Moscow push to reduce UN cross-border aid to Syria fails

A Russian bid to get the United Nations to reduce cross-border humanitarian aid to war-torn Syria was voted down by the Security Council Wednesday, an official said. Authorization for the aid, which comes through two crossing points on the Turkish border — at Bab al-Salam, which leads to the Aleppo region, and Bab al-Hawa, which serves the Idlib region — expires Friday. Russia needed nine votes and no veto from a permanent member of the Council to get its resolution passed — but received only four votes, announced the President of the Security Council, German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen.