Mobs of Buddhists carrying swords and sticks burnt down Muslim shops and homes, after a Buddhist monk incited violence against an alleged Muslim criminal in the north-west Burma today.

Describing the violence, Aung San, a 48-year old Muslim man whose house was burned in the violence, said,

The US has agreed a $500mn deal to sell new AH-64E Apache attack helicopters to Indonesia.

The deal includes eight helicopters, training, radar and maintenance.

"Providing Indonesia these world-class helicopters is an example of our commitment to help build Indonesia's military capability," Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is on a tour of Southe-East Asia, said in a statement.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned what he called the ‘undeniable’ use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government.

Addressing a news conference on the situation in the Middle East, Kerry said,

Russia has warned the West that military intervention in Syria could be a 'tragic mistake', reports the Telegraph.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich said:

"We strongly urge those who, by attempting to impose their own results on the UN experts, are raising the possibility of a military operation in Syria to use their common sense and refrain from committing a tragic mistake,"

 The Syrian government agreed today to allow United Nations inspectors to investigate allegations of a chemical weapon attack near Damascus last week.

The Colombian government halted its participation in peace talks with the FARC rebels on Friday, citing FARC's announcement of a "pause" to the talks in order to review the government's plan to put the peace deal up for a vote.

The President Juan Manuel Santos recalled the Colombian negotiating team back from Havana in Cuba where the talks were taking place.

One of the lead FARC negotiators, Pablo Catatumbo, has said in a statement:

"The FARC has decided to pause the discussions at the table, to focus exclusively on analysing the implications of the government's proposal,"

After discussions over  last week’s chemical weapons attack in Syria , David Cameron and Barack Obama, agreed that the crisis had been taken to a new level and would require a ‘serious  response’.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said,

The former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been released from prison and is expected to be placed under house arrest.

Mubarak was arrested after widespread protests forced him from power 2 years ago, and was charged with corruption and involvement in the deaths of protestors and jailed for life, before the conviction was overturned on appeal earlier this year.

There has been some criticism of the release.

The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, suggested today that the only “plausible explanation” for the deaths of 1300 people outside Damascus on was a chemical attack orchestrated by Bashar Assad’s regime.

An American soldier was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for the killing of 16 unarmed Afghan civilians.

Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales admitted to killing the villagers, mainly women and children, in two nighttime attacks on their family compounds in Kandahar in March 2012.

Prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Jay Morse referred to Bales as a "cold blooded killer" and had "wiped out generations and ruined lives forever".

Afghan survivors of the attack however expressed disappointment that the penalty had fallen short of the death sentence.