Reuters, Beijing
China’s foreign minister has repeated a plea for the crisis in Syria to be resolved politically, during a meeting of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the Xinhua state news agency reported on Wednesday.
Russia and the United States, two other permanent members, agreed on Monday to look for a diplomatic end to the Syrian civil war but clashed over the central question of whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should retain power.
8 held for allegedly killing Muslim
AP, Lucknow
Indian police arrested eight people and were searching Wednesday for two more after villagers allegedly beat a Muslim farmer to death and severely injured his son upon hearing rumors that the family was eating beef – a taboo for many among India’s majority Hindu population.
The mob of about 60 Hindus became incensed when a temple announced that the family had been slaughtering cow s and storing the beef in their house in Bisara.
Obama, Castro call for end to Cuba embargo at UN
AFP, United Nations
US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro both called for an end to the US embargo on Havana at the United Nations Monday, on the eve of their scheduled meeting in New York.
During his wide-ranging speech, Obama said he was confident that the US Congress would “inevitably lift an embargo that should not be in place anymore,” drawing applause from the 193-nation UN General Assembly.
Australia to bid for UN Council seat
Reuters, Sydney
Australia will bid to rejoin the United Nations Security Council by the end of the next decade, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement on Wednesday. Bishop said Australia, whose last two-year term ended in December 2014, would promote greater international cooperation to tackle global security challenges in its bid for a non-permanent 2029-30 seat.
Trump backs Russia, Iran efforts to fight IS
Reuters, Washington
Leading Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday said he supported Russian efforts to fight Islamic State militants in the Middle East, including Syria.
Asked whether he backed those like Russia who supported Syrian President Bashar al Assad or those who see him as the source of Syria’s current crisis, Trump told NBC’s “Today” programme.
Iranian boat carrying arms to Yemen seized
Reuters, Dubai
Saudi-led coalition forces fighting Iranian-allied Houthi groups in Yemen foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons to Yemen aboard an Iranian boat, the coalition said.The vessel, seized on Saturday, was carrying various types of shells and rockets and other equipment for Houthi forces, a coalition statement said.
The vessel was manned by 14 Iranians and carried papers indicating it was owned by an Iranian national, it added.
