Charles Taylor was found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes during Sierra Leone's civil war at The Hague today.

Taylor was convicted on 11 counts including murder, rape and terror, after a trial that has lasted almost five years.
 
Welcoming the judgment, prosecutor Brenda Hollis said,

"[This] judgment reinforces the new reality, that heads of state will be held to account for war crimes ... With leadership comes not just power and authority, but also responsibility and accountability. No person, no matter how powerful, is above the law."

The conviction was hailed as the first former head of state to be convicted by an international court since the Nuremburg trials of Nazi leaders.

In a statement, Amnesty International said,

"While today's conviction brings some measure of justice to the people of Sierra Leone, Taylor and the others sentenced by the Special Court are just the tip of the iceberg."

The US State Department said,

"[it sent] a strong message to all perpetrators of atrocities, including those in the highest positions of power, that they will be held accountable".

France says it will seek UN intervention, including the possibility of a military intervention, if Syria does not follow special envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that France could press for Security Council action under Chapter 7 of the UN charter, although Russia and China would most certainly veto any move against Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Juppe called for the deployment of 300 UN observers as authorised by Syria and said France has all but set a May 5 deadline for implementation of Mr Annan’s peace plan.

US President Barack Obama has signed an executive order for sanctions against regimes that use technology to perpetrate human rights abuses.

In a speech at the US Holocaust Museum, Mr Obama said,

"National sovereignty is never a licence to slaughter your people."

The Canadian Prime Minister Michael Ignatieff, described the creation of an independent Quebec as inevitable, in an interview with the BBC.

Commenting on the upcoming referendum over Scottish independence, Ignatieff said that regardless of the outcome the UK will change.

Ignatieff said,

"It’s a kind of way station — you stop there for a while,"

"But I think the logic, eventually, is independence. Full independence."

Iran’s aerospatial division commander, Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced that they have built a drone from the recovered “codes” of RQ-170 Sentinal, a U.S surveillance drone that went down last December.

US officials have acknowledged that it went down while it was on a spy mission over Iran.

Iranian engineers claim that they were successful in hacking the control system of the unmanned aircraft, which enabled them to land the aircraft in Iranian territory.

Three members of a Channel 4 televsion crew working in Bahrain were deported by the government on Monday.

Channel 4's foreign correspondent, Jonathan Miller, cameraman Joe Sheffer and producer David Fuller were detained by Bahraini authorities on suspicion of working without formal accreditation.

According to David Fuller, due to restrictions placed by the Bahraini government, the crew had been working "under the radar", and had filmed riot police crack down on a small demonstration in a nearby village.

The European Union has announced the suspension of most sanctions on Burma for one year in recognition of ‘historic changes’.

The EU will suspend its restrictions against individuals and companies based in Burma and also withheld aid money. However its embargo on arms sales will remain.

The New Zealand government has approved the sale of 16 dairy farms to a Chinese investor, Shanghai Pengxin, despite facing strong criticism from local farmers and businessmen. 

The government's decision to allow a foreign investor to acquire land has proved contentious across New Zealand, where agriculture plays a significant role in export earnings.

Extracts from a fascinating article by The New York Times last on Syria’s Kurds.

The Kurds of Syria, long oppressed by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, are largely staying out of the fighting, hedging their bets as they watch to see who will gain the upper hand.

As tens of thousands from Bahrain’s Shia community demonstrated against this weekend’s Formula 1 race being held amid ongoing violent repression by the ruling Sunni dynasty, how did Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa justify why the race should go ahead?

"I genuinely believe this race is a force for good, it unites many people from many different religious backgrounds, sects and ethnicities," he said.