A long-awaited round of peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition is to be held in Geneva on January 22.
ELSEWHERE:
MOSCOW - Russia has released another crew member of the Arctic Sunrise on bail, meaning that the Greenpeace ship's Australian radio operator remains the last of 30 people to have been detained for two months for protesting against oil drilling in the Arctic.
PARIS - One of France's top medical experts has appealed for calm as a scare over Australian-pioneered cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil gathers momentum.
LONDON - Monty Python are remaining coy about a possible world tour after tickets to their "one-off" London show sold out in 43 seconds, leading to the announcement of an additional four dates, which then sold out in 55 minutes.
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LONDON - The ex-wife of golfer Colin Montgomerie has testified at Britain's phone-hacking trial that former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks told her how easy it was to access celebrities' phones.
TOMASICA - The president of the UN war crimes trial for the former Yugoslavia says seeing what could be Bosnia's largest mass grave was like standing "face to face with horror".
GHAZIABAD - A dentist couple in India have been found guilty of slitting the throats of their teenage daughter and a servant in a murder trial that has gripped the country for five years.
GENEVA - The number of adolescents infected by the HIV virus has jumped by one third over the past decade, the UN's health agency says.
