South Africa has agreed to hand over Gaddafi's secret funds, believed to be worth almost £650m, to the Libyan government.

In a statement, South Africa's Treasury said:

"The Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, has agreed with the Libyan government that the repatriation from South Africa of Libyan funds and assets will be handled in terms of United Nations (UN) protocols."

"The decision was informed by the fact that the government of Libya established a single body in 2012 to co-ordinate the repatriation of assets to Libya,"

The US has said it will provide arms to the Syrian opposition, after confirming that chemical weapons had been used by the regime.

"Following a deliberative review our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year," said a White House statement.

According  to Human Rights Watch a new law passed by the Ecuadorian government seriously undermines free speech in the country.

The Communications Law that the Ecuadorian National Assembly approved on June 14 2013, includes discursive language that has a strong potential of limiting the free expression of journalists and media outlets.

Latest figures from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights say that over 93,000 people have died in Syria since November 2012.

Over 80% of the dead are reported to be men, however the report by the OHCHR says over 1,700 children under 10 also died.

There were "cases of individual children being tortured and executed, and entire families, including babies, being massacred - which, along with this devastatingly high death toll, is a terrible reminder of just how vicious this conflict has become," said OHCHR head Navi Pillay.

The BBC has condemned harassment of its Persian staff’s families by Iranian authorities.

It said there had been "unprecedented levels of intimidation" ahead of presidential elections which are due to take place on Friday.

The corporation is accusing Iran of warning the families of 15 members of the BBC Persian Service that they have to stop working for the BBC.

Morgan Tsvangirai, chief rival of Robert Mugabe, has rejected the president's proposed election as "unlawful".

Mugabe bypassed parliament to set the poll date for the 31st July, a move which breaches the 2008 power-sharing agreement made between the president's Zanu-PF party and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

Tsvangirai said of Mugabe's declaration:

"Clearly therefore, the unilateral proclamation made today is a deliberate attempt to stall the reform agenda in Zimbabwe. Without reforms, Zimbabwe is yet again heading to another contested, predatory and illegitimate election."

British legal representatives of defendants sentenced to death by Bangladesh's international crimes tribunal have appealed for a UN intervention on the basis that their clients were not tried fairly.

The domestic court trying those accused of atrocities during the 1971 war of liberation against Pakistan, has faced growing criticism from international human rights and legal groups.

Barristers have reportedly not been allowed into Bangladesh to see their clients, and there have also been allegations of witnesses being abducted, defence lawyers being assaulted and judges being changed.

 A senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, confirmed to press today that the Taliban had shown signs of willingness to meet and discuss the reduction of civilian casualties with the UN.

Afghanistan has seen a 24 percent civilian casualty in the first half of this year, most of which have been caused by anti-government forces.

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army have killed at least 60 Shiite villagers in an apparent reprisal raid for a previous attack on a rebel base by pro-government militias.

The Syrian government said innocent civilians were massacred, and even opposition activists condemned the attacks as a “destructive act of revenge”, although claiming that most of the dead were fighters who were involved in the attack on rebels the day before.