The United Nation has warned that their figure of 28,000 displaced is likely to rise, as refugees in several areas along the western coast are yet to be counted.

The UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Ashok Nigam, said that around 27,300 of the displaced are Muslim.

The latest violence in Arakan state has killed at least 84 people according to government figures, but human rights groups have claimed that the toll is likely to be much higher.

“There is a strong recognition that Algeria has to be a central part of the solution”.

The bombing of a church in northern Nigeria on Sunday, has sparked reprisal attacks by angry Christian youths.

Eight people were killed, and over 100 people wounded, when a car packed with explosives was driven into St Rita's church in the Malali area of Kaduna.

A plan to expand a petrochemical plant in China’s Zhejiang province has been scrapped after protesting crowds gathered in Ningbo over several days.

Crowds opposed to the expansion clashed with police and thousands of protestors were dispersed by security forces on Saturday.

Protestors again marched on the district government office on Sunday, calling for a stop to the project.

"There is very little public confidence in the government," protester Liu Li told the Associated Press.

"The ceasefire is practically over. Damascus has been under brutal air raids since day one and hundreds of people have been arrested”.

"My main task will be to continue the inquiry in the direction of determining the high-ranking political and military authorities responsible for these crimes."

Iraqi Kurds from the UK have started a campaign for recognition of the mass-killing of Kurds in the 1980s and before as genocide.

Saddam Hussein’s regime killed over 180,000 Kurds in the northern region of Kurdistan, but the killing of Kurds by Arabs has occurred in the region since the 1960s.

The campaign, called Justice4Genocide, is petitioning the British Government to declare the atrocities as genocide and is calling on the EU and UN to do the same.

An European delegation cancelled a planned trip to Iran, after their request to meeting two jailed activists was refused.

Iran's ambassador told the EU that it was 'impossible to guarantee that the members of the European Parliament could meet jailed human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and filmmaker Jafar Panahi', reported Reuters. 

In a written statement, Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, said:

The UK government has rejected requests by the US to use British bases to support an eventual attack on Iran.

The Guardian reported on Thursday that the US also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, Diego Garcia and Ascension Island, but British authorities said that legal advice suggested that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be illegal.