GENEVA / AP Two figures from the main Syrian opposition team to the peace talks in Geneva said that they have rejected a suggestion that was put forward by the UN special envoy to Syria in which President Bashar Assad would stay in power during a transitional period and the opposition would choose three vice presidents. The UN envoy to …

  BEIRUT / AP A UN agency says around 10,000 civilians are trapped in “desperate” humanitarian conditions in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, where fighting has raged for days between IS militants and other extremists. The UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, says residents of the Yarmouk camp have gone without food or water for more than a week. UNRWA …

  Kabul / AP Child casualties have soared in Afghanistan this year as the Taliban stepped up attacks in urban areas, the United Nations said on Sunday, branding the figures “appalling”. Between January and March, 161 children were killed and 449 others injured—a 29 percent increase from a year earlier—the UN’s mission in Afghanistan said in a report. Danielle Bell, the …