The UN secretary-general Ban-Ki Moon confirmed that Syrian tanks attacked a convoy carrying the head of the UN observer mission.  Although there were no injuries, a dozen armoured vehicles used as part of the observer mission have been destroyed by blasts and shelling.

Speaking to reporters, Ban Ki-Moon said,

The most senior Syrian diplomat to the UK has resigned in protest against his government’s “violent and oppressive acts”.

Khaled al-Ayoubi was the Charge d’Affaires and the highest ranking Syrian official in the UK after Bashar al-Assad withdrew the Syrian ambassador in March this year.

He has not defected to the opposition and is said to be in a safe location in the UK, according to the Foreign Office.

A Foreign Office spokesman said:

Speaking to The Times during the London 2012 Olympics, Russian Prime Minister Medvedev, insisted that the differences between Russia and the US were not as vast as people considered them to be.

Medvedev said,

Russia has denied an earlier statement from a Navy chief that it was looking to establish naval bases abroad, setting up what would be the countries first foreign bases since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Vice-admiral Viktor Chirkov was earlier reported to have told the RIA Novosti state news agency that Russia was in talks with  Cuba, Vietnam and the Seychelles about exploring the possibility of setting up naval bases, stating,

The Slovakian Jewish community has called for the extradition of a 97-year-old man suspected of having committed war crimes during the Holocaust, who is currently under house arrest in Hungary.

Laszlo Csatary, stands accused of sending over 15,000 Jews to concentration camps in 1944, as an officer in the Hungarian Royal Police. The town that he served in, Kosice, was then part of Hungary, but is now part of Slovakia.

CIA officials consider Israeli intelligence units to be their foremost counter-intelligence threat in the Middle East, the Associated Press reports.

CIA officers in Israel have reported having their homes broken into and the tampering of sensitive communication equipment.

The Associated Press remarks,

In a recent statement, the EU-Israel Association condemned Israel for a vast range of human rights violations in the state and “occupied Palestine territory”.

Addressing various issues, the statement noted Israel’s obligation to protect the rights of the Arab-Palestinian minority, emphasising that this issue was a core problem that had to be addressed in it’s own right.

The statement also confirmed the EU’s continuing support for human rights defenders as a “ long established element” of its human rights external relations policy, whilst condemning Israel’s practice of administrative detention.

A proposed treaty to regulate the arms trade failed to be agreed upon at the United Nations on Friday, with no decision having been made.

Over 170 countries have been in New York to negotiate the terms of the treaty, which could have been vetoed by any one country. With no consensus having been reached, further talks may occur at the UN General Assembly by the end of the year.

Commenting on the failure to reach an agreement, British foreign secretary, William Hague said,

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday, that Russia was “not even thinking about” providing asylum for Assad, in a sign that the country may be distancing itself from the besiged Syrian regime.

When asked about media reports that Russia was ready to offer Assad asylum, Lavrov replied,

“We have said more than once publicly that we are not even thinking about this.”

The UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has asked for a prompt independent investigation due to claims of abuses by security forces in Burma’s Rakhine state, noting that that the crisis reflected the long-standing systemic discrimination against the Muslim Rohingya community, who are not recognized by the Government and remain stateless.

Speaking on the issue Ms Pillay said,