Iran has threatened to hit back at EU sanctions with its own embargo.

The move would pre-empt the EU ban on oil imports due to take effect in July and would hit struggling EU economies hard.

Mohammad Karim Abedi, a member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said a ban may last up to 15 years.

"We will change the threat into an opportunity for Iran and cut Iran's oil supplies to the Europeans for five to 15 years," Abedi was quoted as saying by Fars news agency on Sunday.

A special session was held at the UN on the 27th January, Holocaust Remembrance Day, or International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

Speaking at the event, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon said,

"Today, as we remember all those lost during the Holocaust, young and old alike, I call on all nations to protect the most vulnerable – regardless of race, color, gender or religious belief."

Rights groups in Libya have claimed that torture of suspected Gaddafi loyalists by Libyan militias is widespread.

Medicins San Frontiers, a medical charity, has ceased all operations in the country after it was asked to treat torture victims, sometimes between instances of torture.

"Some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct MSF's medical work," says MSF General Director Christopher Stokes.

Calls for the secession of South Yemen have resurfaced and are on the increase as Yemen's political unrest continues.

Graffiti calling for secession, such as "Freedom for South. Aden Get Up", is cropping up across the south, along side prominent displays of the old flag of South Yemen.

The Yemeni security forces have attempted to crack down on such calls since the 1990 pact that unified the North and South.

Guatemala’s former dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, has been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity by Judge Carol Patricia Flores on Thursday.

Rios Montt ruled the country in 1982-83, after a military coup. A 36 -year civil war with leftist guerrillas, which ended in 1996, cost more than 200,000 lives, of which 93% were caused by state and paramilitary forces, according to a UN report.

The former dictator is accused of being involved in the deaths of over 1,700 and the displacement of 29,000 indigenous Guatemalans during his reign.

The former military leader of the Guatemalan army, Efrain Rios Montt, has been summoned to appear before a Guatemalan court on Thursday as the first step towards facing genocide charges for his role during the massacres committed by the army in the Mayan highlands during 1982-1983.

General Rios Montt, now 85 and elected into Congress in 2000, was so far shielded from prosecution. However, that immunity ended earlier this month as his term in office expired.

"Turkey is committed to taking all the necessary steps against this unjust disposition which reduces basic human values and public conscience to nothing."

"When I say total rupture I include things like I can leave definitively."

"You can also expect that now diplomatic relations will be at the level of charges d'affaires not ambassadors anymore."

"This day will be written in gold not only in the history of friendship between the Armenian and French peoples, but also in the annals of the history of the protection of human rights."