Videos of Syrian soldiers callously beating prisoners and laughing whilst snipers fire from rooftops have emerged.

The videos, taken by soldiers on their phones, will no doubt provide evidence of government troops commiting human rights violations.

President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed Monday, that the Palestian Authority are to seek UN membership for the state of Palestine at the UN General Assembly, beginning 20th September.  
 
Responding to accusations by Israeli and American officials that such a move is provacative and undermines peace negotiations, Abbas stressed that the two moves were not mutually exclusive and negotiations remained an absolute priority.
 
“Our first, second and third priority is negotiations,” said Abbas.
 

Despite an attributed commitment to ‘non-interference’ in other countries, China is now well recognised for its pragmatism when it comes to international affairs. Libya is a case in point.

China had substantive investments in Libya and good relations with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime when the rebellion against it began this year.

Nonetheless, amid international outrage at the regime’s attacks on civilians, China stood aside at the UN Security Council vote in February on resolution 1973.

The resolution also imposed an arms embargo on Libya.

NATO adopted resolution 1973 as the mandate for its military intervention in Libya. However China also stridently criticised the NATO air campaign against Gaddafi’s forces.

As the opposition showed itself to be a credible challenge to the regime, Beijing began reaching out.

In early June the regime’s Foreign Minister Abdelati al-Obeidi was welcomed to Beijing. Barely two weeks later, so was the opposition’s top foreign affairs official, Mahmud Jibril.

On June 22, China recognized the opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) as "an important dialogue partner."

At the same time, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said:

"China is not seeking any private interest on the Libyan issue. China believes the Libyan issue is essentially Libyan internal issue."

Stressing "the future of Libya should be left to be decided by Libyan people," he urged the two sides in the Libyan conflicts to "truly give peace a chance," saying "this will work for the fundamental interests of the Libyan people."

However, as recently as late July, despite the UN arms embargo, Chinese arms firms were discussing weapons sales worth $200 million to the regime’s beleaguered forces. They include pistols, missiles and rocket launchers.

See The Telegraph’s report here.

A European Union judge has decided to put a senior Kosovo politician and former rebel leader on trial for the alleged execution and torture of Serb prisoners during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

See AP’s report here.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has called for an independent inquiry into allegations that the British intelligence service MI6 was involved in the rendition of Libyan terror suspects.

CIA Documents discovered at an abandoned building in Tripoli suggest that MI6 worked with Libyan intelligence to forcibly move terror suspects to Libya, where they then may have been subjected to torture.

The secret documents suggest Britain facilitated the capture of Abdul Hakim Belhaj at Bangkok airport.

Former Serb paramilitary commander Dragan Vasiljković has lost a libel suit against The Australian, after the newspaper accused him of war crimes committed during the Balkans conflict between 1991 and 1994 in an article published in 2005.

During the trial, details emerged of the crimes Vasiljković is said to have committed, including rape, torture and his admittance to committing a massacre.

The editor-in-chief of The Australian and The Weekend Australian, Chris Mitchell, said at the commencement of the trial in 2009: