22/01/2014 Newsround

Morning, guys - Leah here with all the latest on Newsround this

morning, including: The glistening palace made completely out of ice.

And sightings of a mysterious beaver everyone thought was extinct. Keep

watching. But first, peace talks aimed at

bringing an end to the war in Syria will start today. The talks in

Switzerland bring the Syrian government face to face with the

opposition for the first time. More than 100,000 people have died in the

conflict since 2011, which started when rebel groups tried to overthrow

the country's president. Leading figures from around the world will

oversea the talks, including Britain's Foreign Secretary William

Hague. This is the opportunity for Syrian leaders on all sides to bring

an end to this bloodshed, to save their country, to put an end to such

extraordinary misery, to the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the

21st-century. Next, another winter storm has hit

the east coast of America. Up to 12 inches of snow has fallen in parts,

forcing lots of school to shut and thousands of flights to be

cancelled. The snow has covered the streets of New York City and

Washington DC is expected to get its heaviest snow fall in three years.

This second storm has come just two weeks after the polar vortex brought

heavy snow and freezing temperatures to the same area.

And you can see some of the most dramatic pictures from that second

big freeze over on the Newsround website now.

Now, it's a big day for Andy Murray as the British number one takes on

Roger Federer in the quarter finals of the one of the biggest tennis

tournaments around - the Australian Open. Federer's won more grand slams

than any current player, but Murray beat him in the semi-finals of this

tournament this time last year. So Ayshah's been looking at who's

likely to come out on top. Murray versus Federer is the chance

for old rivals to meet again and a chance to see if both men are back

to their best. A lot has been written about Murray's recent back

surgery, but after four rounds of testing in Melbourne, his coach says

he has no excuses. Even if you are really ready and you haven't had any

setbacks or injuries to come back from, you still never know what is

going to happen. You could still lose the match easily, it doesn't

really matter. But Andy had a good run in Miami, so none of that is an

issue. Many thought Federer's own back trouble and a disappointing

2013 kept him stuck on 17 grand slam wins, but his partnership with

Stefan Edberg may be the key to changing that. This match throws up

more questions than it answers - no one, not even tennis superstars,

knows what's going to happen. If it is warm on this court, I go for

Federer. I'm very confident it will be Andy Murray because it is not

going to be physical. It is a match he knows he can win. Andy Murray has

been saying that he doesn't expect to win the Australian Open, but he's

also been saying that expectations can change, and if he can beat Roger

Federer for the first time in a grand slam they certainly will.

Well, that game is just about to start and the winner will face

Rafael Nadal, who won his quarter final match this morning. He beat

Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov three sets to one. Earlier, in the women's

quarter finals, defending champion Victoria Azarenka was beaten by

Agnieszka Radwanska and Sloavkia's Dominika Cibulkova knocked out

Simona Halep to make it through to the semi-finals.

Sticking with sport, Manchester City completed a 9-0 aggregate thrashing

of West Ham to reach their first League Cup final for 38 years. 6-0

up from the first leg - two goals from Negredo and another from Sergio

Aguero finished off the Hammers at Upton Park.

Finally, to the mystery beaver that's been caught on camera tucking

into trees. A farmer in Devon set up this night-vision camera to find out

what was causing the teeth marks in his the bark. He discovered it was

this little fella, but experts are confused, because wild beavers are

extremely rare in England after they were hunted to extinction during the

12th century. I'd seen something similar before in Canada, but I

thought, no, we can't have anything like a beaver here, can we? So we

decided to put out a camera on the site where I'd seen them. And to our

great surprise, yes, it was a beaver. Couldn't believe it.

Fantastic! Last up, just time to show you some

pictures of this amazing ice palace in New York. Workers are busy

putting the ice blocks in place and it will even have ice thrones in it.

It's being built for a big winter carnival that's taken place every

year in the village of Saranac in New York State since 1898.

That's it from us this morning, but we'll back after school at 4.20pm.