Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak, along with his former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, have been handed lifetime prison sentences for their complicity in the killing of protesters in 2011’s uprising.

Judge Ahmed Rifaat referred to Mubarak’s rule as “30 years of darkness”, stating that both Mubarak and Adly were complicit in a crackdown on protesters in the 18 days of demonstrations in Cairo and other major cities nationwide.

Egypt’s decades-long state of emergency expired on Thursday, marking the first time in more than 30 years that the law has not been renewed.

The ruling military Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has stated that they will continue to “protect” the country “taking into account that the state of emergency has ended”, until power is officially handed over to the winner of the presidential elections in late June.

Chinese authorities have detained hundreds of people in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, as a young woman died setting herself alight protesting Chinese rule.

The crackdown follows two men self immolating in the capital earlier this week, marking the first time such an act of protest has occurred in the city.

Burmese democracy leader  Aung San Suu Kyi has called for “healthy scepticism” over Burma’s recent drastic reforms, in her first major speech outside of the country in more than two decades.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok, she called on investors to "think deeply" saying,

"We do not want investment to mean more possibilities for corruption. We do not want investment to mean greater inequality. And we do not want investment to mean greater privileges for those already privileged."

UN observers have confirmed the discovery of 13 bodies near the eastern city of Deir al-Zour.

The men were found with their hands behind their back and some had gunshot wounds in their heads.

The head of the UN observers, Major General Robert Mood, said he was ‘deeply disturbed’ by the ‘appalling and inexcusable act’.

"All the bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and some appear to have been shot in the head from a short distance," he said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The former Rwandan minister, Callixte Nzabonimana, was sentenced to life in prison by the International Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda  (ICTR) on Thursday, for his part in the 1994 genocide.

In particular, the case focused on a meeting held on 18th April 1994, in Murambi, where Nzabonimana and other ministers formed an aggreement "to encourage the killing of Tutsis... with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Tutsi population as such in Gitarama prefecture," the AFP reported.

Exerting pressure of Moscow and Beijing, the US Secretary of State, Hiliary Clinton warned of the "terrible" danger of civil war.

Condemning reports of a Russian arms shipment as "reprehensible", Clinton said,

"The Russians keep telling us they want to do everything they can to avoid a civil war because they believe that the violence would be catastrophic," Clinton said.

The UK is to set up a rapid action team, aimed at collecting evidence of mass rape in conflict zones when it is used as a weapon of war, reports The Guardian newspaper on Tuesday.

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The spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva, Rupert Colville, said that a "substantial part" of the killings in Houla, Syria, were "summary executions" on Tuesday.

Colville said,

"At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses."

The UN’s World Tourism Organisation has caused uproar at its move to honour controversial Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as a “leader for tourism”, reported the Guardian.

The 88-year old Mugabe stands accused of ethnic cleansing, electoral fraud, voter intimidation, controlling media, terrorising his opposition and has several international sanctions placed against him.