Tibetans exiled across Asia have marked the 54th anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising against China with protests in India, Taiwan and Nepal.

A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced two well-known human rights activists to at least ten years in prison, finding them guilty of offences that included sedition and providing false information to foreign media.

The sentenced activists Mohammed al-Qahtani and Abdyllah Hamad, also the founding members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), were told that the ACPRA would be disbanded and have all its funds seized by the Saudi monarchy. The ACPRA group documents human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and has called for a constitutional monarchy with democratic elections in the country.

International human rights groups have claimed that the Saudi government uses a false campaign against religious militants, to combat all types of political dissent.

The Saudi government denies the accusations, despite banning all demonstrations and political parties.

"The British parliament last week formally recognised the genocide in Iraqi Kurdistan. We are pleased that the parliament took this decision and did so after an impassioned debate by several MPs, some of whom are old friends of Kurdistan, and with no opposition to the motion.

We appreciate that the British parliament also said it will encourage governments, the European Union and the United Nations to do the same. This underlines Britain’s role as a leading player in the international community and we hope that it will follow up on this decision. By doing so it will be sending a clear message to all dictators and oppressors.

Formal recognition is a step towards justice for all those who suffered in the decades-long campaign of death against the Kurdish people. It is acknowledgement of the suffering of the widows and the children left behind without knowing what happened to their loved ones or even where their remains lie. It took over two decades for some of the perpetrators to be brought to justice by the Iraqi courts.


We thank the British parliament, the individual MPs and members of the government and opposition who contributed to the debate and passed the motion. We also appreciate the role of the All-Party parliamentary Group on the Kurdistan Region, the Kurdish community who supported a petition calling for recognition and the Kurdistan Regional Government UK Representation which coordinated the campaign. We hope that other parliaments and governments will now follow suit."

A group of UN observers, who were abducted by a Syrian rebel group, has arrived in Jordan after their earlier release.

A UN team, sent to collect the 21 hostages from inside Syria, couldn’t reach the area due to government shelling.

The rebels themselves then transported the hostages to the Jordanian border, and were taken to the capital Amman.

The hostages appeared in a video, saying they were treated well by the rebels, whose move to seize the UN observers was condemned by the Free Syrian Army.

South Sudan and Sudan signed a security agreement on Friday, pledging to withdraw their respective military troops from the demilitarised zone in between the two states, later this month.

The Sudan Defence Minister, Lt. Gen. Abdal-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, said: "We will be ... committed, definitely, to implement (the agreement) word-by-word and step-by-step,"

The move has been welcomed by the US. In a press release, the spokesperson for the US State Dept, Victoria Nuland said:

'The United States welcomes the technical agreement signed between Sudan and South Sudan establishing a Safe Demilitarized Border Zone (SDBZ), a firm timeline for the withdrawal of forces, and a way ahead for the deployment of a joint border monitoring force.

At the same time, the parties should begin the immediate implementation of all nine September 27 Cooperation Agreements. Each of these agreements should be implemented independently without conditions or delay.

We commend the parties, the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel and the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei for their continued efforts to implement the African Union Roadmap and UN Security Council Resolution 2046.'

The United Nations has given the Democratic Republic of Congo until the end of March to act against two units of the Congolese army, accused of committing mass rapes.

The UN’s peace force has said it will stop working with the units if their demands aren’t met.

"We have investigated, we have identified a number of cases and we demand the Congolese authorities take legal action against those people," an unnamed UN official said.

"Since nothing sufficient has happened at this stage we have already put two units of the armed forces of Congo on notice that if they do not act promptly we shall cease supporting them,

"The deadline now is getting very near [...] they have to shape up."

The units are accused of carrying out 126 rapes while fleeing attacks from M23 rebels near Minova, south of Goma.

Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta appears to have won the presidential election by the tightest of margins.

The counting of votes found that Kenyatta won 50.03% of the vote, just 4,109 votes above the threshold required for an outright victory.

Mr Kenyatta’s triumph in the elections could stress international relations between Kenya and the west, as the he faces trial at the International Criminal Court in July for crimes against humanity.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom have indicated that Kenyatta’s election as president will have negative implications on their relations with the Kenyan government in Nairobi.

