Biden to meet Jordan king in Washington

Vice President Joe Biden on Monday was to meet King Abdullah II of Jordan, a key US ally in the Middle East that has seen an influx of refugees from the conflict in neighboring Syria. The two were scheduled to meet at 4:15 pm (2015 GMT) at the vice president's residence in the US capital, the White House said, without providing further details. Some 150,000 Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring Jordan since the start of the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. The uprising and the government's brutal crackdown have increasingly come to resemble a civil war, with 23,000 people killed, according to a Syrian human rights group. The United Nations puts the figure at around 17,000.