Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in an evident gas attack on rebel-held parts of eastern Damascus.

The former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, has been charged with the killing of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benezir Bhutto.

The ex-army chief denies all charges and claims they are politically motivated.

Bhutto was killed at an election rally in 2007, blamed by the then Musharraf-government on the Taliban.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) will hear cases of war crimes and genocide against a retired Israeli army general, Amos Yaron, from the 21^st to the 24^th of August.

The European Union held a first round of talks today to address the escalating violence in Egypt.

The ambassadors of the EU’s political security Committee were called away from their summer break for talks in Brussels.

Spanish fishermen have protested over an artificial reef created by the government in Gibraltar.

Several boats sailed into disputed waters around the British territory, saying the reef restricted their rights to fish in the seas around Gibraltar.

China is to open its first diplomatic mission in Kurdistan by the end of the year, following discussions between China's ambassador to Iraq, Ni Jian and Kurdistan's regional government's Head of the Department of Foreign Relations, Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir.

Minister Mustafa said,

A delegation made up of Cambodian and United Nations officials from the Khmer Rouge tribunal , will visit South-Asian countries in an attempt to address the court’s funding issues.

The new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has pledged to move away from “repeating slogans” in foreign diplomacy.

Speaking at the inauguration of the new foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, Rouhani said that he wanted to change Iranian foreign policy, but this does not mean that Iran would abandon its principles.

Israel extradited a Bosnian Serb immigrant to Bosnia on Thursday to face charges over his alleged involvement in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Israel’s Justice Ministry announced today.

A bomb has exploded in a Hezbollah dominated neighbourhood in southern Beirut, killing at least 22 people.

It is thought the attack is related to Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, supporting the government.

Hezbollah politicians have condemned the blast as a “terrorist attack” and called on their supporters to remain calm.

A UN team is due to inspect sites of alleged chemical attacks in Syria after an agreement was reached with the government.

"The government of Syria has formally accepted the modalities essential for co-operation to ensure the proper, safe and efficient conduct of the mission," a spokesman for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Eduardo del Buey, said.

The UN Security Council is due to meet in a closed emergency session to discuss the violence in Egypt, a day after over 600 people were killed by security forces closing in on Muslim Brotherhood protests.

Egypt is currently in a state of emergency with the interior ministry authorising police to use live ammunition in self-defence or when dealing with attacks on government buildings.

Scores of protestors were killed in Cairo as the Egyptian army cleared protest camps in the capital.

The protestors, there in support of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, have been in the camps since July.

The Egyptian security forces have now declared a month-long state of emergency in an attempt to quell the demonstrations.

The first direct Israeli-Palestine peace talks in three years resumed today, according to Israeli officials.