The New Zealand government has approved the sale of 16 dairy farms to a Chinese investor, Shanghai Pengxin, despite facing strong criticism from local farmers and businessmen. 

The government's decision to allow a foreign investor to acquire land has proved contentious across New Zealand, where agriculture plays a significant role in export earnings.

Extracts from a fascinating article by The New York Times last on Syria’s Kurds.

The Kurds of Syria, long oppressed by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, are largely staying out of the fighting, hedging their bets as they watch to see who will gain the upper hand.

As tens of thousands from Bahrain’s Shia community demonstrated against this weekend’s Formula 1 race being held amid ongoing violent repression by the ruling Sunni dynasty, how did Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa justify why the race should go ahead?

"I genuinely believe this race is a force for good, it unites many people from many different religious backgrounds, sects and ethnicities," he said.

The UN Security Council voted unanimously in favour of adopting a Russia-European resolution authorises the deployment of up to 300 unarmed military observers to Syria, to be known as UNSMIS.

The move comes less than day after UN ceasefire monitors entered the city of Homs.

Stating that the violence between government forces and opposition activists was "clearly incomplete", the resolution warned that "further steps" may be necessary if the agreement is not adhered to.

Israel fell silent on Holocaust Memorial Day on Thursday, as the nation remembered six million Jews killed by Nazi during the course of the Second World War.

Official commemorations commenced late on Wednesday with a ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Israel.

At the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the Nazi Holocaust with Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel.

The leader of the UK's opposition, Labour party, Ed Milliband, joined calls to cancel the Bahrain Grand Prix given the on-going reports of the state's violent crack down of legitimate protesters. 

Milliband said,

"I certainly think it is the case that, given the violence we have seen in Bahrain and given the human rights abuses, I don't believe the Grand Prix should go ahead."

"I hope that the Government will make its view clear and say the same."

His remarks add to those of several politicians and human rights activists, including the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, and the shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, who urged British Formula One driver, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamiliton to boycott the event.

European Union diplomats are said to have agreed to suspend sanctions on Burma for one year.

An unidentified official told AFP that the suspension would give the EU time to monitor political reform.

The agreement would still have to be formally approved by EU foreign ministers at a meeting on Monday.

The only sanctions to remain would be the embargo on arms.

Amid escalating clashes, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has declared war on South Sudan, vowing to retake the region which won its independence last year through an internationally-facilitated referendum.

During a rally Wednesday, in a message to South Sudan, President Bashir said: “Either we end up in Juba and take everything, or you end up in Khartoum and take everything,” referring to the two countries’ capitals.

The U.N Security Council is considering sanctions as a means to quell the fighting between South Sudan and Sudan and to prevent the escalation into a full-scale war.

The Security Council has demanded that South Sudan pull its troop out of Sudan and called on Khartoum to end to aerial bombardments.

U.S Ambassador to the U.N Susan Rice said "Council members discussed ways to leverage the influence of the council to press the parties to take these steps and included in that a discussion potentially of sanctions."

Photographs of US military officers posing with the corpses of dead Afghan fighters have emerged once again.

The photographs, published in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, depict US paratroopers of the 82nd Airbourne Division grinning next to the mangled corpses of Afghan fighters.

The US army has launched a criminal investigation into the incident, reports the Los Angeles Times.