SYRIA
Coalition prepares to meet
The U.N. envoy for Syria says if the cessation of hostilities holds there may be a meeting of the coalition of some 20 countries trying to end the conflict on the sidelines of next week’s gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York. Staffan de Mistura said the meeting of the International Syria Support Group — which includes regional and world powers and Syria’s neighbors — may be held before a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Syria on Sept. 21. If the coalition meets, the political process needs to be on the horizon and invitations for a new round of political talks could follow, he said. De Mistura said an announcement is expected late Wednesday or Thursday from the U.S. and Russia on whether the cease-fire is holding. Mistura said no U.N. humanitarian aid trucks had yet moved across the Turkish border into Syria. Officials, he said, were awaiting assurances that drivers will be “unhindered and untouched.”
RUSSIA
Separatists set cease-fire
Separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday announced a unilateral cease-fire starting at midnight Wednesday, which could be a major step in solving the conflict that has raged for more than two years. The conflict between Russian-backed separatist rebels and Ukrainian government troops has killed more than 9,500 people since it began in April 2014. Representatives of Ukraine, the separatists and Russia signed a February 2015 Minsk peace deal brokered by France and Germany, but frequent clashes have continued to claim lives and political provisions of the agreement have never been implemented.
France
Fatality at cruise ship drill
A crew member on the world’s largest cruise ship died and four others were injured Tuesday when a lifeboat fell from the deck into the water during a rescue drill in Marseille, the operator and officials in the southern French port city said. Julien Ruas, a deputy mayor of Marseille, told the Associated Press that the lifeboat fell about 30 feet from the fifth deck of the Harmony of the Seas into the sea with the five crew members aboard. He identified the dead crew member as a 42-year-old Filipino. Circumstances of the accident are still unclear. Local naval firefighters told the AP one person died, two were seriously injured and two were more slightly injured in the “violent” fall. All were members of the crew.
Compiled from wire reports