John Kerry

Russia on Oct. 12 said it would hold Syria talks with the United States and regional powers, including Turkey, this weekend, the first meeting on the conflict since Washington froze bilateral cease-fire negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken by phone to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a bid to calm Washington's anger over new Israeli settlement plans, an official said yesterday.

The Russian military on Oct. 6 strongly warned the United States against striking the Syrian army, noting that its air defense weapons in Syria stand ready to fend off any attack.
The statement underlined high tensions between Moscow and Washington after the collapse of a U.S.-Russia-brokered Syria truce and the Syrian army's offensive on Aleppo backed by Russian warplanes.

The United States broke off talks with Russia on Oct. 3 to implement a cease-fire agreement in Syria, accusing Moscow of not living up to its commitments as part of a Sept. 9 deal to halt the violence and deliver humanitarian aid to besieged communities.

The foreign ministers of the United States and Russia, the authors of a stillborn cease-fire in Syria, held discussions by phone for the fourth consecutive day on Oct. 1 regarding the bombing campaign in Aleppo that has hit hospitals and water supplies. 

President Barack Obama was seen impatiently waiting for former President Bill Clinton who was delaying their departure back to the United States on Air Force One at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv after attending the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Russia has said it will press on with a bombing campaign in Syria despite a U.S. warning it will end talks on the conflict if Moscow does not halt its assault, amid the continued bombing of Aleppo.

On Sept. 28 agencies reported that the last two hospitals serving in the east of the Syrian city of Aleppo were bombed by Syrian or Russian planes.

After a half-century of combat that spilled blood across this South American nation, Colombians have embarked on a new, but difficult path to settle their political differences with the signing of a historic peace accord between the government and leftist rebels.

"The Americans will always do the right thing, after they've exhausted all the alternatives." That quotation is impossible not to recall after hearing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speak in the U.N. Security Council meetings on Sept.