The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, suggested today that the only “plausible explanation” for the deaths of 1300 people outside Damascus on was a chemical attack orchestrated by Bashar Assad’s regime.

An American soldier was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for the killing of 16 unarmed Afghan civilians.

Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales admitted to killing the villagers, mainly women and children, in two nighttime attacks on their family compounds in Kandahar in March 2012.

Prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Jay Morse referred to Bales as a "cold blooded killer" and had "wiped out generations and ruined lives forever".

Speaking on Friday about the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria earlier this week, the US President Barack Obama said that it was a "big event of grave concern" and would "require America's attention".

Despite calls from many states for the Assad regime to effectively 'prove' its innocence by the allowing the UN's chemical weapons inspectors immediate access to the area and investigate, there is no sign of the Assad regime relenting.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the assignment of a disarmament official to negotiate a visit for UN investigators

Robert Mugabe was sworn in for a new five-year term as Zimbabwe's president following controversial election results last month.

Hitting out at his Western critics, Mugabe said that the "elections have been declared free and credible", except in the eyes of a few "dishonest" countries.

Mugabe also told his supporters:

“We have been on sanctions for over a decade and most likely will remain so for longer.”

Former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, could be freed from prison on Thursday, after a court in Cairo ordered his release.

The 85-year old was sentenced for life in a corruption case last year, however an appeal was successful and a retrial was ordered.

Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in an evident gas attack on rebel-held parts of eastern Damascus.

The former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, has been charged with the killing of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benezir Bhutto.

The ex-army chief denies all charges and claims they are politically motivated.

Bhutto was killed at an election rally in 2007, blamed by the then Musharraf-government on the Taliban.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) will hear cases of war crimes and genocide against a retired Israeli army general, Amos Yaron, from the 21^st to the 24^th of August.

The European Union held a first round of talks today to address the escalating violence in Egypt.

The ambassadors of the EU’s political security Committee were called away from their summer break for talks in Brussels.

Spanish fishermen have protested over an artificial reef created by the government in Gibraltar.

Several boats sailed into disputed waters around the British territory, saying the reef restricted their rights to fish in the seas around Gibraltar.

China is to open its first diplomatic mission in Kurdistan by the end of the year, following discussions between China's ambassador to Iraq, Ni Jian and Kurdistan's regional government's Head of the Department of Foreign Relations, Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir.

Minister Mustafa said,

A delegation made up of Cambodian and United Nations officials from the Khmer Rouge tribunal , will visit South-Asian countries in an attempt to address the court’s funding issues.

The new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has pledged to move away from “repeating slogans” in foreign diplomacy.

Speaking at the inauguration of the new foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, Rouhani said that he wanted to change Iranian foreign policy, but this does not mean that Iran would abandon its principles.