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Added on the 08/02/2016 15:32:09 - Copyright : Euronews EN
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has asked China's foreign minister and other counterparts to use their influence to dissuade Iran from striking Israel, the State Department says. Blinken spoke by telephone to his Chinese, Turkish, Saudi and European counterparts "to make clear that escalation is not in anyone's interest and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller tells reporters. SOUNDBITE
Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations denounces Russia as a "terrorist state" during an urgent General Assembly meeting to discuss Moscow's annexation of four Ukrainian regions. "Russia has proven once again, that this is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways," says Sergiy Kyslytsya, speaking after Russia launched a deadly barrage of missile strikes at cities across Ukraine. SOUNDBITE
US secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with a small group of ministers ahead of the opening of the meeting of the 79-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, which the United States assembled in 2014. IMAGES
UN chief Antonio Guterres warns that Israel's military offensive on Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for their unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, has created a "humanitarian hellscape" for civilians trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory. SOUNDBITE
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemns a strike on an Iranian consular annex building in Syria one day earlier, Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari tells the Security Council, after the attack -- which Tehran has blamed on Israel -- killed at least 13 people. "Let me be very clear, the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected in all cases in accordance with international law," Khiari says. SOUNDBITE
The United States had no involvement in an airstrike on Iran's consular annex building in the Syrian capital Damascus that Tehran blamed on Israel, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby tells journalists. SOUNDBITE