The US administration has defended the abduction of suspected al Qaeda cadre Abu Anas al-Liby, saying he was a “legal and appropriate target”.

A Pentagon statement on Sunday said al-Liby was “currently lawfully detained under the law of war in a secure location outside of Libya”.

Latest reports suggest that at least 50 people have been killed in the latest wave of clashes between security forces and supporters of the recently deposed Mohammed Morsi.

"France is dedicated to multilateralism and to the organization at its heart, the United Nations; this institution represents the main instrument of global political regulation in favor of peace and security. But a United Nations stalemate that lasts for two years, entailing dramatic human consequences, cannot be accepted by the global conscience."

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"Populations were massacred and the worst scenario unfolded as the regime implemented large-scale use of chemical weapons against children, women and other civilians. For all those who expect the United Nations to shoulder its responsibilities in order to protect populations, this situation is reprehensible."

International monitors have announced that the removal and destruction of chemical weapons in Syria has begun.

Observers from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are overseeing the operation, which was established after a UN resolution was passed.

An official from the joint OPCW-UN delegation said,

The United States and Britain, pushed officials of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to prosecute soldiers accused of raping women, a United Nations Security Council envoy confirmed today.

A group of Syrian asylum seekers who had blocked a gangway at a ferry terminal in Calais, France have ended a 3-day standoff with French authorities on Friday evening.

According to Maël Galisson, the coordinator of Migrant Services Platform, the group of 60 Syrians, who had climbed on top of a ferry terminal roof,

“are very disappointed because they were hoping to go to Britain and find a better life…But they realized that they would not be able to leave and that staying on the roof was futile.”

“These are Syrians who have come from cities in Syria like Damascus and Dara’a to escape from the Syrian conflict,”

One of the Syrian asylum seekers has said earlier,

“We are here for one or two months and the French government and police have treated us very badly, and shown no interest in resolving our situation… They have systematically expelled us from our homes and put us on the street. We are here for one thing, and that is to ask for asylum in England.”

Tarik, a 19-year-old engineering student from the southern Syrian city of Deraa had said,

"We thought that France was the country where human rights are respected… But we live outside like dogs, hunted down by the police, we see we are not welcome, how can we seek asylum here?"

The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has confirmed that he supports the initiative by President Rouhani to improve the relationship between Iran and the US.

"We support the diplomatic initiative of the government and attach importance to its activities in this trip," he said in a statement on his website.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Iranians that life under the regime could get worse and that they deserve better than the government they currently have.

Thousands of supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood defied a government imposed curfew in a March through Cairo today.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad warned Turkey that they will ‘pay a heavy price’ for supporting ‘terrorism’, following Turkey’s continued support for Syria’s armed opposition.

Speaking in an interview on Turkish TV, Assad said,

The Gambia has announced it has decided to withdraw from the Commonwealth in a statement on state television.

It said it had "decided that The Gambia will never be a member of any neo-colonial institution and will never be a party to any institution that represents an extension of colonialism".

In a letter addressed to the United Nations Security Council  today, Human Rights Watch urged members to use their visit to the Great Lakes region of Central Africa to help end human rights abuses and impunity for the worst crimes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

An Ecuadorian judge has ordered the arrest of 3 senior retired police and army officers, in the country’s first ever trial for crimes against humanity.

A further 7 officers have been placed under house arrest, as the country investigates allegations of torture, kidnapping and sexual violence, that occurred in 1985, against three members of a banned leftist opposition group.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, today called for video games to punish crimes committed in battle by applying real-life international war conventions to the gameplay.