At this sprawling desert camp in Jordan, home to thousands of children who fled Syria's civil war, a few found a moment to smile Sunday watching a troop of clowns.

Five European comedians working for Mabsutins, a private circus and clown group in Spain affiliated with the U.S.-based group Clowns Without Borders, performed for some 60 children. More than 100,000 people live at the wind-swept camp, only 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the Syrian border, and for the children lucky enough to see the performance, it helped them forget about the challenges they face.

Pope Francis will visit Jordan during a trip to the Holy Land next year, the state Petra news agency reported on Saturday, citing a senior Vatican source.

"During his (August) visit to the Vatican, King Abdullah II invited His Holiness to visit Jordan," Petra quoted Vatican foreign affairs official Dominique Mamberti as saying in Amman.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday that regional countries hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees need "massive" international aid to help them cope with the influx.

"Without a much more massive support to the countries in the region, Jordan, Lebanon and others, the international community cannot take for granted that these countries will be able to go on, accepting more and more hundreds of thousands or millions of Syrians refugees," Guterres told reporters in the Jordanian capital Amman.

A Jordan-based scientific research project whose members include Iran and the Palestinian Authority has chosen an Israeli as vice president, the candidate's university confirmed.

Scientists from states participating in the project elected Eliezer Rabinovici, a physics professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, as vice-president of the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), the university told AFP.

Five pro-Assad Jordanian trade unionists were wounded by a roadside bomb in Syria Thursday as they were returning home after meeting officials in Damascus, one of them said.

Members of the Jordan Writers' Association and other unionists who support the regime of President Bashar Assad were aboard a bus that "was targeted by a roadside bomb near the border," Hussein Motawea, head of the delegation, told Agence France Presse.

A Jordanian jihadist died on Wednesday of gunfire wounds he suffered as he tried to cross into the kingdom from war-torn Syria, a security official said.

"Ahmad Fakhuri, a jihadist, was wounded by gunfire from the Syrian side as he tried to return to Jordan from Syria on Sunday night," the official told AFP.

Jordanian military prosecutors on Wednesday charged 15 men, including students, with carrying out "terrorist acts" over clashes on a university campus that injured four people, a judicial official said.

"State security court prosecutors accused the suspects of carrying out terrorist acts and possessing automatic weapons with intent to use them illicitly," the official told AFP.

Jordan has applied for a two-year term on the U.N. Security Council, the information minister said on Monday, after Saudi Arabia won a seat and then turned it down.

"Jordan has officially applied for a non-permanent seat on the U.N. security Council. The kingdom is interested in this seat and realizes its political and diplomatic responsibilities," Mohammad Momonai told Agence France Presse.

Jordan's largest daily, the government-owned Al-Rai, and its sister newspaper suspended publication on Tuesday after staff held a one-day strike in protest at state "interference.”

"Al-Rai and Jordan Times did not publish today after employees at the Jordan Press Foundation, which publishes the two dailies, observed a one-day strike on Monday," Al-Rai said on its website.

Jordan is expected to take up a U.N. Security Council seat that Saudi Arabia won and then rejected, diplomats said Thursday.

Envoys said Jordan had been reluctant to take up the Asia-Pacific seat on the 15-nation council but had been persuaded by the Saudis.