Canada’s Foreign Minister, John Baird, told the North American Israel lobby group, that any Palestinian Authority (PA) legal action against Israel at the International Criminal Court would result in his country blocking aid payments to Palestine.

Speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, Baird warned that Canada would ‘deal strongly’ with Palestine in the event of the PA taking legal steps against Israel.

Baird condemned the enhanced status of the PA at the UN last year, describing the action as an “utterly regrettable” decision that would ‘hinder’ the peace process.

The Federal Government in Canada currently provides $300 million of aid to the Palestinian Authority.

The UN Security Council approved new resolution against North Korea on Thursday, as the state threatened the US with a preemptive nuclear strike.

The resolution called for further economic restrictions on North-Korea including shipping and the receiving of prohibited cargo. See here for resolution.

The Chinese ambassador to the UN, Li Baodong, said Beijing wanted "full implementation" of the UN Security Council resolution.

Meanwhile a spokesperson for North Korea's foreign ministry speaking on the state's official news agency, KCNA, said:

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest."

UN officials began negotiations with Syrian rebels on thursday to free a group of captured UN peacekeepers, although the rebels assured that peacekeepers' well-being, distancing  themselves from threats to hold them hostage.

The peacekeepers, who are from the Philippines, were seized on Wednesday, in the Golan Heights region between Israel and Syria, making them the first UN forces to be drawn into the Syrian war.

Israel has remained uninvolved in the situation, as a senior official from the Defence Ministry said on Israel Radio:

“we can rely on the U.N. to persuade” the insurgent fighters to release the peacekeepers, who are from the Philippines, and that “neither the rebels nor anyone else has an interest in clashing with the international community, which it needs for support.”

See theNew York Times for full report.

The retired commander of Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica cannot be prosecuted for his alleged involvement in the killings, ruled authorities on Thursday.

Former commander General Thom Karremans was alleged to have been responsible for the deaths of Muslim men by turning them over to Serbian forces who executed them, according the relatives of three victims. The public prosecution department said that Karremans,

“cannot be held liable under criminal law for having been involved in the crimes committed by the Bosnian Serbian Army in July 1995 in Srebrenica”.

A separate court ruling, which is under appeal at the Dutch Supreme Court, ruled that the Dutch state must pay compensation to the relatives after finding it liable for their deaths.

A group called The Mothers of Srebrenica attempted to bring a case against the United Nations, but the Dutch Supreme Court stated that the organisation had legal immunity, essential for peacekeeping projects across the world.

Liesbeth Zegveld, the human rights lawyer who represents the victims’ families, criticised the decision on Karremans case, saying prosecutors had “failed to do their job” by not conducting proper investigations into the case.

Zegveld went on to say that one of the victims’ relatives stated,

“Can we ever close this file? Will at some point anyone acknowledge what went wrong?”

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's decree calling for parliamentary elections was cancelled by an Administrative Court on Wednesday, leading the election comittee to scrap plans for the voting to begin next month.

Although Mursi barred the courts from challenging his decisions last year, he promised to respect Wednesday's ruling.

See Reuters for full report.

Britain will supply non-lethal military equipment to the Syrian opposition, announced the Foreign Secretary William Hague to parliament today. Calling the rebels a “moderate, democratic opposition”, Hague said the equipment would include body armour and armoured four-wheel drive vehicles, as well as training, search and rescue equipment, and kits to test for chemical weapons.

Stating that the conflict in Syria had reached "catastrophic proportions", Hague said that “the international community cannot stand still in the face of this reality," and that diplomacy had not yielded results due to China and Russia. Syria had become a "top destination for jihadists", and would become "another breeding ground for terrorists" said Hague.

He added,

“We should not rule out any option for saving lives.”

“This is a situation where extreme humanitarian distress and growing dangers to international peace and security must weigh increasingly heavily in the balance against other risks.”

The announcement came as reports came through today of Syrian rebels holding a convoy of UN peacekeepers hostage near the Golan Heights. Citing a rebel video posted on the internet, Reuters reported that the rebels have pledged to hold them hostage until President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdraw from a rebel-held village which has been the site of recent violence.

The United Nations in New York has confirmed that 20 peacekeepers have been detained.

Meanwhile, UN figures released today estimate that the conflict in Syria has resulted in one million Syrian refugees.