A US led coalition of warplanes launched their first airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, in collaboration with Iraqi forces working with Iran backed militia on the ground, reports Reuters.

The decision to support the campaign to take Tikrit back forms the biggest collaboration between Iraqi forces, militia and the US in the fight against Islamic state militants to date.

Human Rights Watch launched a new website, ‘Votes Count’ to monitor and make available countries’ voting records on issues concerning international human rights violations.

The website looks at the voting record of countries in the Human Rights Council (those that have been members since 2012) and also provides an analysis of their contribution to addressing human rights violations on the ground and in particular countries.

Julie de Rivero, the Geneva director at Human Right Watch said in a press release announcing the project,

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday approved requests by the Afghan government to slow down the removal of US troops from Afghanisatan, reports Reuters.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Barack Obama said,

“It was my assessment as commander in chief that it made sense for us to provide a few extra months for us to be able to help on things like logistics.”

The foreign minister of Yemen Riad Yassin called on Gulf Arab states to intervene in the halting the Houthi rebel offensive.

The call comes a day after President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was ousted from the capital Sanaa last month, pleaded for UN intervention as the Houthi forces captured the strategic town of Taiz.

The foreign minister told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper he asked the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to intervene, without detailing what that would mean.

US President Barack Obama reiterated his support for a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, where he criticised comments made by the newly re-elected Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a joint press conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday, Mr Obama said,

The Indian Supreme Court has overruled a controversial law which enabled the prosecution of people for comments on social media networks.

The Supreme Court decided section 66A of the Information Technology Act was unconstitutional.

"Section 66A is unconstitutional and we have no hesitation in striking it down," news agency AFP quoted Justice RF Nariman as saying in court.

"The public's right to know is directly affected by section 66A," he said.

The Canadian government has announced it will extend its airstrikes against ISIS into Syrian territory.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada would not seek "express consent" of the Syrian regime.

"Instead, we will work closely with our American and other allies, who have already been carrying out such operations against ISIL over Syria in recent months."

"The government recognises that ISIL's power base, indeed the so-called caliphate's capital, is in Syria," Mr Harper said in the House of Commons.

The jailed leader of the PKK, Abudllah Ocalan, has reiterated his call on his fighters to lay down their arms in their fight against Turkey.

Pro-Kurdish politician Sirri Sureyya Onder, who visited Mr Ocalan in prison last week, read out a statement by the leader at an event marking the Kurdish Newroz festival.

Mr Ocalan called for a congress to decide on abandoning the armed struggle, in a message heard by hundreds of thousands of supporters at a rally in Diyarbakir.

The head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde said the IMF would be "delighted" to cooperate with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a Chinese-led development bank, with over 30 international members, with a similar remit as the World Bank.

Ms Lagarde said there was "massive" room for IMF co-operation with the AIIB on infrastructure financing.