UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations General Assembly voted 122 to 13 on Friday to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities in Syria, humanitarian aid access throughout the country and an end to all sieges, including in Aleppo.

Thirty-six countries abstained in the vote on the Canadian-drafted resolution on the nearly six-year-old Syrian conflict. General Assembly resolutions are non-binding but can carry political weight.

The Syrian regime pressed an offensive in Aleppo on Friday with ground fighting and air strikes in an operation to retake all of the city’s besieged rebel-held east that would bring victory in the civil war closer for President Bashar Assad.

“This is a vote to stand up and tell Russia and Assad to stop the carnage,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the General Assembly before the vote.