South Sudan and Sudan signed a security agreement on Friday, pledging to withdraw their respective military troops from the demilitarised zone in between the two states, later this month.

The Sudan Defence Minister, Lt. Gen. Abdal-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, said: "We will be ... committed, definitely, to implement (the agreement) word-by-word and step-by-step,"

The United Nations has given the Democratic Republic of Congo until the end of March to act against two units of the Congolese army, accused of committing mass rapes.

The UN’s peace force has said it will stop working with the units if their demands aren’t met.

Thousands of mourners joined leaders from around the world to pay their respects to the late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, during his state funeral that took place on Friday in Caracas.

Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta appears to have won the presidential election by the tightest of margins.

The counting of votes found that Kenyatta won 50.03% of the vote, just 4,109 votes above the threshold required for an outright victory.

Canada’s Foreign Minister, John Baird, told the North American Israel lobby group, that any Palestinian Authority (PA) legal action against Israel at the International Criminal Court would result in his country blocking aid payments to Palestine.

The UN Security Council approved new resolution against North Korea on Thursday, as the state threatened the US with a preemptive nuclear strike.

The resolution called for further economic restrictions on North-Korea including shipping and the receiving of prohibited cargo. See here for resolution.

UN officials began negotiations with Syrian rebels on thursday to free a group of captured UN peacekeepers, although the rebels assured that peacekeepers' well-being, distancing  themselves from threats to hold them hostage.

The retired commander of Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica cannot be prosecuted for his alleged involvement in the killings, ruled authorities on Thursday.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's decree calling for parliamentary elections was cancelled by an Administrative Court on Wednesday, leading the election comittee to scrap plans for the voting to begin next month.

Although Mursi barred the courts from challenging his decisions last year, he promised to respect Wednesday's ruling.

Britain will supply non-lethal military equipment to the Syrian opposition, announced the Foreign Secretary William Hague to parliament today. Calling the rebels a “moderate, democratic opposition”, Hague said the equipment would include body armour and armoured four-wheel drive vehicles, as well as training, search and rescue equipment, and kits to test for chemical weapons.

Around 20 observers of the UN in the Golan Heights have been detained by Syrian rebels.

The Martyrs of Yarmouk group are reported to have told the BBC that they had taken the observers to stop Syrian troops from shelling them.

The territory, on the Syrian-Israeli border has recently seen fighting between government forces and rebels.

South Korea has warned that it would retaliate against any hostile action from North Korea.

Army General Kim Yong-hyun said there would be "resolute retaliations" should South Korean lives be under threat.

The UN Security Council unanimously voted to ease the ban on the sale of weapons on Somalia after 21 years.

The embargo will be eased for a year, opening the opportunity for the government to arm its military with light weapons, however heavy arms will still be banned.

Prosecutors in France have sought a genocide trial for a former Rwandan army captain, in what could lead to be the country's first attempt at prosecuting perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.