China will allow families to have two children, in an end to its long-running limitations on each household to have only one child, a policy imposed in the late seventies, due to its enormous population growth.

The policy, reviled by many over the brutal intrusions involved, including forced abortions and crippling fines, will be ended to ease pressures on the economy due to its ageing population.

“This will benefit sustained and healthy economic development,” the National Health and Family Planning Commission said.

The European Union and Kosovo have signed a deal which will strengthen ties and is seen as moving closer to the country's membership of the body.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement is the first key step for countries that want to join the bloc.

Kosovo's Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said the agreement "sealed Kosovo's path" towards joining the EU.

"It is the road of strengthening democracy and building the rule of law, the road of political stability and economic prosperity," he said.

The chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has urged the US to exercise leadership at the UN citing the international body’s failure to properly enforce a “zero-tolerance” policy on sexual abuse.

In response to ongoing revelations about the extent of sexual exploitation and abuse at the hands of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) offered a series of recommendations for his government to pursue at the UN, in a letter addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry.

“As the largest contributor to the United Nations and as a permanent member on the UN Security Council, the United States has a responsibility to ensure that the United Nations upholds the highest standards of professionalism in peacekeeping operations,” wrote Senator Corker in his letter to Secretary Kerry.

The Dominican Republic says it is seeking the extradition of two French nationals who were convicted of smuggling cocaine but subsequently fled the island in the Caribbean.

The men, both pilots, were arrested in 2013 and sentenced to 20 years in prison after police found the drugs on their plane.

Dominican Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said his office was in contact with the French authorities "to determine how they escaped the country, and their accomplices".

"It doesn't make the slightest sense that a foreigner accused of drug trafficking should be granted a relaxed form of restrictions," he said.

China has condemned the US for transgressing territory it claims in the South China Sea as "illegal" and a threat to its sovereignty.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said Beijing would "resolutely respond to any country's deliberately provocative actions".

The guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen breached the 12-nautical mile zone China claims around Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago, in the disputed South China Sea region.