UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to visit Ramallah

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will begin a visit to Ramallah and Israel this Thursday, Palestinian media reported. Moon will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Shimon Perez to discuss the latest peace efforts. Moon will also meet with Minister of Justice of Israel Tzipi Livini, who is in charge of holding the peace talks with Palestine in Washington. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met here on Friday with UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon who called for speeding up preparations for the geneva international conference on Syria with the participation of representatives of the Syrian government and the syrian opposition . The UN chief also stressed in a joint press conference he held with Russian foreign minister sergei lavrov afer their meeting, the need to bring about a political solution to the end the conflict in Syria which claimed more than 100,000 people since fighting broke out between government forces and rebel groups in March 2011.