"Of course not, and the president has stated this, that there is no need to use any nuclear weapons against terrorists, as they can be defeated through conventional means, and this is fully in line with our military doctrine,"

This is the world's most famous painting which, like a celebrity, always makes for a good story. But in this case I think caution is required.

given access to the painting in 2004 by the Louvre.

"projecting a series of intense lights"

"We can now analyse exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting."

"The results shatter many myths and alter our vision of Leonardo's masterpiece forever."When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today. This is not the same woman."

"They [Cotte's images] are ingenious in showing what Leonardo may have been thinking about. But the idea that there is that picture as it were hiding underneath the surface is untenable.

"I do not think there are these discrete stages which represent different portraits. I see it as more or less a continuous process of evolution. I am absolutely convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa. "

"There will probably be some reluctance on the part of the authorities at the Louvre in changing the title of the painting because that's what we're talking about - it's goodbye Mona Lisa, she is somebody else."

“Both President Putin and Russian officials at various levels repeatedly emphasized our belief that an effective counteraction against these dangerous developments is only possible on the platform of a united coalition and an absolute coordination of any joint efforts,”

The minimum sentence for murder is 15 years

Yes, but only if his lawyers are convinced that the appeal judges violated his constitutional rights.

Bomb squads had also disposed of explosives the suspects left behind them at the regional center. None of the victims were identified late Wednesday.

Chief Burguan said there were at least 20 officers involved in the gun battle

Investigators on Thursday were puzzling over the motives over the latest attack, and there were conflicting accounts of what had led to the shooting.

President Obama once again called for better background checks and new restrictions on access to guns.

Turkish industrial goods would not be banned for now but future expansion of the sanctions was not ruled out, officials said.

Turkey and Russia have important economic links. Russia is Turkey's second-largest trading partner, while more than three million Russian tourists visited Turkey last year.

The Turkish military issued a press release saying a Turkish garrison commander and a Russian delegation observed a military and religious ceremony before the body of Lt Col Peshkov left on a plane for Russia.

It was reportedly handed over to Turkish authorities by rebels from Syria's ethnic Turkmen community in the Hatay region in the early hours of Sunday.

“And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.”

“For I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late,”

“We know the truth that many nations have contributed little to climate change but will be the first to feel its most destructive effects,” he said.

Mr. Obama has staked much of his legacy on ensuring success here, spending much of the past year courting the leaders of China, India and other major emitters in hopes they would finally agree to slow their rapidly rising use of coal and other carbon-intensive fuels.

“What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it,”

They stopped at the site immediately after Mr. Obama landed at Orly Airport and was driven through the quiet and largely blocked-off streets of Paris.

Mr. Hollande arrived at the climate talks at 7:46 a.m. and was greeted by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was accompanied by Mr. Hollande’s former partner, the minister of ecology, Ségolène Royal.

Citing climate change as “a huge challenge,” Mr. Xi said it was “very important for China and the United States to be firmly committed to the right direction of building a new model of major country relations,” including by “partnering with each other to help the climate conference deliver its expected targets.”

“As the two largest economies in the world and the two largest carbon-emitters, we have both determined that it is our responsibility to take action,” Mr. Obama said, adding, “And so our leadership on this issue has been absolutely vital, and I appreciate President Xi’s consistent cooperation on this issue.”

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a group of business and philanthropy leaders led by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates who have a combined total of $350 billion in private wealth, have pledged to invest in moving clean-energy technologies from laboratories to the marketplace.

“Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can still safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow,” he wrote in a column published in The Financial Times. “The lifestyles of a few must not crowd out opportunities for the many still on the first steps of the development ladder.

In exchange, India was demanding free technology from other countries as well as significant financial aid. India has some incentives to cooperate with broader plans to curb emissions. Some studies suggest that more Indians could be displaced as a result of rising seas than people from any other country, that cities in India are already among the world’s most polluted, and that nearly a fifth of deaths in India are caused in part by air pollution.

“The idea that the death penalty will deter terrorism is ridiculous, because terrorists are not afraid to die. Death is part of their ideology.”

“That appears to be a response that we see among politicians in all nations,” Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, told The Daily Beast. “So when some extraordinary act of violence occurs, it is also certain that some politician somewhere will come up with a response like that.”

