The US President, Friday, criticised CIA’s previous treatment of terror suspects as having "crossed the line", whilst stating that he could understand why controversial techniques were used in the aftermath of 9/11, reports The Guardian.

"We tortured some folks," Obama said at a White House press conference, ahead of a widely-anticipated Senate report, which is expected to criticise the CIA for abusing terrorist suspects in its custody without yielding any life-saving intelligence.

ISIS fighters made significant gains on Sunday, seizing control of Iraq's largest electricity generating dam, an oilfield and two towns, report Reuters and Al Jazeera.

This is the first major defeat experienced by Kurdish troops, which including the elite Peshmerga fighters.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah called the offensive in Gaza a "war crime" and "state sponsored terrorism" on Friday, breaking his silence after over three weeks of violence in between Israel and Hamas.

“We see the blood of our brothers in Palestine shed in collective massacres that did not exclude anyone, and war crimes against humanity without scruples, humanity or morality,” Abdullah said on state television.

“This [international] community, which has observed silently what is happening in the whole region, has been indifferent to what is happening, as if what is happening is not its concern. Silence that has no justification."

See here and here.

Chile, El Salvador and Peru followed Brazil and Ecuador on Wednesday by recalling their ambassadors from Israel, protesting against Israel's offensive.

Violence escalated on Saturday as Israel launched a hunt for a missing soldier, that it alleges was captured alive by Hamas during the humanitarian cease that broke down on Friday. 

Fighters from the Al-Nusra Front have killed two Lebanese soldiers and seized a police station in Lebanon, as fighting spilled across the border from Syria earlier today.

The town of Arsal saw fighters from the Islamist group clash with Lebanese security forces and storming a security building, with at least two civilians also reported dead.

Nabil Boumonsef from the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar told Reuters,

France, Germany and the UK have advised their nationals in Libya to leave immediately, as the conflict between government forces and militias intensified, reports the BBC.

The Turkish Prime Minister, in a mass rally to support his candidacy in presidential elections, deemed the current Gaza offensive a genocide, reports i24.news.

Speaking on an award that was presented to him by the American Jewish group in 2004, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said,

Kenya’s President ordered his government to repossess illegally appropriated areas of land, in the Lamu County, that he said were causing instability in northern regions.

Uhuru Kenyatta, said that a government audit showed that, over 500,000 acres, had been acquired by companies "under dubious and corrupt circumstances."

The United Nations Human Rights Chief warned that Israel was deliberately defying international law in its offensive against Gaza and that both world powers should hold it responsible for war crimes as a domestic mechanism would never occur, reports Haaretz.

Navi Pillay, on Thursday, further added that Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of rockets into densely populated areas, was also a violation of international law.

Citing attacks on homes, schools, hospitals and UN premises, Pillay said,

The European Union has adopted its most toughest sanctions against Russia yet, in an attempt to exert pressure and end Russia's support of the pro-separatist rebels in Ukraine.

Five Russian key banks, including the country's largest lender, Sberbank, was one of the latest targets. See here for more on the FT.

The VTB Bank, Gazprombank, the Russian Agriculture Bank (Rosselkhozbank) and Vnesheconombank (VEB) have also been listed.