Russia criticized Western and Arab members of the U.N. Security Council on Friday for paying "lip service" to humanitarian needs in Yemen after the council was unable to agree on a Russian-drafted statement calling for pauses in fighting to allow delivery of aid.
France's tough line in talks with Iran and a similar analysis to Gulf Arab states on regional crises has sealed strategic new links in the Middle East that will be cemented when President Francois Hollande attends a regional leaders' summit next week.
Islamist rebels and Syrian army troops on Thursday were engaged in heavy fighting in Syria's northwestern Latakia province in areas close to President Bashar al Assad's ancestral home, the army and rebels said.
While U.S. policy bans federal officials from doing business with kidnappers, the FBI for years has used a secret exemption to government rules to communicate with hostage-takers and sometimes send money to them, U.S. government sources said.
