Police are preparing investigations into the massacres of Bloody Sunday, over 40 years ago.

Up to 26 British soldiers could face murder charges for the shooting of unarmed Irish marchers, reported The  Sunday Times.

The Ministry of Defence is reported to have hired lawyers to represent the soldiers, who are now in their sixties and seventies.

Eight Serbian men suspected of  taking part in looting, expulsions and killings of civilians between 1992-1995 were detained by Bosnian police today.

Saudi Arabia has rejected a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, saying the body needed to reform first.

The gulf state was voted on to one of the 10 rotating seats but turned it down over the organisations failure to act appropriately in Syria.

"Work mechanisms and double-standards on the Security Council prevent it from carrying out its duties and assuming its responsibilities in keeping world peace," the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.

Chancellor George Osborne has announced that Chinese companies will be allowed to invest in nuclear plants in Britain and may eventually be able to own majority stakes.

"Today is another demonstration of the next big step in the relationship between Britain and China, the world's oldest civil nuclear power and the world's fastest growing civil nuclear power," Osborne said.

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More than 60 people have been killed in bomb attacks across Iraq in mainly Shia areas, as the Eid al-Adha holiday was being celebrated.

No one has yet to claim responsibility for the attacks, with violence reaching the highest levels in the country since 2008. Almost 1,000 people were killed in September alone.

Also hit by the wave of attacks was the Nineveh province, bordering the relatvely secure autonomous Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. The UN envoy to Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said in a statement,

Convicted Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor, arrived in Britain on Tuesday morning, to serve out the remainder of his 50-year sentence for war crimes in prison.

The former Liberian President is the first head of state to be convicted of war crimes since World War II, having been found guilty of 11 charges from Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 conflict.

The BBC's Mark Doyle commented that Britain will hail the jailing as "the successful culmination of a long-term development strategy in Sierra Leone".

He went on to add,

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Hungarian prosecutors, today, charged a former Communist Party official for war crimes committed during the anti-Soviet uprising in 1956.

The Official, Bela Biszju, was charged due to a law passed in 2011 that stipulated that accountability war crimes and crimes against humanity could not lapse.

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A proposal from Republicans in the House of Representatives has been rejected by Democrats, continuing the shutdown of the federal government.

The proposal would have raised the debt ceiling beyond the current $16.7tn, but Democrats rejected the suggested amendments to Obama’s healthcare law.

If congress cannot reach a deal by Thursday, the US for the first time will default on its debt.