UN suspends Syria peace talks. Bishop announces extra aid for Syrians

Australia is boosting aid to Syrian refugees, while the first Syrian peace talks in two years have been postponed until the end of the month, just two days after they began.

 A migrant child looks through a fence at the Slovenian-Austrian border in Spielfeld, Austria, 27 October 2015. (EPA)

A migrant child looks through a fence at the Slovenian-Austrian border in Spielfeld, Austria, 27 October 2015. (EPA) Source: AAP

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will today announce in London that Australian water, sanitation, and education experts will go to Jordan and Lebanon to help Syrian refugees in those countries.

Australia will also give an extra 25 million dollars.

Apart from that, Australia is also spending 830 million dollars over four years re-settling 12 thousand Syrian refugees in Australia, as well as spending 400 million dollars this financial year on the military battle against I-S.

Ms Bishop says it's been one of Australia's largest-ever responses to a humanitarian crisis.

The UN envoy for Syria has announced a "temporary pause" in peace talks in Geneva just two days after they officially began amid intensified fighting, saying the process will resume later this month.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with opposition leaders, Staffan de Mistura insisted "this is not the end, and it is not the failure of the talks."

De Mistura said both sides were "interested in having the political process started," and that he had set a new date of February 25 for the resumption of the talks.

The announcement comes just two days after de Mistura opened the first talks in two years aimed at ending a five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced an estimated 11 million.

Syrian forces backed by Russian airstrikes have advanced in northern Syria in recent days, leading the opposition to accuse Damascus of negotiating in bad faith.

On Wednesday, the troops blasted their way into two Shi'ite villages in northern Syria, breaking a long-running rebel siege during a major offensive, Syrian TV reported.

The two villages, Nubl and Zahra, are located in the middle of opposition territory.

They have been blockaded by rebel groups for around three years, with the army occasionally airdropping food and other aid.

Their capture would mark a major victory for government forces, which have made significant advances in Aleppo province in the past few days, severing a key supply route linking rebels in Aleppo city to the Turkish border.





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Source: AAP

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