United Nations (United States) (AFP) - A draft resolution on raising the Palestinian flag at the United Nations will likely be adopted next week in time for president Mahmud Abbas' visit to New York, the Palestinian envoy said Thursday.

The UN General Assembly will vote on September 10 on the measure that is almost certain to garner a majority of votes in the 193-nation forum.

"We have the votes and we are working to get as many votes as we can," said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations.

Once adopted, the UN will have 20 days to carry out the decision, which would be in time for Abbas' visit on September 30.

Mansour declined to say whether a formal flag-raising ceremony would be held during Abbas' visit, an event that would highlight the Palestinians' aspirations for statehood.

"It is a symbolic thing but it is another step to solidify the pillars of the state of Palestine in the international arena and give our people a small hope that the international community is still supporting the independence of the state of Palestine," Mansour told reporters.

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon walk in front of a Palestinian flag following a press conference in …

The draft resolution presented last week to the General Assembly would allow the flags of Palestine and of the Holy See to be hoisted alongside those of the 193 member states.

Both the Vatican and Palestine have non-member observer status at the United Nations.

- Israeli anger -

Israel's envoy to the United Nations this week expressed strong opposition to the initiative, accusing the Palestinians of trying to "score easy and meaningless points at the UN."

Ambassador Ron Prosor had asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly president Ron Kutesa to block the move, which would break with the UN practice of flying only the flags of member states.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Ban would abide by the General Assembly decision.

European countries were discussing the vote and could decide to abstain, according to a diplomat.

The General Assembly upgraded the status of the Palestinians to that of non-member observer state in 2012.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are among the world leaders converging on UN headquarters as of September 25 for an anti-poverty summit and the annual General Assembly debate.

Pope Francis is to make a much-anticipated address on September 25. The Vatican has officially recognized Palestine as a state.

The Holy See said it would abide by the decision of the General Assembly. But it also noted that the tradition at the United Nations was to fly the flags of full members.

Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday it was premature to talk about Russia taking part in military operations against the Islamic State group, as the US said it was checking reports of Russian troops in Syria.

Asked whether Russia could take part in operations against IS, Putin said: "We are looking at various options but so far what you are talking about is not on the agenda."

"To say we're ready to do this today -- so far it's premature to talk about this. But we are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons," RIA Novosti state news agency quoted Putin as saying.

The White House on Thursday said it was closely monitoring reports that Russia is carrying out military operations in Syria, warning such actions, if confirmed, would be "destabilising and counter-productive."

The comments come after images appeared on a social media account linked to Syrian fighters purporting to show Russian aircraft and drones near Idlib province.

Putin, speaking at an international economic forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, criticised US air strikes on IS as ineffective.

"So far the effectiveness of these air strikes is low," he said.

Putin said that military supplies to Syria were fulfilling contracts dating back five to seven years.

By Axel Bugge

LISBON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday that Britain would welcome "thousands more" Syrian refugees, after an outpouring of emotion over the image of a Syrian toddler lying dead on a Turkish beach put him under pressure to act.

Cameron, who spent two days refusing to commit Britain to taking in more migrants in response to a surge in numbers reaching Europe, gave no precise figure.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency told reporters in Geneva that Britain would offer 4,000 spaces for Syrian refugees.

Later in Madrid, Cameron said his government would spend another 100 million pounds ($152 million) on humanitarian aid, taking its total contribution to 1 billion pounds since 2012.

With Europe seemingly at a loss over how to cope with a huge increase in numbers of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa seeking safety or better lives, Cameron had previously said he did not think the answer was to take in more.

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Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron leaves Number 10 Downing Street to attend Prime Minister& …

Many at home and abroad accused his government of being uncaring and inflexible, and several of his own Conservative legislators and the human rights chief of the Council of Europe urged Britain to welcome more refugees.

"Given the scale of the crisis and the suffering of people, today I can announce that we will do more in providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees," Cameron told reporters in Lisbon after meeting his Portuguese counterpart.

