For the first time since 1955, a UK foreign secretary visited Burma.

Following on from a visit by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the UK foreign secretary, William Hague, visited Burma on Thursday, holding talks with both the government and the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

“I don’t think it’s been an impressive performance for the military justice system. It shouldn’t take this long.”

“You would be hard-pressed to find an Iraqi who was willing to say anything positive about the administration of justice in these cases.”

"After six years memories fade, and the relevance of evidence may even fade — certainly evidence may be lost."

"It's important because 24 people are dead. It's the greatest number of non-combat victims in a single incident that wasn't a bomb. All armed forces look to their officers to be the adults in the group. We look to them to make sure that things like Haditha don't happen."

The United States have agreed in principle to release several senior Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay, in return for the Taliban’s agreement to open a political office in Qatar, The Guardian reports.

European Union diplomats have agreed on the "principle of an oil embargo", announced EU diplomats on Wednesday.

Following on from economic sanctions, the embargo aims to curtail Iran's alleged nuclear programme.

The Hamas prime minister of Gaza Ismail Haniya has made his first official foreign trip since Hamas won control of the Gaza strip in 2007.

After visiting Sudan and Egypt, Mr Haniya has now arrived in Turkey, in the hope of strengthening ties with Muslim countries in the face of uprisings in the region.

A Taliban spokesman announced on Tuesday that the organisation is willing to open an office in Qatar for negotiations with the ‘international community’.

Zabiullah Mujahid said an agreement had been reached with Doha and other ‘relevant parties’ but did not elaborate on when the political office would be opened.

The first Palestinian-Israeli meeting in fifteen months, ended in a small token of progress, with peace negotiators, agreeing to continue the dialogue.

Gathering in Jordon's capital, Amman, on Tuesday, the meeting was overseen by the Middle-East 'Quartet' of the Unites States, Europian Union, Russia and the United Nations.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sanaa in Yemen, demanding that the country's out-going president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, faces justice for ordering the deaths of protesters.

Holding posters of the president with a noose around his neck, protesters chanted, "We will not let you escape" and "Mr Saleh must stand in front of a judge".

The two main Syrian opposition forces - the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria (NCB) - came together to formally unite against the Assad regime.

Kim Jong-un was formally named as the supreme commander of North Korea's armed forces on Saturday, consolidating his leadership and power within the state.

Referring to him for the first time as the "great leader", the official state news agency said,

Human rights activists and families of 'Dirty War' victims protested against what they described as "lax" sentences handed to officers convicted of war crimes.

Gathering outside a Buenos Aires courthouse on Thursday, the protesters held photographs of the victims and demanded the sentences be lengthened.

Russia has criticised the US of grave human rights violations and double standards in dealing with allegations of rights abuses.

The Kremlin's first report on human rights abuses detailed allegations of torture, phone tapping and indefinite detention by the US.

It criticised the Obama government for failing to shut down Guantanamo Bay and protecting officials from prosecution.

The Arab league's observer mission to Syria has come under scrutiny after it emerged that the team was being led by a Sudan army general, Gen. Mohamed Ahmad al-Dabi, who has been accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1994 Darfur genocide.