Over 50 world leaders have gathered in Chicago to discuss the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014.

The biggest ever summit of the alliance is the first ever to be held on US soil.

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has left China on a flight to the United States according to news reports.

The blind activist was taken to Beijing airport along with his wife and two children and boarded a flight to Newark, New Jersey.

"Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind," Mr Chen told the Associated Press news agency from the terminal.

A third Mexican general is being held by Mexican authorities over alleged link to drug smuggling cartels.

Gen Ricardo Escorcia Vargas, Gen Thomas Angeles Dauahara and Gen Roberto Dawe Gonzales are suspected of connections to the Beltran Leyva cartel.

President Felipe Calderon launched a war on drugs 6 years ago, with troops deployed all over the country.

Syrian forces shot two protesters in southern district of Damascus, Tadamun, on Friday reported Reuters.

Police in the southern Indian state of Kerala have charged two Italian marines with murder of two Indian fishermen.

The marines were guarding an Italian oil tanker off the coast of Kerala in February when they shot the fishermen, mistaking them for pirates.

Italy claims the incident took place in international waters and the men should be tried in an Italian court.

The United Nations Security Council has imposed a travel ban on five of the leaders of the coup in April this year.

The council "demands that the Military Command takes immediate steps to restore and respect constitutional order, including a democratic electoral process, by ensuring that all soldiers return to the barracks, and that members of the 'Military Command' relinquish their positions of authority."

The UK is reluctant to host Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the London Olympics, reported the IRNA news agency on Thursday.

The US has announced the appointment of Derek Mitchell as the first ambassador to Burma in 22 years.

In a statement, President Obama hailed the beginning of a ‘new chapter’’ in US-Burmese relations.

A court in Moscow has ordered police to "liquidate" the anti-Putin demonstration, known as 'Occupy Abai', at the central Chistiye Prudy park.

Currently in its second week following the re-election of Vladamir Putin as the Russian president, Occupy Abai has seen widespread support with thousands of protesters gathering in the evening after work.

The former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic was accused of intending to ‘ethnically cleanse’ Bosnia of Bosniaks and Croats, the court heard on the first day of his trial.

Mladic is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide.

The Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff has inaugurated a truth commission to investigate human rights abuses from 1946-1988, including those committed during military rule.

However, an amnesty law, passed by the military regime in 1979, means that no one can face prosecution for crimes committed during military rule.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for two rebel leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he is seeking the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda and Sylvestre Mudacumura, both of whom are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.