Diplomats will meet in the Austrain capital Vienna later today in attempt to inject momentum into the process of ending the conflict in Syria. The US secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergi Lavrov will chair the meeting. Here is Bethony Bell in Vienna, The official say they hope this meeting will inject new life into the faltering Syrian peace process. The last round of peace talks in Geneva reached a deadlock in April when the main opposition group suspended its participation because of the mounting violence. Western diplomats want to show up the shaky truth and see progress on humanitarian access to encurage the opposition to return to the table. They say much will depend on how much pressure Russia is willing to bring to bear on its ally, the Syrian president, Bashar Assad.
The conservation charity WWF has called on Mexico to ban fishing in the habitat of the world's most threatened marine mammal after it's population declined by 40% over the past year. On Friday, it was announced that there are only an estimated 60 the vaquita porpoise left. It is often caught as by-catch by fisherman trying to capture a species of endangered fish for a lucrative trade in their swim bladders to China. The WWF’s director in Mexico Omar Vidal said illegal fishing was be halted immediately. The Mexico, US and Chinese government will work urgently and in a coordinately way to limit first all illegal fishing in Mexico. Secondly, all trafficking across the US-Mexico border. Thirdly, that demanding China which truly is what is promoting to increase this kind of fishing.
The Venezuelan government has published more details about the state of emergency that has been declared by president Nicolas Maduro, in the face of economic and political crisis. It will last for at least 60 days and the armed forces will be given powers to distribute and sell food stuffs. World news from the BBC.
The Canadian authorities has ordered the evacuation of up to 600 oil workers in the province of Alberta because of a new threat from a resurgent wild fire. The province's premier Rachel Notley said that people in camps near Fort McMurray will be sent to oil installations further north while a few thousand more workers are on standby to evacuate if necessary. James Cook reports. Two weeks ago, a wild fire destroyed more than 2000 homes in Fort McMurray and forced more than 80,000 people to flee. It is still burning and in the past 24 hours has moved back towards the city and the southern oil camps to the north. Dense yellow smoke has descended and in places the air is sick with ash. A spokesman for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo told BBC that 8,000 people were given procautionary evacuation orders late on Monday evening in addition to some 4000 who had already been advised to leave.
An American who's had the first penis transplant in the United States has told BBC that he hopes his operation will hearten war veterans who suffer genital injuries. Thomas Manning, who is 64, said he was determined to have a replacement penis after his own was amputated when he got cancer. He said he wanted to speak out about his experience. We have people that thought for years and tell them about how they had to have it amputated. If you saw the look on their face, they cringed, they just can't stand the idea. But I don't hide things, I must talk it to all of front.
The authority in Thailand does said to close the island of Tachai, saying that heavy tourist is negatively affecting natural resources and the environment. Almost all marine national parks closed from mid May to mid October for the monsoon season but Tachai will not reopen. The beach on Tacha can hold about 70 people but sometimes the number of tourists there is all over 1000. BBC News.