About 5,000 Syrians who made their own way to Britain since the start of the war in their country have been granted asylum, and another 216 were brought to Britain under a U.N.-backed relocation scheme.

"We will accept thousands more under these existing schemes and we keep them under review," Cameron said, adding that the government would speak with humanitarian organisations and announce further details next week.

OTHERS MORE WELCOMING

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Relatives of 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy Aylan Kurdi carry his body, center, during his funeral pr …

Other European countries including Germany and Sweden have taken in far more refugees than Britain in recent times, and London declined to take part in a proposed EU scheme to allocate quotas to member states.

Germany alone expects 800,000 people to file for asylum this year. About 25,000 people applied for asylum in Britain in the 12 months to March, of whom two-fifths were granted some form of protection.

Cameron's announcement concerned only Syrians, the focus of popular anguish after the widespread publication of photographs of Aylan Kurdi, the toddler who drowned with his brother and mother as the family tried to cross from Turkey to Greece.

"We will continue with our approach of taking them (Syrian refugees) directly from refugee camps. This provides them with a more direct and safe route to the United Kingdom rather than risking the hazardous journey which has tragically cost so many of their lives," Cameron said.

Cameron had on Wednesday insisted Britain was already doing its bit, not least by sending aid to Syrian refugee camps in the Middle East and dispatching the Royal Navy to the Mediterranean to help rescue migrants from unsafe boats.

($1 = 0.6588 pounds)

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Kevin Liffey and John Stonestreet)

Negotiators from 195 nations tasked with crafting a universal climate pact are driven by twin fears tugging in opposite directions, which may result in a hollow deal, say analysts.

The all-too-real prospect of climate catastrophe on a horizon of decades, not centuries, coupled with a rising tide of expectations, would seem to be powerful incentives to forge an agreement that is truly up to the task.

Science makes it clear that the laissez-faire alternative is a climate-addled future of mega-storms, drought, water wars and mass migration.

It is also a reminder that the window of opportunity for acting is barely ajar -- if human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases don't peak very soon and drop very swiftly, it may soon slam shut.

At the same time, however, career diplomats -- and their political bosses -- working on the nitty-gritty of the deal to be inked in Paris in December are haunted by another fear subtly nudging them in the opposite direction: the fear of failure.

"Our concern is that we will end up with a lowest common denominator, where everybody just agrees on the least ambitious options," said Li Shuo of Greenpeace China.

The last time the world tried to craft a "last chance" universal climate pact -- in Copenhagen, in 2009 -- it ended in tears, with more than 110 unhappy heads of state scrambling in overtime to piece together a three-page, face-saving "declaration" instead.

"Not repeating the mistakes of Copenhagen" is a common refrain at the talks in Bonn, and something of a mantra for the organisers of the November 30-December 11 conference in the French capital.

And yet, progress has been incremental and painfully slow.

Negotiators left the former West German capital Friday after a week of closed-door meetings with very little to show and a draft agreement "not fit for a negotiation," in the words of the European Commission's top negotiator, Elina Bardram.

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Diplomats have lamented the "snail's pace" of a round of crunch UN talks in Bonn to fo …

- Getting ministers involved -

But it is unfair, analysts say, to place too much blame on rank-and-file diplomats, themselves deeply frustrated to have made so little headway with only five negotiating days left before the main event in Paris.

Without clear instructions from their ministers and, at the top of the political food chain, state leaders, they can only go so far in removing the logjams that have beleaguered climate talks for years.

"You have a very tight brief coming here from your ministers and capitals that you can’t go beyond," said Alden Meyer, a veteran climate analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"That kind of dynamic can impede creativity and the ability to break through boxes to interesting solutions."

The French hosts have moved aggressively to bridge that gap.

To start, they have enlisted early and often the ministers who will ink the deal in December, with the next "informal" meeting -- with some 60 countries in attendance -- scheduled for this Sunday and Monday.

Other high-level parlays coming up will give top leaders a chance to narrow the gap on core climate issues, ranging from hundreds of billions of dollars in financing for poor countries to how ambitious the world will be in slashing greenhouse gases.

