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Assembly.
• Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Friday proposed plans to broker discussions for a political transition in Syria -- amid the paralysis at the U.N. Security Council which has cast a pall over the annual gathering of world leaders in New York.
• Zebari told The Associated Press in an interview that he made the offer to bring together Syria's regime and opposition at a meeting Friday between nine representatives of anti-Assad groups and the Friends of Syria -- a coalition which includes the United States, the European Union and the Arab League.
• He acknowledged that the U.N. and Arab League joint envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, would need to take the plan forward.
• Establishing a more coherent opposition is seen as a means of increasing pressure on the Syrian leadership amid Russia and China's decisions to veto three Western-backed resolutions aimed at forcing Assad to end the violence.
• ___

• BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- On a bright autumn day, Renato Grbic was out fishing on the Danube with his brother when he heard a big splash. At first, he thought somebody had thrown something off the bridge.
• Then he saw a man flailing in the water.
• "We hurried and pulled the man out," Grbic recalls. "I remember telling him: Such a glorious day and you want to kill yourself!"
• It was the first time Grbic saved a life. From that day 15 year ago, his own life would never be the same. The bright-eyed, tattooed restaurant owner from a shabby industrial zone on the outskirts of Belgrade has rescued 25 people who tried to kill themselves by jumping off the tall bridge over the Danube.
• Always on alert in his little wooden motor boat, the burly 51-year-old has pulled people out of the river's muddy waters without asking for anything in return.
• ___

• MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin is turning back the clock on his predecessor's reforms -- literally.

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