On the 14th day of anti-government protests sparked by rising inflation in Sudan, over 1000 protesters have been arrested and detained in secret locations.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has termed the conflict in Syria a civil war and appealed for “further militarisation of the conflict [in Syria]” to be “avoided at all costs".

President Assad of Syria was previously considered for an honorary knighthood by the Queen during Tony Blair's era, reports The Times on Sunday.

Speaking to The Guardian from Turkey, exiled members of Syria’s opposition have written off UN diplomacy and talks of peace-brokering as by and large irrelevant to the crisis.

Mali’s Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) have started destroying sacred shrines, after it declared control over the Northern part of Mali, including the historic town of Timbuktu.

The Danish government has decided to extradite a man, suspected of taking part in the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

The man, named in Danish media as Emmanuel Mbarushimana, is accused of being one of the ringleaders of massacres by Hutus against ethnic Tutsis.

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been warned for referring to the country as ‘Burma’ instead of ‘Myanmar’ by government officials.

The comments come in the midst of Suu Kyi’s European tour, during which she has repeatedly used the term Burma in speeches and interviews.

UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan has called for a transitional government to be established in Syria.

The UN brokered peace plan, which calls for the creation of a transitional government in Syria, was accepted after talks in Geneva, attended by Russia, China and western countries.

Australia’s Senate has voted down an asylum bill which would have reopened an off-shore detention centre and allowed the Australian government to deport asylum-seekers to another country for processing.

The US has given China and Singapore exemptions from sanctions for buying Iranian oil.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that both countries had earned the exemptions by cutting imports.

All of the twenty biggest importers of Iranian oil have been granted reprieves from the sanctions, before the deadline on June 28.

Burma is tightening restrictions on press freedom, despite their recent promises to reform and end censorship, warned the press watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF).

In a report published on Friday, RSF said,

Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA commander has met and shook hands with the Queen. The meeting took place at a charity event in Belfast on Wednesday morning.

The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has failed in his attempt to be cleared of all charges at The Hague war crimes tribunal.

Karadzic denies 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He is accused of being responsible for the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, which left over 7,000 Bosniak men and boys dead.

Russia has said it will support a proposal to form a national unity government, consisting of members of both the government and the opposition.

Kofi Annan’s plan will be discussed at a conference in Geneva on Saturday with the UN Action Group on Syria.