On September 27, French President Francois Hollande and Ban Ki-moon will host a climate luncheon summit in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

- A game changer -

Also in September, foreign ministers will gather in another climate arena, called the Major Economies Forum, with finance ministers set to meet in Lima the following month at a joint session of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Finally, France has invited presidents and prime ministers to attend the first day of the 12-day Paris conference.

"It is a way of ensuring that they inject some political momentum at the beginning," said Meyer.

"What happened in Copenhagen is that you had the ministers unable to do their job because they knew the leaders were coming at the end."

Bardram is optimistic that in Paris, negotiators will not paper over differences and punt serious disagreements further down the road.

"A purely superficial political accord without a robust set of accompanying [operational] decisions is not sufficient -- I know that there are many parties that share that vision," she told AFP.

"This is not only about action for a few, but about transition to low carbon. It will be a game changer."

Abuja (AFP) - Mounting attacks by Nigeria's ferocious Boko Haram Islamists have sent more than 2.1 million people fleeing their homes in northeast Nigeria, the International Organization for Migration said Friday.

Revising sharply upwards its previous estimate of 1.5 million, the Geneva-based IOM agency attributed the increase to a very recent spike in Boko Haram's six-year insurgency.

But the state-run National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said other factors were at play, such as unrelenting communal strife and the return of Nigerians who had previously fled the country.

Newly-elected President Muhammadu Buhari, who completes his first 100 days in office this weekend, has promised to do far better than the previous administration in wiping out the feared Islamist insurgents.

But more than 1,000 people have died in Boko Haram attacks since May 29 when Buhari came to power.

"The recent spike in attacks by insurgents triggered the increase," the IOM said, referring to the stepped up attacks. But the hike was also due "to improved access to previously inaccessible areas of Borno state, where the IDP population is now well over 1.6 million."

The IOM said the new figure covered internally displaced people (IDPs) in the northeastern states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe as well as the central state of Nassarawa and Abuja.

It urged the government as well as the international community to step in quickly as many were in dire need of food and shelter.

"Many IDPs, especially in host communities, have yet to receive basic items including food and shelter," said Enira Krdzalic, IOM Nigeria Chief of Mission.

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Nigerian women queue to receive humanitarian aid in Yola after fleeing Boko Haram attacks in 2014 (A …

- Suicide bombers -

"It is very important for the authorities and for humanitarian partners to speed up the delivery of adequate assistance to these people," she added.

Attacks by Boko Haram, seeking to impose a strict Islamic system in northern Nigeria, have killed at least 15,000 people since 2009, with the group's campaign also waged across Nigeria's borders.

In recent weeks suicide bombers, many of them women, have staged attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad.

The IOM said the majority of those displaced (92%) now live in host communities while the remainder live in camps or camp-like sites.

But Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for the state-run NEMA, said the agency was already aware of the increase in IDPs and denied this was solely due to the upsurge in Boko Haram attacks.

"We are aware of the new figure of 2.1 million displaced people but it should be noted that there were other factors that brought about the increase apart from the Boko conflict," he said.

"We have people displaced by communal violence in states like Nassarawa and Taraba included in the figure," he said.

Ezekiel said there were also thousands of Nigerians who fled the country but were just returning home.

"For example, some 9,000 Nigerians recently came back from Cameroon and were received and camped by NEMA in Adamawa state," he said.

He said the agency has been meeting the needs of the displaced people.

"NEMA is on ground providing them with food, shelter and drugs," he said.

"Our appeal is for those affected to come to the camps so that we can attend to them. We cannot go to people's homes to give relief to them. They have to come to the camps and the collection centres to receive support," he said.

Ezekiel said only eight percent are in the camps while the majority are staying with their host communities.

"For them to be reached, they have to register with NEMA so that we will know exactly those we have to take care of," he added.

To fight Boko Haram an 8,700-strong Multi-National Joint Task Force, drawing in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin, is expected to deploy soon.