Leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine agreed to call on Ukraine’s separatist militants to extend the duration of a pull-back on their weapons in eastern Ukraine.

Commenting at the end of over 2 hours of telephone talks, French President Francois Hollande’s office said that the leaders of the four countries “want the agreements signed as soon as possible.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry staunchly defended the Iran nuclear deal telling skeptics warning his Senate that turning down the deal would allow to Iran to continue with its weapons program.

Mr Kerry stresses that those who oppose the deal were pushing an unrealistic alternative. The US Secretary of state, speaking at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said,

“The fact is now Iran has extensive experience with nuclear fuel cycle technology. We can’t bomb that knowledge away. Nor can we sanction that knowledge away.

A Chilean judge has reopened a case investigating an attack on two students during a demonstration against the Pinochet-regime in 1986.

Seven former military officers are being questioned about their involvement in the attack, which saw 19-year-old Rodrigo Rojas and 18-year-old Carmen Quintana doused in petrol and set on fire by soldiers, with Rodrigo dying days after, while Carmen survived severe burn injuries.

The case was reopened after testimony provided by a military conscript, who broke the army's pact of silence on the prominent case.

An Italian court has jailed two former far-right extremists for life, for their in a bomb attack 41 years ago.

The 1974 bombing in Brescia killed eight people and injured over 100 at an anti-fascist rally in the city in northern Italy.

Carlo Maria Maggi, 80, then a member of Italy's far-right group New Order and Maurizio Tramonte 63, a former intelligence agent, were given life sentences by the court in Milan.

South Sudanese forces are accused of having committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity, killing and raping civilians during its offensive against rebels in Unity state, Human Rights Watch said in its latest report on the country.

The New York-based rights organisation said the army and allied militants from the Bul Nuer ethnic group forcibly displaced tens of thousands of people in Unity by attacking women, elderly, and children, while burning villages and stealing cattle.

South Sudan's government said any alleged rights violations were limited to "a few individuals" who will face justice in domestic courts. But Skye Wheeler, a researcher with Human Rights Watch told The Associated Press the attacks were "far more widespread and systematic to be blamed on a few rotten apples."

The report, “They Burned it All: Destruction of Villages, Killings, and Sexual Violence in South Sudan’s Unity State,” is based on more than170 interviews in June and July with survivors and witnesses, and documents the killing of 60 people, including some by hanging or burning, and 63 rapes.

The United Nations humanitarian official in the Central African Republic (CAR) condemned a surge in violence against aid workers, that saw a member of a UN food convoy killed.

The UN coordinator Marc Vandenberghe, in a statement issued on Wednesday, said,

Brics countries launched a new bank on Tuesday, called the New Development Bank (NDB).

The countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, launched the bank in Shanghai and said it will lend money to developing countries to help finance infrastructure projects.

"Our objective is not to challenge the existing system as it is but to improve and complement the system in our own way," NDB President Kundapur Vaman Kamath said.