The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have fired warning shots at Syria for the first time since 1973, responding to an incident on Thursday when a mortar shell fired from Syria hit an Israeli military post in the Golan Heights.

While the mortar fire caused no damage or injuries at the post, errant fire incidents from Syria have multiplied in recent weeks, which has led Israel to warn that it holds Syria responsible.

Although Israeli officials believe that Syrian government forces are responsible for most of the firing, they do not think that it has been intentionally aimed at Israel.

The Israeli defence minister said on Saturday:

"Syria has been in the midst of a brutal civil war for over a year, and the IDF (military) has been instructed to prevent the battles from spilling over ... Additional shelling into Israel from Syria will elicit a tougher response, exacting a higher price from Syria.”

Although Israel has been wary of potential instability in Syria breaking into its own borders, it has been reluctant to get involved in the conflict.

According to the Telegraph, an Israeli military official is reported to have said:

"Getting involved in Syria's civil war is simply not in Israel's interests."

The various splinters of Syria’s opposition have reached an agreement to form a Western and Arab-backed government-in-exile and rally behind a new leader.

Representatives of Syria’s various opposition groups, including rebel fighters, veteran dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities, agreed on Sunday to join a new assembly and unanimously elected Mouaz al-Khatib, a reformist Damascus cleric, as its president.

The decision came after days of fierce arguments in Qatar, under the watch of frustrated US, Arab and other foreign officials.

Khatib, a former imam who advocates a liberal and tolerant Islam, called on all factions to unite and for soldiers to renounce the Syrian army, telling reporters:

"We demand freedom for every Sunni, Alawi, Ismaili (Shi'ite), Christian, Druze, Assyrian ... and rights for all parts of the harmonious Syrian people."

The move has been welcomed by foreign governments, who believe that the new assembly can serve as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

The Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim said:

"We will strive from now on to have this new body recognised completely by all parties ... as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people."

French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius hailed the deal, calling Assad’s government “the criminal regime in Damascus” and saying in a statement:

"France will work with its partners to secure international recognition of this new entity as the representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people."

Leader of the Syrian National Council, George Sabra said of Khatib’s election:

"This is a serious step against the regime and a serious step towards freedom."

See full report on Reuters here.

“Electing genocidal Sudan to a global human rights body is like choosing Jack the Ripper to guard a women’s shelter. This diminishes the credibility of the United Nations human rights system and casts a shadow upon the reputation of the organization as a whole.”

“Sudan, whose leader was indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity, will now help choose the members of the Commission on the Status of Women, the executive of UN Women, and UNICEF, which protects children’s rights,”

“Perhaps most importantly, ECOSOC is the body that accredits and oversees human rights groups at the UN, deciding who can participate at the UN Human Rights Council. The dominant influence of non-democracies has often led to the rejection or expulsion of human rights groups that dare to criticize China, Cuba or other repressive UN member states, and they have often barred gay rights NGOs.”

“There is no question that Sudan will be a malign influence. This is a terrible decision — and world leaders, who failed to prevent it, must at least now speak out for basic decency and morality in UN bodies.”

In an interview to Russia Today, besieged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has denied that war crimes have been committed by his government forces and instead said he is fighting against “terrorism”.

When questioned about accusations of war crimes, Assad responded by saying,

"if you have an army that committed a crime against its own people, this is devoid of logic because the Syrian Army is made up of Syrian people… the army cannot withstand for twenty months in these difficult circumstances without having the embrace of the public in Syria,"

The President instead accused Syrian rebels of committing war crimes, pointing to reports from both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

"My enemy is terrorism and instability in Syria. This is our enemy in Syria... It is about terrorism and the support coming from abroad to terrorists to destabilize Syria. This is our war."

Assad went on to say that if it wasn’t for foreign support for the rebels, the war would have been finished within weeks, stating,

"When you fight this kind of terrorists, you have to be aware that you should do the minimum damage to the infrastructure and minimum damage to the civilians,"

"You do not expect a small country like Syria to defeat all those countries that have been fighting us through proxies just in days or weeks".

See the full transcript of the interview here.

Bahraini authorities deployed the paramilitary National Guard on Saturday in a move to further clamp down on public protest, reports AP.

Last month, the authorities banned all protests and public gatherings.

In a statement on Saturday, the government said the National Guard would patrol "strategic locations" where arson attacks and violent clashes have taken place.

Two days ago, the government revoked the citizenship of 31 human rights activists stating that they had "undermined state security".

The UK will end giving financial aid to India by 2015, announced the International Development Secretary, Justine Greening.

She announced that no new grants will be made from immediate effect and the ongoing programme will be restructured and phased out by 2015.

"After reviewing the programme and holding discussions with the Government of India this week, we agreed that now is the time to move to a relationship focussing on skills-sharing rather than aid.

