The US senate's finance committee voted to extend the trade sanctions for a further three years on Thursday, despite the attempts of the Burmese opposition leader to work on the removal of these sanctions.

The committee's chairman Max Baucaus said,

“By reauthorizing the import sanctions for three years, we maintain the pressure on the Burmese government to undertake reforms.”

However, he added, the ban on Burmese imports, could be annulled at any time, as a reward for continued democratic reforms.

A 97-year-old man was taken into custody in Hungary on Wednesday, on suspicion of committing war crimes during the Holocaust.

The suspect, Laszlo Csatary, was questioned and charged with 'unlawful torture of human beings' - a war crime for which the maximum sentence is life in prison.

A South Sudanese long distance runner, Guor Marial, is seeking last minute permission to run as an independent athlete at the 2012 Olympics in London, as the new state of South Sudan is not yet able to send an official team to the games.

Speaking to AlertNet, Mariol said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had suggested he run for Sudan, which he vehemently rejected.

Syrian state TV has claimed three senior officials of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime have died in a suicide bomb during a meeting at the national security headquarters on Wednesday morning.

Defence Minister General Daoud Rajiha, feared security chief and Assad’s brother-in-law Gen Assef Shawkat and former defence minister and head of Assad’s crisis management office Gen Hassan Turkomani were reported killed in the blast.

After visiting the Bashabsheh refugee camp in Jordan, currently hosting 140000 refugees that have escaped the Syrian conflict, British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has stated that there can be "no impunity" for people committing human rights abuses in Syria.

He emphasised that following orders did not excuse officials and others of responsibility for war crimes.

Speaking about human rights abusers, Hague said,

The wartime leader Mahmoud Jibril has won Libya's first national elections according to results published on Tuesday.

His party, the National Forces Alliance, won 39 out of 80 seats, and the Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Construction Party took 17.

Only 40% of Libya's 200 seats of Congress are reserved for political parties however. The 120 remaining seats are for individual candidtates, many of whom are believed to be supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two former officials of the Chilean military have been arrested for the killing of General Alberto Bachelet, the father of the former president, Michelle Bachelet.

Ramon Caceres and Edgar Ceballos, formerly members of the Chilean Air Force, are charged with torturing to death Gen Bachelet, who died in 1974, after a coup led by Gen Pinochet saw the imposition of military rule in Chile.

Judge Mario Carroza said the torture aggravated the general’s heart condition which then caused his death.

Meeting the head of the Egyptian military council (Scaf), Field Marshall Tantawi, on Sunday, the US Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton urged the military make way for a civilian-led democracy.

After the meeting, Clinton said,

"Democracy is hard. It requires dialogue and compromise and real politics. We are encouraged and we want to be helpful. But we know that it is not for the United States to decide; it is for the Egyptian people to decide."

The Syrian government further hampers UN efforts to meet the growing humanitarian needs in Syria, which has been categorised as a civil war by the Red Cross.

Speaking after chairing the humanitarian forum in Geneva, the U.N official for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, John Ging, said,

“We have a number of visas pending for international staff from a number of Western countries- the United States, Canada, the UK, France and one or two more- that are refused their visas because of their nationalities”

Three survivors of the Mau Mau insurgency against British occupation in Kenya have taken their case to the High Court in London.

The first case was won last year when the high court ruled that there was "ample evidence … that there may have been systematic torture of detainees during the [Mau Mau] emergency".

The court opined it would be "dishonourable" for the courts to accept the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's argument that the Kenyans should be suing their current government.