A ceasefire between Kachin rebels and the Burmese government has been broken after Burma's army launched attacks on Kachin positions near Laiza, the capital of the Kachin state, controlles by the rebels.

Austrians voted in favour of keeping military conscription in a national referendum this Sunday.

Bringing out over half of voters across the country, over sixty percent voted for it despite no obvious threat of attack from any neighbours.

Voters cited the country's ethos of community service as one the key reasons why they favoured it.

Two men have been arrested over the killings of three Kurdish activists in Paris earlier this month.

French media reported that both men were born in Turkey and one was the driver for one of the women.

Le Point reported that one of the arrested was the last person to see the women before their deaths.

The Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos has warned Farc not to return to violence once its unilateral ceasefire expires on Sunday.

The rebel group declared the ceasefire in November, ahead of peace talks, although the Colombian government refused to reciprocate the move and continued attacks on rebel positions.

India's Supreme Courty ruled on Friday, that the country has the jurisdiction to try two Italian marines charged with the deaths of two fishermen, however, a special feveral court must be set up as the Kerala state courts do not have the authority to adjudicate in the case.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged that he will not dismantle any Jewish settlements in the West Bank if he wins another term in next week’s elections.

"The days when bulldozers uprooted Jews are behind us, not in front of us." he told Israel's Maariv newspaper.

Tens of thousands of people gathered Thursday in the city of Diyarbakir, southern Turkey, to mourn the deaths of three Kurdish activists murdered in Paris last week, an outpouring that some said was the largest political gathering that Turkish authorities had ever allowed the Kurds to stage.

"The genocide that occurred in Srebrenica and Zepa, and other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was conducted by Serbian aggressors while blasting this song as they raped, murdered, and ethnically cleansed the non-Serb population".

"We sincerely regret that people were offended by this song… The Secretary-General obviously was not aware what the song was about or the use that has been made of it in the past."

The Burmese military has announced that it will end attacks on rebels in the northern state of Kachin after thousands of civilians were displaced by a recent intensification of conflict.

The decision was announced hours after Burma's parliament passed a resolution on Friday to end the fighting.

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has formally opened a case into war crimes in Mali from January 2012, it was annoucned earlier today.

Stating that she believes there is a "reasonable basis" that crimes such as murder, rape, torture and intentionally directing attacks against protected objects, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said,

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the disappearance of Laotian civil society activist Sombath Somphone and has urged Laos to conduct a “transparent investigation”.