In fact, while Beirut was once synonymous with violence, when it went through a grinding civil war a generation ago, this was the deadliest suicide bombing to hit the city since that conflict ended in 1990. Lebanon has weathered waves of political assassinations, street skirmishes and wars; Israeli airstrikes leveled whole apartment blocks in 2006. But it had been a year of relative calm.

To be sure, the attacks meant different things in Paris and Beirut. Paris saw it as a bolt from the blue, the worst attack in the city in decades, while to Beirut the bombing was the fulfillment of a never entirely absent fear that another outbreak of violence may come.

Meanwhile, Syrians fretted that the brunt of reaction to both attacks would fall on them. There are a million Syrians in Lebanon, a country of four million; some have become desperate enough to contemplate joining the accelerating flow of those taking smugglers’ boats to Europe.

“This is the sort of terrorism that Syrian refugees have been fleeing by the millions,” declared Faisal Alazem, a spokesman for the Syrian Canadian Council.

“Imagine if what happened in Paris last night would happen there on a daily basis for five years,”

“Now imagine all that happening without global sympathy for innocent lost lives, with no special media updates by the minute, and without the support of every world leader condemning the violence,”

The government can’t protect us,” he said. “They can’t even pick up the trash from the streets.”

As the supreme Shiite spiritual leader — whose religious authority surpasses that of Iran’s supreme leader — he instructs the pious in how to pray, how to wash and what to eat.

Despite his undeniably powerful influence, his public role in Iraq has often been described as “fatherly”: guiding politics from on high, intervening at difficult times, but otherwise staying aloof from the fray of governing.

“In recent months he felt a great danger on the political and security scene,” said Ali Alaq, a Shiite lawmaker in Baghdad. “He felt a patriotic duty to act,” he continued, and using an honorific for the ayatollah added, “Sayyid Sistani represents the conscience of the Iraqi people.”

Mr. Abadi has reduced the salaries of lawmakers and the number of their bodyguards, and has eliminated several high-level positions, including deputy prime minister and vice president, but there has been no serious effort yet on corruption or reforming the judiciary.

Ayatollah Sistani has become increasingly concerned that those militias are a threat to the unity of Iraq, experts say, in part because many of the militia leaders and their affiliated politicians have challenged efforts by the government to reconcile with Iraq’s minority Sunnis, a priority for the clerical leader.

Mr. Khalaji said that when it comes to Iran, Ayatollah Sistani is primarily worried about tensions between Sunnis and Shiites and Iran’s role in worsening sectarian divisions in Iraq.

One diplomat in Baghdad, referring to the Shiite holy cities from where instructions to politicians are given at Friday sermons, noted that in much the same way as Iranian political leaders look to Qom for guidance, “Every Friday we look to Karbala and Najaf.”

Here in Najaf, where Ayatollah Sistani, three other senior ayatollahs and countless clerics collectively represent the Shiite religious establishment, known as the marjaiya, there is a sense of regret for lending crucial support for Iraq’s Shiite political class in the years after the 2003 invasion.

The marjaiya’s support over the years lent crucial legitimacy to the Shiite religious parties that came to dominate politics and that are now the source of great anger for the masses that began protesting against Iraq’s government in August.

The question, then, is whether Ayatollah Sistani’s prominence in politics will be lasting — and whether there is a growing desire among the public and political leaders for that increased role.

Yet, Ayatollah Sistani’s son, Muhammed Ridha Ali, in a brief interview here, suggested that the intervention in politics is not designed to be permanent.

Many in the region see the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia as being at the heart of the deepening conflicts in the Middle East.

owever, Syria's political opposition has warned that Iran's involvement will only complicate the meeting in Vienna.Both Iran and Russia - another ally of President Assad - have recently stepped up their military role in the Syrian conflict.

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a million injured. Some 11 million others have been forced from their homes, of whom four million have fled abroad - including growing numbers who are making the dangerous journey to Europe.

The US has indicated it could only tolerate President Assad during a short transition period, after which he should step down.

Government forces concentrated in Damascus and the centre and west of Syria are fighting the jihadists of Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, as well as less numerous so-called "moderate" rebel groups, who are strongest in the north and east. These groups are also battling each other

Despite that, unconfirmed reports earlier this month said that hundreds of Iranian troops had arrived in Syria.

Iran, Russia and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement are propping up the Alawite-led Assad government, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar back the more moderate Sunni-dominated opposition, along with the US, UK and France. Hezbollah and Iran are believed to have troops and officers on the ground, while a Western-led coalition and Russia are carrying out air strikes.