Tibetans exiled across Asia have marked the 54th anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising against China with protests in India, Taiwan and Nepal.

The Prime Minister of the India-based Tibetan Government in Exile, Lobsang Sangay, stated that those who dare to speak out inside Tibet

"risk prolonged imprisonment, torture, public humiliation and disappearance at the hands of security forces".

A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced two well-known human rights activists to at least ten years in prison, finding them guilty of offences that included sedition and providing false information to foreign media.

The sentenced activists Mohammed al-Qahtani and Abdyllah Hamad, also the founding members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), were told that the ACPRA would be disbanded and have all its funds seized by the Saudi monarchy. The ACPRA group documents human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and has called for a constitutional monarchy with democratic elections in the country.

"The British parliament last week formally recognised the genocide in Iraqi Kurdistan. We are pleased that the parliament took this decision and did so after an impassioned debate by several MPs, some of whom are old friends of Kurdistan, and with no opposition to the motion.

We appreciate that the British parliament also said it will encourage governments, the European Union and the United Nations to do the same. This underlines Britain’s role as a leading player in the international community and we hope that it will follow up on this decision. By doing so it will be sending a clear message to all dictators and oppressors.

Formal recognition is a step towards justice for all those who suffered in the decades-long campaign of death against the Kurdish people. It is acknowledgement of the suffering of the widows and the children left behind without knowing what happened to their loved ones or even where their remains lie. It took over two decades for some of the perpetrators to be brought to justice by the Iraqi courts.

A group of UN observers, who were abducted by a Syrian rebel group, has arrived in Jordan after their earlier release.

A UN team, sent to collect the 21 hostages from inside Syria, couldn’t reach the area due to government shelling.

The rebels themselves then transported the hostages to the Jordanian border, and were taken to the capital Amman.

The hostages appeared in a video, saying they were treated well by the rebels, whose move to seize the UN observers was condemned by the Free Syrian Army.

South Sudan and Sudan signed a security agreement on Friday, pledging to withdraw their respective military troops from the demilitarised zone in between the two states, later this month.

The Sudan Defence Minister, Lt. Gen. Abdal-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, said: "We will be ... committed, definitely, to implement (the agreement) word-by-word and step-by-step,"

The move has been welcomed by the US. In a press release, the spokesperson for the US State Dept, Victoria Nuland said:

The United Nations has given the Democratic Republic of Congo until the end of March to act against two units of the Congolese army, accused of committing mass rapes.

The UN’s peace force has said it will stop working with the units if their demands aren’t met.

"We have investigated, we have identified a number of cases and we demand the Congolese authorities take legal action against those people," an unnamed UN official said.

Thousands of mourners joined leaders from around the world to pay their respects to the late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, during his state funeral that took place on Friday in Caracas.

More than 30 world leaders were in attendance, including from all Latin American states, Raul Castro from Cuba, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. Syria's Bashar al-Assad sent a written message, whilst Russia and China sent senior envoys. The US was represented by Congressman Gregory Meeks and former Congressman William Delahunt.

Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta appears to have won the presidential election by the tightest of margins.

The counting of votes found that Kenyatta won 50.03% of the vote, just 4,109 votes above the threshold required for an outright victory.

Canada’s Foreign Minister, John Baird, told the North American Israel lobby group, that any Palestinian Authority (PA) legal action against Israel at the International Criminal Court would result in his country blocking aid payments to Palestine.

Speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, Baird warned that Canada would ‘deal strongly’ with Palestine in the event of the PA taking legal steps against Israel.

The UN Security Council approved new resolution against North Korea on Thursday, as the state threatened the US with a preemptive nuclear strike.

The resolution called for further economic restrictions on North-Korea including shipping and the receiving of prohibited cargo. See here for resolution.

The Chinese ambassador to the UN, Li Baodong, said Beijing wanted "full implementation" of the UN Security Council resolution.