“If more people fail to speak up, Burma could be headed towards Buddhist xenophobia similar to the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

And that’s the concern that we see today in Burma that if this continues, if the Burmese monkhood continues to come out and press against the Rohingya in this way, we will be on the road to a kind of Sri Lanka situation with the Rohingya, where you have the Buddhists across Burma raising their hands against Rohingya.

Members of the European Union have warned Iran of fresh sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said sanctions are already impacting Iran, but that it was "necessary to increase the pressure on Iran, to intensify sanctions, to add further to the EU sanctions," he said to reporters after informal talks with other EU foreign ministers.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle expressed frustration over the lack of progress and said Iran has made no “substantial offer" to make clear the intentions of its nuclear programme.

Russia has rebuffed calls by the US to increase pressure on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Secretayr of State Hillary Clinton urged Russia to support the UN in taking action to end the conflict, saying that Congress may abolish trade restrictions still in place since the Cold War.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists that the Kremlin is against sanctions against Syria and Iran, after talks with Clinton on Saturday.

The Canadian government has decided to close its embassy in Tehran and kick out all remaining Iranian diplomats from Canada.

A statement by Foreign Minister John Baird said that Canada had suspended all diplomatic relations with Iran, due to its continued and increasing military support for the Assad regime in Syria, its noncompliance with UN resolutions in relation to its nuclear programme and its incitement to genocide and anti-Semitic rhetoric against Israel.

"We will propose a ceasefire the moment we sit down at the table… We are going to discuss it."

An Amnesty report released on Wednesday, ‘The Other Side of Paradise’, has accused the Maldives government of several actions amounting to violations of human rights. It outlined that there would be no meaningful reconciliation unless there was an end to the campaign of violent repression, abuses and impunity.

The accusations include many instances of arbitrary arrest and torture by security forces with complete impunity.

Security forces are also said to have increased attacks against peaceful demonstrations, which were instigated by the controversial resignation of the first democratically elected President, Mohameed Nasheed, who later claimed he was forced to resign at gunpoint, suggesting a coup by forces aligned with the previous leadership.

“Why should Russia be the only one reassessing its position? Perhaps our negotiating partners should reassess their position”

“To us, the most important thing is to end the violence, to force all the sides in the conflict to sit down at the negotiating table, determine the future and ensure the security of all the participants of the domestic political process,” he said.

“Only then move on to these practical steps about the internal organisation of the country itself."