BBC News with Marion Marshall
The White House has announced that the US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov on Thursday in Switzerland. As new diplomatic divisions emerge at the UN over how to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control. Nick Bryant is at the UN in New York.
It's been a fast moving day of diplomacy at the United Nations which began with France drafting a toughly worded Security Council resolution calling for the Assad regime to hand over its chemical weapons so they could be controlled and dismantled. The French have called for extremely serious consequences that the event of Syria failing to meet its obligations. But the Russians have called the threat of force unacceptable. They’ve requested a close-door meeting at the Security Council to push their own proposals for chemical weapons handover but then decided to cancel it. The White House says that America, Britain and France would prefer a diplomatic solution but have also said they continue to prepare for a full range of responses including military action.
The Syrian government has given more details of the steps it's willing to take to put its chemical weapons under international control. In a statement to Russia's Interfax News Agency, the Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem says Syria would join the chemical weapons convention which prohibits their production and use. He's quoted a saying that Syria is also prepared to show its installations to representatives of the UN, Russia and other countries. But the US Secretary of States John Kerry said Syria needed to go further. Our Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is in Damascus.
There has been a range of reaction to what’s happened going from relief through to people who I've been told have been actually crying tears of disappointment and frustration that the Americans aren't about now to bomb the regime because of course people who support the armed opposition were anxious to see the opposition profiting from an American raid and I think people involved with the secular side of widely the Free Syrian Army were also hoping that the Americans would bomb the Jihadists who are their rivals.
The Deputy President of Kenya, William Ruto, has pleaded not guilty to charges of crimes against humanity at the opening of his trial at the International Criminal Court. Mr. Ruto was accused of orchestrating violence after disputed elections in 2007. Anna Holligan reports from The Hague.
The prosecutor Fatou Bensouda accused Mr. Ruto of using his power to procure weapons, secure funds and coordinate the violence. More than 1,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes during three months of politically feud killings. For the international community, this trial has been seen as a test case for the ICC. William Ruto is the first serving official to appear at the ICC, in November, Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta is scheduled to join him.
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Venezuela has formally left the inter-American Human Rights Convention, a year after the late president Hugo Chavez announced his intention to abandon it. The Venezuelan government accuses the body of being controlled by foreign groups and interfering with domestic politics.
The Indian authorities have briefly lifted a curfew in rioted areas at the states of Uttar Pradesh where clashes between Hindu and Muslim communities have killed at least 38 people in the last few days. An official said the curfew imposed over the weekend was lifted for two hours to allow people to buy essential food items. The clashes were sparked by the killing of three men in a dispute over a harassment of a young woman.
The International Olympic Committee has elected a new President, the German lawyer and IOC Vice President, Thomas Bach. His election as ninth President of the IOC was announced by the outgoing President, Jacques Rogge. From Buenos Aires Alex Capstick reports.
Thomas Bach has been considered the frontrunner in the six man race so it was no surprise when he was elected in a secret ballot. His selection continues the preference for Europeans, eight of the nine IOC presidents have hailed from the continent. He's compiled an impressive dossier: he was an Olympic champion of fencing in 1976 and since joining the IOC has been a long serving member of the policy-making executive board. There were no radical ideas in his manifesto; but he will face challenges, the most immediate is the Sochi Olympics and the controversy surrounding Russia's anti-gay legislation.
An Italian priest has given Pope Francis a 20-year-old car to drive himself around Vatican city. The priest said he was surprised to receive a telephone call from the Pope accepting his written offer. Pope Francis has already used the car, a Renault 4 with 300,000km on the clock. Earlier he called for disused convents to be used to house asylum seekers rather than be turned into luxury hotels to make money for the Roman Catholic Church.