British parliament backed UK air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, during a parliamentary vote on Friday.

Following a seven-hour debate, MPs voted for military action against by 524 votes to 43 reports the BBC.

The Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour leadership all backed air strikes though some MPs voiced concerns over further implications of airstrikes against the IS.

Cypriot authorities have launched a rescue mission to save hundreds of Syrian refugees stranded on a small fishing vessel off the coast of the island, according to the latest reports.

A defence ministry spokesperson told Reuters,

"We estimate about 300 people are on board the boat, most of them women and children... They are on a small fishing boat and are possibly refugees from Syria."

The International Criminal Court has opened a formal investigation ito “endless” instances of war crimes in the Central African Republic.

The conflict between Muslim rebels and Christian militias has seen thousands killed and raped and over a million people displaced.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said both side had committed atrocities during the turmoil.

The United States has agreed to pay the Navajo nation a US$554 million settlement, the largest ever paid out to a single Native American tribe.

The settlement resolves a long standing legal dispute, where it was claimed the US government did not act in the best interests of the Navajo nation when handling their funds and natural resources.

Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly hailed the verdict as a "victory for tribal sovereignty", adding,

Hamas and Fatah have begun talks in Cairo on Wednesday in an attempt to solve disputes and re-form a unity government.

The talks in the Egyptian capital will focus on "the return (of the unity government) in the Gaza Strip and the implementation of its authority without obstacles," said the head of Fatah's delegation, Azzam al-Ahmad according to AFP.

"There is a positive atmosphere in which the talks are being held," senior Hamas official Ezzat al-Rishq told journalists.

The leader of the United Kingdom's Labour Party, Ed Miliband, in a speech on Tuesday explained that he supported overnight action against Islamic State (IS) and supported a two-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, the leader of the opposition opened his speech by talking about Alan Henning, the British aid worker - a native of nearby Salford - taken hostage by IS.

Mr Miliband said that "one of the biggest problems our world faces" were issues in the Middle East and Israel and Palestine. On the Israel-Palestine conflict Mr Miliband announced that he will "I will fight with every fibre of my being to get the two state solution, two states for two people, Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side."

The City Council of Barcelona and 300 other councils in Catalonia jointly approved a motion supporting a self-determination consultation vote to be scheduled for the November, reports the Catalan News Agency.

A further 400 councils have confirmed that they will pass the same motion in the upcoming week.

Nato noted a “significant” withdrawal of Russian troops form eastern Ukraine, reports the BBC.

“There has been a significant pullback of Russian conventional forces inside Ukraine, but many thousands are still deployed in the vicinity of the boarder,” said the Nato spokesperson on Wednesday.

Japan, on Wednesday, announced that it had stepped up sanctions on Russia to be in line with other G-7 nations ahead of a meeting in New York, reports the Associated Press.

The US and its Arab allies have launched air strikes against Islamic States targets in Syria. Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined the US in the strikes targeting IS militants, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance centre, supply trucks and armed vehicles, according to the US Department of Defense.

Fourteen strikes were conducted on the de facto IS capital Raqqa and other towns across northern Syria by “a mix of fighter, bomber, remotely piloted aircraft and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles”, a statement said.

The DoD said they also conducted eight air strikes on Al Qaeda targets near the Syrian town of Aleppo.

China has sentenced Uighur academic Ilham Tohti to life in prison after finding him guilty of separatism.

Tohti, who is not an independence activist but an outspoken critic of China’s sometimes brutal crackdown on Uighurs, denies the charges.

Until his arrest early this year, the academic was a professor in Beijing and a member of the Communist Party. He has expressed revulsion against violence used by some Uighur and called for Xinjiang province to remain part of China.

However he warned Chinese authorities that the crackdown by security forces was radicalising young Uighur.