Speaking to the 15-member UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on all nations to come together on Syria, as she clashed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday.

Addressing the Security Council, Clinton said,

A US judge has ruled that the former Salvadoran Defence Minister, General Eugenio Vides Casanova, can be deported due to his alleged involvement in war crimes.

General Casanova is accused of taking part in the killing of 6 Americans and several Salvadorans during the civil war in the 1980s.

The US supported then Defence Minister Casanova’s forces against leftist rebels; he retired and moved to Florida in 1989.

The International Court of Justice has been requested by Belgium to extradite former Chadian President Hissene Habre.

Mr Habre denies accusation he committed crimes against humanities during his reign.

He is alleged to have killed and tortured tens of thousands of opposition activists between 1982 and 1990.

He has been living in Senegal since his ouster in 1990 and was arrested in 2005, however Senegalese authorities have refused four previous extradition requests by the Belgian government.

Thousands of Libyans have protested against moves by tribal and militant leaders to create a semi-autonomous region in the east of the country.

Tribal and militia leaders announced the move to create the semi-autonomous territory of Cyrenaica on Tuesday.

The move has significant support amongst the population of the east, however many Libyans denounced the move.

Large rallies calling for unity were held in both Tripoli and Benghazi after clerics warned the move could lead to the breakup of Libya.

Urging the people of Scotland to seize the chance of independence, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Alex Salmond told delegates at the party's conference on Saturday that "being independent is the most natural thing in this world".

Salmond went on,

"In devolved Scotland we can demand - in an independent Scotland, we can deliver."

Five senior members of the Taliban have agreed to a transfer to Qatar as part of a peace deal.

Afghan government officials announced the agreement after meeting the prisoners earlier this week on a visit to Guantanamo Bay.

The US has not yet approved the transfer but is considering it as part of ongoing attempts to engage in negotiations with the Taliban.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stated that he will eventually secure the adoption of a bill recognising the 1915 genocide of Armenians by Turkey, after it was deemed unconstitutional by France’s Constitutional Council.

Sarkozy, who is running for re-election in April, made the pledge whilst addressing a French Armenian community on Wednesday. Speaking at the p residential Elysee Palace in Paris, he said,

"Now we see it. The West, or shall we call it, “the international community”, is paralysed in the face of one of the most barbaric and systematic ethnic cleanings of the 21st Century. We are talking Syria, although it has uncanny similarities with Sri Lanka."

"So in the second decade of the 21st century we have devised the mechanisms for transmitting crude evidence of atrocity. Thanks to courage and the mobile phone, the world’s citizenry is better informed about the bloodletting in Syria than during any massacre at any time in history."

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt has expressed outrage at the recent attack on war graves in two British cemeteries in Benghazi.

200 graves of British and Commonwealth nationals, most of who died in World War 2, were damaged in attacks by unknown individuals.

"It's horrific and wrong and we have expressed to the Libyan authorities our profound distress at what has happened on behalf of those who have loved ones there," Mr Burt told the BBC.