest Ecuador are uneasy. Funerals for some of the victims in Ecuador's coastal city of Machala began on Sunday. Resident Luis Becerra says residents are fearful and still reeling. Saturday's quake measured a magnitude 6.8 and toppled homes and buildings from coastal areas to the highlands. In Ecuador, regardless of geography, many of those homes had a lot in common: They were often old, located in low-income neighborhoods and not up to current building codes in the quake-prone country.

A lawyer says a former United States military pilot could have been lured from China to Australia as part of a U.S. plan to extradite him. Daniel Duggan has been in custody in Australia since October. He is accused of conspiring with others to provide training to Chinese military pilots without applying for an appropriate license. On Monday, he appeared in a Sydney court by video for a brief hearing about a U.S. application to extradite him. His lawyer, Dennis Miralis, told reporters outside court that Duggan returned to Australia from China in 2022 after he received an Australian security clearance for an aviation license. That clearance was removed a few days after his arrival. His next court appearance is set for May.

North Korea says its ballistic missile launch over the weekend simulated a nuclear attack against South Korea. The North has held five missile demonstrations this month to protest the largest joint military drills in years between the U.S. and South Korea. The North's leader Kim Jong Un instructed his military to hold more drills to sharpen the war readiness of his nuclear forces in the face of “aggression” by his enemies. North Korea's neighbors detected the short-range ballistic missile being launched Sunday less than an hour before the U.S. flew long-range B-1B bombers for training with South Korean warplanes. The North characterizes the U.S.-South Korea exercises as a rehearsal to invade, though the allies insist they are defensive in nature.

Swiss President Alain Berset said banking giant UBS is acquiring its smaller rival Credit Suisse for almost $3.25 billion in an effort to avoid further market-shaking turmoil in global banking. The combination of the two biggest and best-known Swiss banks, each with storied histories dating back to the mid-19th century, amounts to a thunderclap for Switzerland’s reputation as a global financial center — leaving it on the cusp of having a single national champion in banking. While UBS is buying Credit Suisse, UBS officials said they plan to sell off parts of Credit Suisse, or reduce the size of the bank over the coming months and years.

North Korea has launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the sea as it ramps up testing activities in response to ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says the missile launched Sunday morning from the North’s northwestern region flew across the country before it landed in the waters off its east coast. The launch was the North’s third round of weapons tests since the U.S. and South Korean militaries began joint military drills last week. The North views such drills as an invasion rehearsal. The chief nuclear envoys from South Korea, Japan and the U.S. condemned the launch as a provocation that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.

Early projections after Sunday's presidential election in Montenegro suggest that the long-serving Montenegrin incumbent will face a political newcomer in a runoff presidential election next month. None of the contenders garnered enough support in the first round of voting on Sunday for an outright victory. The projections released by the usually reliable Center for Monitoring and Research showed that 61-year-old incumbent Milo Đukanović will face 37-year-old economist Jakov Milatović on April 2. The election was held amid political turmoil and uncertainty over whether the small NATO member state in the Balkans will unblock its bid to join the European Union or instead seek to improve ties with Serbia and Russia.

The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied port city of Mariupol, his first trip to Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September. Mariupol became a worldwide symbol of Ukrainian resistance after its outgunned and outmanned forces held out in a steel mill there for nearly three months before Moscow finally took control in May. Putin traveled to Mariupol late Saturday after visiting nearby Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine. The visit was a show of defiance by Putin, two days after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges.

A parody photo appearing on protest signs and online in France shows President Emmanuel Macron sitting on piles of garbage. The image references the trash going uncollected with sanitation workers on strike, but also what many French people think about their 45-year-old leader. Macron hoped his push to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 would cement his legacy as the president who transformed France’s economy for the 21st century. Instead, he finds his leadership contested, both in parliament and on the streets of major cities. His decision to force a pension reform bill through without a vote could hamper his government’s ability to pass legislation for the remaining four years of his term.

Protesters have vandalized the Nice office of the president of the Republican party in an apparent threat to get his right-wing party to vote to block President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform. Eric Ciotti tweeted a photo of his office in the French Riviera city with shattered windows, after a paving stone was thrown at it overnight into Sunday. The words “the motion or the stone” were scrawled at the scene, in reference to the motions of censure against the pension reform that will be voted on Monday in the National Assembly in Paris. Ciotti has said his party will not vote for the motions, meaning they are unlikely to succeed.

Israel and the Palestinians have pledged to take a series of steps to lower tensions ahead of a sensitive holiday season. This includes a partial freeze on Israeli settlement activity and an agreement to work together to “curb and counter violence.” But a Palestinian shooting attack that wounded two Israelis in the occupied West Bank on Sunday underscored the tough work that lies ahead in implementing the latest pledges as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approaches this week. The Israeli and Palestinian delegations met Sunday in Egypt. It was the second time in less than a month, shepherded by regional allies Egypt and Jordan, as well as the United States, in trying to end a year-long spasm of violence.

The longtime secretary to Pope Benedict XVI has acknowledged that his tell-all memoir has been criticized for casting Pope Francis in an unfavorable light. But Archbishop Georg Gaenswein insisted that some of the polemics were more about prejudice than anything else. Gaenswein said Sunday in some of his first public comments since Benedict’s Dec. 31 death that he remained loyal to Francis. He said that he was still waiting for the pontiff to give him a new job. Gaenswein’s future has been the subject of much speculation following Benedict’s death and the publication of “Nothing But the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI.”