Climate talks make progress, despite delay: Kerry
Reuters, Paris
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said talks on a global deal to slow climate change “made a lot of progress” overnight but that there were a couple of “very difficult” issues to resolve after France extended the conference by a day into Saturday.
Kerry also said, after meeting host French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, that he was “hopeful” that a consensus could be reached among 195 nations and that over the course of Friday contentious issues will “melt away”.
Assad says he will not negotiate with armed groups
AP, Damascus
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks published Friday that his government will not negotiate with armed groups, calling them “terrorists” and saying they will only talk to political opposition.
Assad’s comments to Spanish news agency EFE were published by Syria’s state media Friday, a day after a conference in Saudi Arabia that sought to form a unified opposition front ahead of proposed talks on ending Syria’s nearly five-year conflict.
4 Afghan police, 1 Spaniard killed in Kabul siege
AFP, Kabul
At least four Afghan policemen and one Spaniard were killed in an hours-long Taliban siege near the Spanish embassy in Kabul that ended early today after all the attackers were killed, officials said.
“Afghan special forces have killed all the attackers who were involved in the terrorist attack in Kabul,” ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told AFP.
Suspected arson attack on California mosque
AFP, Los Angeles
Authorities were investigating a case of suspected arson after a blaze broke out at a California mosque, officials said, a week after a Muslim couple shot dead 14 people in the US state.Officials at the mosque could not immediately be reached for comment but they were quoted by local media as saying someone “fire-bombed” the building, and worshippers expressed concerns over the incident.
Last year, someone fired a shot at the same mosque but no one was injured.
Firefighters rushed to the Islamic Society of Palm Springs, in the town of Coachella, shortly after smoke and flames were seen coming out of the building at around noon, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Fire Department told AFP.
