A car bomb killed 13 people in central Damascus yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad told an international mediator seeking a truce in Syria’s civil war that the key to any political solution was to stop arming rebels.

The death toll from the capsizing of a ferry in southern Bangladesh rose to 62 after the recovery of an additional four bodies.

A rescue ship has righted a capsized ferry, easing the work of those searching the submerged cabins for scores believed trapped inside more than a day after the boat sank in southern Bangladesh.