The head of the Syrian Catholic Church, Mar Ignace Youssif III Youan, has said the West has betrayed Syrians and caused an endless conflict in the country.
US President Barack Obama said on Thursday it may take some months for Russia, Iran and the Syrian ruling elite to accept that there can be no end to Syria's civil war or a political settlement while President Bashar al-Assad remains in power.
Catholic bishops in the United States confronted the growing anti-Islam hostility in the wake of the Paris attacks by pledging to continue to offer shelter to refugees, no matter what their faith.
For the first time, Russian security chiefs have admitted a bomb did bring down the passenger plane that crashed over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt last month.
Facing military setbacks in its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq and intensified air strikes from a US-led coalition, Islamic State may have decided in September to take the fight to France and elsewhere.
Two weeks after they jointly called for a political solution to Syria's civil war, foreign ministers and senior officials from Russia, the United States, Europe and the Middle East struggled on Friday to turn that idea into a more concrete plan.
The United States on Thursday carried out an air strike in Syria targeting the Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John," who participated in gruesome videos showing the killings of American and British hostages, officials said.