UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday warned against allowing planning for a peace conference on Syria’s 2-year-old civil war to get bogged down, saying a transitional government must be agreed as soon as possible by the warring parties.

Speaking to reporters at the United Nations, Cameron said he fully supports a U.S.-Russian initiative to organize a conference in early June that would include both the Syrian government and rebels as participants.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and praised the opposition, but a decline in support for the Gulf Arab-drafted resolution suggested growing uneasiness about Syria’s fractious rebels.

While the non-binding text has no legal force, resolutions of the 193-nation assembly can carry significant moral and political weight. There were 107 votes in favor, 12 against and 59 abstentions – a drop in support compared with a resolution condemning the Syrian government that passed last year with 133 votes in favor, 12 against and 31 abstentions.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Increasingly tough financial sanctions, an arms embargo and other international restrictions on trade with North Korea have significantly delayed expansion of Pyongyang’s illicit nuclear arms program, according to a confidential report by a U.N. panel of experts seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

The latest annual report by the U.N. sanctions-monitoring group comes as the United States seeks to convince China that applying economic and other sanctions against its neighbor is crucial to halting the program.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Increasingly tough financial sanctions, an arms embargo and other international restrictions on trade with North Korea have significantly delayed expansion of Pyongyang’s illicit nuclear arms program, according to a confidential report by a U.N. panel of experts seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

“While the imposition of sanctions has not halted the development of nuclear and ballistic missile programs, it has in all likelihood considerably delayed (North Korea’s) timetable and, through the imposition of financial sanctions and the bans on the trade in weapons, has choked off significant funding which would have been channelled into its prohibited activities,” the 52-page report said.