In July, the East African bloc mediating the talks (IGAD), drafted an agreement that offered compromise on power-sharing and other contentious issues that would see the deal implemented for a three-year interim period.

The US launched its first manned airstrikes against Islamic State militants from Turkey’s Incirlik airbase.

The US offensive on Wednesday comes after Turkey agreed last month to open its strategically important bases to the US led coalition.

Turkey’s policy change also saw it administer airstrikes on Islamic State and Kurdish militant targets last week.

Non-governmental organisations working for the vulnerable are prevented from gaining representation at the United Nations by a committee dominated by countries with repressive regimes said a collective group of NGOs on Tuesday.

Several organisations have expressed concern with regards to the questioning and intimidation they face when dealing with the UN committee on non-governmental organisations, to seek accreditation to gain official NGO status at the United Nations.

The Syrian government’s continued aerial bombardment and siege of Eastern Ghouta, a suburb just outside of Damascus amounts to crimes against humanity warned rights group Amnesty International.

In a news release on Wednesday Amnesty said the 163,000 people in the region were in an "agonising struggle to survive" and that it had documented at least 60 aerial attacks by the government that had killed some 500 civilians in the first half of 2015 alone.

Said Boumedouha, acting director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme, said,

"By repeatedly bombing heavily populated areas in a series of direct, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks as well as by unlawfully besieging civilians, Syrian government forces have committed war crimes and displayed a sinister callousness towards Eastern Ghouta's civilians."

"The timing and location of these attacks appear deliberately orchestrated to maximise damage or civilian casualties in a gruesome attempt by the Syrian government forces to terrorise the population," said the acting director.

A state of emergency was declared in Ferguson as American police made further arrests as protests marking the anniversary of the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown continued into the night on Monday.

During the day police arrested 50 protestors, as protests blocked high ways. Prominent civil rights activist Cornell West was arrested during a sit-in outside the main courthouse in St Louis.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned a wave of deadly terrorist attacks that hit Turkey, including the US consulate in the region.

Calling for “swift justice” Ban Ki-Moons statement, said “the Secretary General is greatly concerned by the violence.”

The US consulate in response to the attack said in a tweet that it was closed until further notice.

Sweden’s prime minister Stefan Lofven reiterated his government’s commitment to finding a solution to the Western Sahara conflict that included support to the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination.

A British court has dismissed a case seeking the extradition of the head of Rwanda's intelligence agency to Spain for his alleged role in war crimes after the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

General Karenzi Karake was arrested in June, over an indictment in a Spanish court in 2008, which accused him of killing ethnic Hutu civilians in both Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo in revenge for the genocide, and of ordering the killing of three Spanish aid workers in 1997.

However, under UK law the general could not be charged for a crime committed in another country, unlike in Spain, under universal jurisdiction.