The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted an arms embargo against Libya, a travel and assets ban on Moamer Gaddafi's regime and ordered a crimes against humanity investigation into the bloodshed.

The vote is thought to be the first time the Security Council has voted unanimously to refer a member state to the International Criminal Court.

“The honest truth is that part of the support western governments offered the likes of President Mubarak was because he appeared to be a guarantor of stability in the region.

“[Liberal] ideas, to a large extent nurtured in the hothouse of Western consciousness and then innocently exported as a sign of goodwill … might originally be intended only as public relations move.

“The Libyan Diaspora has a significant role to play in this uprising. Though undeniably important, it is not enough for Libyans to protest outside embassies overseas.

Amid mass demonstrations in the Middle East, around 3,000 people took to the streets across southern Yemen last week in a "Friday of Rage", demanding secession from the north, but heavily deployed security forces quickly stamped out protests.

“We don’t decide between countries we trade with on the basis of whether they are nice or not. There are lots of regimes around the world. If we didn’t trade with them we would be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

- Libyan British Business Council director-general Robin Lamb, Feb 22.

“We, the undersigned non-governmental, human rights, and humanitarian organizations, urge you to mobilize the United Nations and the international community and take immediate action to halt the mass atrocities now being perpetrated by the Libyan government against its own people. The inexcusable silence cannot continue.

James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, associate professors of strategy at the US Naval War College, write on the much-quoted ‘string of pearls’ theory:

“[India’s] economic and strategic relationship with France is expanding. France is also emerging as an important supplier of our defence equipment and platform. … France is a strategic partner.”

Amid soaring global food prices, World Bank chief Robert Zoellick is calling on the Group of 20 leading and emerging economies to put food first on its agenda.

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi paid tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims during his visit to Armenia, the Public Radio of Armenia reporte

The 1947 legal definition by the UN incorporates several aspects of targeted oppression, such as "Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" and "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

The popular definition is simpler: The wholesale killing of a people because of religion, race or ethnicity."

“We are still not yet free of the shadow of serious crimes committed during the 24 years of Indonesian occupation. We have suffered a lot during that period; physically and psychologically, because of torture from various types of violations, including sexual violence against women, and the loss of 180,000 human lives because of the brutal, illegal Indonesian military occupation.”

Sudan’s president could enjoy a year’s reprieve from war crimes charges as Western governments seek to encourage his regime to consolidate peace after the people of South Sudan voted last month for independence.