"Having visited India I have seen first hand the tremendous progress being made. India is successfully developing and our own bilateral relationship has to keep up with 21st century India. It's time to recognise India's changing place in the world.

"It is of course critical that we fulfil all the commitments we have already made and that we continue with those short-term projects already underway which are an important part of the UK and Government of India’s development programme."

India was the largest recipient of UK aid until last year, which has been a concern for many Tory MPs, as it is one of the world’s fastest economies and even has a multi-million pound space programme.

Last year the UK gave India nearly £280 million in aid, while India spent £2.2 billion on defence and £780 million on its space programme. Around £70 billion is spent on social welfare.

The Iraqi government has cancelled an arms deal with Russia worth £2.6 billion due to concerns over “corruption” within the Iraqi government.

The spokesman of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the BBC that the prime minister had suspicions over his own team.

The deal would have made Russia Iraq’s second largest arms supplier after the US.

A Russian military expert told the BBC that the deal was cancelled due to pressure from Washington.

Igor Korotchenko, head of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade, said that the cancellation was "absolutely unprecedented in the history of the Russian arms trade".

"As soon as the deal was announced a month ago I said that the US would not allow Iraq to buy such huge quantities of weapons from Russia. I believe Washington regarded this as an absolutely unacceptable scenario," he said.

"As far as talk about corruption is concerned, I think it's a smokescreen," he said, adding: "I can't see any scope for corruption in the Iraq deal. I believe this is just a pretext and the true reason is Washington applying pressure on Baghdad."

The Iranian Defence Minister has confirmed that shots were fired at  US military drone last week, which they claimed had invaded their airspace.

The confirmation of the incident comes within 24 hours of the Pentagon revealing it to the public, even though the attack happened on the 1st of November, just days before the US Presidential election.

Brig Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s Defence Minister said,

"Last week an unidentified aircraft entered the airspace over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, which was forced to flee due to the prompt, smart and decisive action of the Islamic Republic of Iran's armed forces,"

Deputy commander of Iran’s armed forces, Massoud Jazayeri elaborated that,

“Defenders of the Islamic republic of Iran will give a decisive response to any air, land and naval attacks… If any foreign flying objects enter our country’s airspace, the armed forces will confront them.”

The Pentagon revealed that two jets from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had fired at the Predator drone which they saw was on a "classified surveillance mission".

The late revelation, made after Barack Obama was re-elected as the US president drew a stern reaction from the Republican party with Senator John McCain saying,

"It was inappropriate for the president to wait seven days—until after the election—before making this serious national-security incident public, just as it is totally unacceptable that this administration still has not answered our repeated and numerous inquiries about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, which occurred two months ago,"

Meanwhile a Western official talking to the Guardian commented,

"It's clear that there are fanatics in Tehran who would welcome a conflict because it would entrench their power… there are people in Tehran who desperately wanted Romney to win [the US election]."

"This is good for the new government but I'm not sure it is good for minorities and especially the Kachin people,"

"We recognise there have been some reforms but these are not deep and if you look at the ethnic areas there are still human rights violations and fighting going on".

“Burma isn't a normal country, it is not a democracy and still has one of the worst human rights records in the world."

The Bahraini government has revoked the citizenships of 31 human rights activists.

A statement, published by the interoior ministry, said that the activists have “undermined state security” and under Article 10 of Citizenship Law, the “re-evaluation of nationality” was permitted.

The UN criticised the move, saying it "could aggravate the situation in the country" and urged the government "to lift them without delay".

See more here.

The UN Security Council extended the non-African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia for another four months, following Uganda’s threats to pull out its peacekeeping troops.

The peacekeeping mission was expected to be prolonged for another 12 months, but a shorter term as been allocated to allow for a review of the necessity of a peacekeeping mandate. The move follows an appeal by the African Union (AU) to repeal the current arms embargo.

Commenting on the political environment in Somalia, British UN Ambassador, Mark Lyall, said,

“The situation in Somalia is changing rapidly. We have a more legitimate political leadership than ever before.”

The African Union appealed to the UN council to reconsider the current arms embargo that inhibits Somalia from rebuilding its army.

The embargo was initially imposed in 1992 to stop the arms supply to warlords.

The AU’s calls for the cessation of the arms embargo, come as Somalia’s political situation shows some positive progression.

"I encourage the new Libyan government, scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow, on 8 November, to ensure that there is no amnesty for international crimes and no impunity for crimes, regardless of who the perpetrator is and who is the victim,"

“No investigations of these crimes would conceivably have been undertaken by the Qadhafi regime and ICC intervention was, at that time, the only way to establish justice for victims of the Qadhafi regime’s crimes”.

"As Libyans chart the country's future, justice and accountability issues will remain central to the success of Libya's transition and essential to securing lasting peace”.