After several days of clashes between police and demonstrators, the Missouri State Highway Patrol is taking over operations from local police in Ferguson, after widespread criticism of heavy handed tactics used by riot officers.

Police had previously met demonstrators with heavy riot armour, SWAT trucks and sniper posts, and even arrested journalists covering the protests after police shot dead a young black male.

18 year old Michael Brown was shot and killed on Saturday and after days of unrest the police have released the name of the officer who discharged the shots.

The police was criticised widely, including by President Obama, for the heavy handed crackdown on protests, which were fuelled by the withholding of the officers name. Most of the local police in Ferguson are white, unrepresentative of the majority-black population of the town.

The UN has declared its highest level of emergency in Iraq due to the humanitarian crisis, after Islamic State militants made huge territorial gains in the north of the country.

The body says an estimated 1.2million people have been displaced following the advance of militants, with a large number seeking refuge in Kurdistan.

The declaration by the UN of a "Level 3 Emergency" would "facilitate mobilisation of additional resources in goods, funds and assets" to support the humanitarian operation currently ongoing in Iraq, said UN special representative Nickolay Mladenov.

Meanwhile France has confirmed that it will send arms shipments to the Kurdish soldiers fighting IS, as Germany prepares to send military equipment to the Kurds. The US is already arming the Peshmerga and is supporting them with air strikes on key IS positions.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday the UK is ready to “help out” refugees in Iraq.

Mr Cameron welcomed the news that the situation on Mount Sinjar, where thousands of Yazidis were thought to be trapped, was not as bad as initially reported, causing the US to call off a military mission to rescue the civilians.

"There does seem to be some good news and that is the American-led scouting operation has found fewer people on the mountainside than expected. Also we see that the UK aid drops have made a difference and have got through to people. It's good news that there are fewer people there and they are in better condition than expected," he said.

The war crimes trial of Lt Col Bedi Mobuli Egangela will be a test case for military justice, the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo says.

Lt Col Egangela is denying charges of war crimes including murder, rape and torture allegedly committed during conflict in the east of the country, in 2005-2006.

“We welcome the current ceasefire in Gaza and hope it will lead to a peaceful resolution. However, the UK government has not been able to clarify if the export licence criteria are being met. In light of that uncertainty we have taken the decision to suspend these existing export licences in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities.”

A petition for self-determination has been drawn up for two East Malaysian states, by a group of NGOs and politicians, reported the Borneo Post on Tuesday.

The petition, addressed to the UN Secretary General, seeks assistance from the UN to re-open the issue of self-determination of the two states, Sarawak and Sabah, which share the island of Borneo with Indonesia and Brunei.

“Whereas Brunei attained independence on 1st January 1984, Sarawak and Sabah have remained under ‘change of status’ stature without national independence up to today; documented as such in the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement listed by the General Assembly as Non-Self-Governing Territories,” the petition stated.