US President Barack Obama has said that the continuing existence of the prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay is a “recruitment tool” for extremists and not in the “best interest of the American people”.

"I am going to go back at this. I am going to get my team to review everything that is currently being done in Guantánamo … everything that we can do administratively. I am going to re-engage with Congress to try and make the case that [Guantánamo] is not in the best interests of the American people,

The UK will end its aid programme in South Africa by 2015, said International Development Secretary Justine Greening.

The secretary will announce the move at a conference of African ministers and business leaders in London on Tuesday.

"South Africa has made enormous progress over the past two decades, to the extent that it is now the region's economic powerhouse and Britain's biggest trading partner in Africa," she will say.

Hezbollah has declared its allegiance to Syria, vowing not to let it fall to the US or Israel.

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese militant group is quoted as saying:

"A large number [of rebels] were preparing to capture villages inhabited by Lebanese... so it was normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army,"

President Barack Obama indicated that military action against Syria would be considered if the reports of chemical weapons deployed by the Assad regime were substantiated.

Obama reiterated that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “game changer” but noted that the United States did not fully know who used them or when they were used.

The trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt has resumed this week, after a 12-day suspension over procedural matters.

Earlier Rios Montt and his co-defendant Jose Rodriguez Sanchez were left without lawyers to represent their case after they argued the trial should be annulled. Meanwhile relatives of victims and other rights groups held several protests demanding the trial be resumed.

The Syrian Prime Minister has narrowly escaped a bomb attack in the capital Damascus on Monday.

Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi’s convoy was targeted by a car bomb at a busy intersection, reportedly leaving his bodyguard dead and several casualties.

In an interview broadcast by state media, purpotedly filmed after the attack, al-Halqi appeared shaken but unharmed.

There are conflicting reports over whether it was a suicide attack or a bomb placed under a car.

Human rights groups have called on the UK government to end its policy of recruiting soldiers under 18.

In a report published last week, Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch said the British army is wasting up to £94m a year training recruits under 18. The UK is the only member or the EU and the permanent member of the UN Security Council to allow its armed forces to recruit those under 18.

The head of Nepal at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned against the prospect of handing suspected war criminals amnesty, after a decade long civil war in the country.

Nepal’s government, which includes former Maoists, has set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as part of a Comprehensive Peace Accord to investigate human rights violations in the country. However, a vaguely worded clause may allow potential human rights abusers to walk free.