The Israeli government has announced it is planning to build 1,400 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The move is likely to impede progress towards negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The United States is expected to proscribe two Libyan organisations as terrorist groups later this week, in the aftermath of an attack on the US embassy in Benghazi.

Four Americans, including  Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed in the September 2012 attack by suspected Libyan militants.

The Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade has had her plea to delay proceedings against her for visa denied by a federal judge in New York.

Khobragade was detained last month on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her maid, causing outrage in Delhi. The Indian government is demanding an apology from the US for “humiliating” their diplomat.

Human Rights Watch has condemned the killing of 2 Palestinian schoolchildren by Israeli troops, concluding that the young boys 'posed no apparent threat', in a press release earlier this week.

Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said,

A former Nazi guard has been charged with participation in a massacre in Nazi-occupied France, the Guardian reports.

The ruling Awami League has secured victory in the Bangladeshi parliamentary elections on Monday, in a poll that was marred by violence, a low voter turnout and boycotted by the opposition.

Led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Awami League won 232 of the 300 seats available, about half winning unopposed, with a voter turnout of just over 20%. Election related violence flared across the country, leaving at least 20 dead in 2 days and some 70 polling stations set alight.

Western governments, who refused to send election monitors, are reported to be considering withdrawing trade benefits from Bangladesh over the tumultuous election. The US State Department commented on Hasina’s victory, noting that they were “disappointed”, and went on to say,

“With more than half of the seats uncontested and most of the remainder offering only token opposition, the results of the just-concluded elections do not appear to credibly express the will of the Bangladeshi people”.

The Bangladeshi elections were also a point of discussion in a New York Times editorial entitled “Democracy in Peril in Asia” and a Bloomberg editorial entitled “Bangladesh Needs Real Elections”.

When questioned on the threat of economic sanctions from the West, Hasina responded,

“Why? What has Bangladesh done? I don’t understand why they will impose sanctions. Bangladesh hasn’t done anything. It’s our opposition that has done terrorist activities.”

Iran has warned that imposing new sanctions against the nation will sabotage nuclear talks.

Responding to a sanctions bill being pushed by American senators to place new embargos on Iran's oil exports, Marzieh Afkham, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said:

"Approval of any new sanctions will be tantamount to terminating the ongoing nuclear talks,"

A former British Royal Marine has launched an appeal against a jail sentence handed down to him, for murdering an injured Taliban fighter in 2011.

Sgt Alexander Blackman, was found guilty of murder in November 2013, and given a minimum sentence of 10 years alongside a dishonourable discharge from the marines. Blackman, who had served 15 years in the marines, was the first British soldier to face a murder charge relating to the conflict in Afghanistan, since it began in 2001.

Both the verdict and minimum sentence are to be challenged. See more from the Guardian here.

The murder was filmed by Blackman's helmet camera, where he is heard to tell his colleagues,

“Obviously this doesn’t go anywhere fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention.”

A senior South Sudanese army official was killed in an ambush near the rebel-held town of Bor. The general is thought to have been involved in the advance of government troops on Bor, with fighting continuing for the control of the town.