“unconditionally and immediately release all Bahrainis being held for crimes related to freedom of expression.”

“The Bahraini judicial system has been used as a tool to harass democracy activists”.

A 90-year-old man accused of war crimes has won a legal battle against attempts to extradite him to Hungary, to face charges of war crimes.

Charles Zentai, who has lived in Australia for almost 60 years, won the battle after the High Court up held a decision stating he could not be extradited because the offence of “war crimes” did not exist in Hungarian law at the time of the alleged offence.

The US based Simon Wiesenthal Center lists Zentai amongst the top 10 most wanted for having "participated in manhunts, persecution, and murder of Jews in Budapest in 1944."

The Iranian government has said it will accept foreign aid from certain countries after an earthquake devastated cities and killed over 300 in the north-west of the country on Saturday.

For two days Iran insisted it was not in need of foreign assistance.

However, after scathing criticism at home over the slow response, the Iranian government has now said it will accept offers of aid.

A UN report on the Syrian conflict published on Wednesday, concluded that President Assad’s forces and pro-government Shabiha fighters are were responsible for perpetrating most of the war crimes and crimes against humanity on Syrian civilians.

The report held the government and its allied militia were responsible for the killing of more than a 100 civilians in May and indicated that murders, unlawful killings, torture, sexual violence and indiscriminate attacks indicated “the involvement at the highest levels of the armed security forces and the government."

The panel also acknowledged that anti-government armed groups had committed war crimes including murder, extrajudicial killings and torture, but noted that these crimes were of a lesser frequency and scale.

A senior aide to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has flown to China to discuss the crisis.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that Bouthaina Shaaban would meet foreign minister Yang Jiechi later today.

In a statement he said that China had always "actively balanced its work between the Syrian government and the opposition".

He repeated China's call for the "practical implementation" of former UN envoy Kofi Annan's defunct peace plan and for "an immediate ceasefire".

The UN has started to deliver airdrops of food aid to refugee camps in the South Sudan border region, where refugees from Sudan have sought safety.

Over 170,000 people are believed to have fled Sudan according to the UN World Food Program (WFP).

The Country Head of WFP in South Sudan, Chris Nikoi told Reuters,

A former Israeli soldier has been sentenced to 45 days in prison for the killing of a Palestinian mother and her daughter, after avoiding manslaughter charges.

US officials have informed reporters that they expected changes in the military after the election of President Mursi.

"We had expected President Mursi at some point to co-ordinate changes in the military leadership, to name a new team," Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters.