India's Supreme Courty ruled on Friday, that the country has the jurisdiction to try two Italian marines charged with the deaths of two fishermen, however, a special feveral court must be set up as the Kerala state courts do not have the authority to adjudicate in the case.

In February 2012, two fishermen were killed off the coast of Kerala by members of a military security team who allege they mistook the fishermen for pirates.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged that he will not dismantle any Jewish settlements in the West Bank if he wins another term in next week’s elections.

"The days when bulldozers uprooted Jews are behind us, not in front of us." he told Israel's Maariv newspaper.

"We haven't uprooted any settlements, we have expanded them,

"Nobody has any lessons to give me about love for the Land of Israel or commitment to Zionism and the settlements."

Tens of thousands of people gathered Thursday in the city of Diyarbakir, southern Turkey, to mourn the deaths of three Kurdish activists murdered in Paris last week, an outpouring that some said was the largest political gathering that Turkish authorities had ever allowed the Kurds to stage.

Fidan Dogan, Leyla Söylemez and Sakine Cansız, one of the founders of the separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), were killed by execution-style shootings last week.

"The genocide that occurred in Srebrenica and Zepa, and other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was conducted by Serbian aggressors while blasting this song as they raped, murdered, and ethnically cleansed the non-Serb population".

"We sincerely regret that people were offended by this song… The Secretary-General obviously was not aware what the song was about or the use that has been made of it in the past."

The Burmese military has announced that it will end attacks on rebels in the northern state of Kachin after thousands of civilians were displaced by a recent intensification of conflict.

The decision was announced hours after Burma's parliament passed a resolution on Friday to end the fighting.

The military's commander-in-chief had agreed to the president's command “not to carry out offensive attacks except in self-defence”, the government said in a statement.

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has formally opened a case into war crimes in Mali from January 2012, it was annoucned earlier today.

Stating that she believes there is a "reasonable basis" that crimes such as murder, rape, torture and intentionally directing attacks against protected objects, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said,

“Since the beginning of the armed conflict in January 2012, the people of Northern Mali have been living in profound turmoil,”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the disappearance of Laotian civil society activist Sombath Somphone and has urged Laos to conduct a “transparent investigation”.

"We call upon the Lao government to pursue a transparent investigation of this incident and to do everything in its power to bring about an immediate and safe return home to his family," Clinton said in a statement.

Human rights groups in the country said they fear he was abducted by pro-government forces.

Fiji's ruling military has imposed new rules on political parties, raising further concerns regarding the country's move away from democracy.

According to the new rules, trade union executives and other 'public officials' are to be banned from creating political parties, and political parties are banned from accepting donations from foreign governments, companies, inter-government or non-government organisations.