The UN Security Council has placed sanctions on the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The sanctions, imposed on New Years’ Eve, mean that those connected to the rebels will face travel bans and the freezing of their assets.

Sanctions were also placed on Rwanda’s FDLR rebel movement.

Iran has slammed a new US law, intended to curb Iran's influence in Latin America.

President Obama signed the "Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act" last week, which gave the US State Department 180 days to develop a plan to "address Iran's growing hostile presence and activity".

Five female teachers and two aid workers were killed on Tuesday by gunmen on motorcycles in Swabi, Pakistan.

The victims had been working with an NGO, Support With Working Solution, on polio immunisation campaigns.

The Colombian military has announced that 13 Farc rebels have been killed in an air strike.

Air force officials said they had hit a camp in the northwest of the country on New Years’ Eve and has found 13 bodies.

Bosnian prosecutors charge former members of their armed and police forces with war crimes allegedly committed against Serbian civilians during the Bosnian War which took place over a decade ago.

The UN is to end its peacekeeping mission in East Timor on Monday, after 13 years and over 1500 UN troops.

In a statement, the chief of the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste, Finn Reske-Nielson, said,

A bomb, considered to be "viable device", was found on Sunday in East Belfast, under the car of a police officer, after being discovered by an off-duty officer.

Blaming dissident republicans, the Northern Ireland Police Federation said,

The president of the Catalan region in Spain, Artur Mas, has again expressed his determination to hold an independence referendum in 2013.

Mr Mas, currently leading a pro-independence coalition made up of right and left-wing parties, said that the majority of Catalans want to build a new country".

Egypt has allowed a shipment of construction materials to enter the Gaza Strip through its territory for the first time in 5 years.

Thousands of tonnes of supplies donated by the Gulf state of Qatar were allowed to reach Gaza through Egypt.

The US embassy in Central African Republic has brought its operation to a halt as the ambassador along with 40 diplomats have left the country on Thursday, due to escalating tensions between the Seleka rebels and the CAR government.

US State Department deputy spokesperson, Patrick Ventrell said in a statement,

Suspected Taliban militants lined up and shot 21 policemen on a cricket pitch in Pakistan on Saturday night, although no group has yet claimed responsibility for the killing.

The murdered men were kidnapped last Thursday after rocket-propelled grenade attacks on two security posts.

Naveed Akbar Khan, a local government official, told the AFP news agency:

The United Nations Secretary General has released a statement calling on the Indian government to bring to justice the perpetrators of the rape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi, who died from her injuries in the attack.

In a statement released on Saturday a spokesman for the Secretary General said,