BAGHDAD – Arab foreign ministers called yesterday for a U.N.-backed peace plan for Syria to be put into action after President Bashar al-Assad agreed to the proposal, which urges an end to violence but does not demand the Syrian leader step down.
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DUBAI – Iran expects to reopen talks with world powers that could defuse mounting tensions over its disputed nuclear programme on April 13, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday.
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WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s top courtroom lawyer made an impassioned plea yesterday for the Supreme Court to save President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, capping three days of historic arguments that left it unclear how the nine justices would rule.
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ADEN – Gunmen kidnapped Saudi Arabia’s deputy consul from outside his residence in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden yesterday, a Yemeni security official said.
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JERUSALEM – Israel’s main opposition Kadima party, expected to suffer a crushing defeat in the next election, has voted out its leader Tzipi Livni and chosen ex-defence chief Shaul Mofaz to replace her.
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PARIS/LONDON – Explosive natural gas is leaking from Total’s Elgin North Sea platform less than 100 metres from a flare which workers left burning as they evacuated the rig, the French energy company said yesterday.
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LONDON/MELBOURNE – Pressure is building in Britain and Australia for fresh probes into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, already under siege over phone-hacking claims, after allegations that it ran a secret unit that promoted pirating of pay-TV rivals.
