Lausanne / AFP Pessimistic envoys from the United States, Russia and Syria’s neighbours met on Saturday in Switzerland as Secretary of State John Kerry tried to revive hopes of a ceasefire for the war-torn country. The talks marked Kerry’s first encounter with his Russian opposite number Sergei Lavrov since a US and Russian-sponsored truce collapsed last month amid a ferocious …

  Lucknow/ AFP A stampede at a religious gathering in northern India killed 19 people on Saturday as thousands of devotees of a controversial guru tried to cross a bridge at once, police said. The followers of Jai Gurudev, a leader of a local religious sect, had gathered in Varanasi, a Hindu holy town in Uttar Pradesh state, when the deadly …

  Baghdad / AFP A suicide bomber attacked a Shiite-majority area of north Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than two dozen, security and medical officials said. The bomber struck in the Shaab area of the Iraqi capital, targeting either a funeral tent or one at which Shiite Muslims distribute food and drinks on the occasion …