Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, is due to visit India on Friday - the first visit by a Pakistani president since 2005.

Althought the visit is said to be a private pilgrimage to the shrine of Sufu saint in Ajmer, Rajasthan, President Zardari will have lunch with India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.

The visit is being seen as a sign of improving relations between the two countries.

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has won a seat in parliament after winning a by-election in Kawhmu, her party said on Sunday.

Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy contested 44 out of 45 seats up for grabs in Burma’s 664-seat parliament. Official results are not due until later this week.

Aung San Suu Kyi said in a statement:

"It is natural that the NLD members and their supporters are joyous at this point.

"However, it is necessary to avoid manners and actions that will make the other parties and members upset. It is very important that NLD members take special care that the success of the people is a dignified one."

This is the first election since 1990 that the NLD is contesting.

Burma has seen rapid political transition since 2010, with political prisoners freed and media restrictions relaxed, however allegations of human rights abuses against minorities continue to blemish the country’s reforms.

Burmese military intensify fighting in Kachin region (19 Jan 2012)

Clinton touches down in Burma (30 Nov 2011)

United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of being behind the systematic torture of children and the killing of civilians.

Speaking to the BBC, Ms Pillay said Assad could stop the killings immediately if he issued an order and that he would face justice for the crimes committed by the Syrian forces.

Asked by the BBC in an interview if he bore command responsibility for the abuses, Ms Pillay said:

"That is the legal situation. Factually there is enough evidence pointing to the fact that many of these acts are committed by the security forces [and] must have received the approval or the complicity at the highest level.

"Because President Assad could simply issue an order to stop the killings and the killings would stop."

"I feel that investigation and prosecution is a crucial element to deter and call a stop to these violations," she said.

"There is no statute of limitations so people like [Mr Assad] can go on for a very long time but one day they will have to face justice."

Foreign Secretary William Hague has confirmed the UK will double its non-military aid to the Syrian opposition.

An extra £500,000 will be provided to opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, both inside and outside of Syria.

The money will contribute towards the training for activists and journalists to help them get their stories out of Syria.

Speaking at Mansion House in the City of London, Mr Hague warned the regime that its reliance on violence was not only morally indefensible, but also futile.

"President Assad and his allies may look at the rubble of Homs, the abandoned streets of Idlib and Syria's overflowing prisons and they may entertain hopes of political survival.

"But they cannot avoid ever greater numbers of Syrians wanting a better future, and rejecting the bloodshed, insecurity and economic disarray their leaders have brought upon them."

The peace plan proposed by the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, expects the Syrian Government to implement the peace plan immediately.

The plan includes the need for an UN-supervised cessation of armed hostilities by all parties.

However, reports by activists indicate the Syrian regime is continuing its offensive against rebel forces and shelling the city of Homs.

Ahmed Fawzi, spokesperson for Mr Annan, told reporters in Geneva:

“This is our great concern. We expect [President Bashar al-Assad] to implement this plan immediately. The deadline is now.

"If you read the agreement... it specifically asks the government to withdraw its troops, to cease using heavy weapons in populated centres.

"The very clear implication here is that the government must stop first and then discuss a cessation of hostilities with the other side and with the mediator.

"The rationale is very simple. We are appealing to the stronger party to make a gesture of good faith and stop the killing. We are certain that if that happens, the opposition will follow suit."

Syria accepted the plan on Tuesday but President Assad said it was "necessary to obtain commitments from other parties to halt the terrorist acts by the armed groups and to withdraw the weapons of these groups and call on them to stop their terrorist acts".

Countries which "support the armed groups with money and weapons must be persuaded to stop this immediately", he added.

A coalition of Baloch political parties and figures welcomed the US intervention at the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council, expressing concern over the deteriorating human rights siutation in Balochistan.

In a statement released last week the Baloch groups and Baloch leaders welcomed the intervention as "long-awaited, necessary, encouraging and in the right direction to address the human rights issue".

The statement was signed by Baloch leaders, including Akhtar Meingal, Bramdagh Bugti, Hayrbiar Marri and Khan Suleiman D Ahmadzai, as well as ten leading Baloch resistance and rights groups including: Baloch Liberation Movement, Baloch Republican Party, Baloch Republican Student Organisation, Balochistan Human Rights Council, Balochistan Liberation Organisation, Balochistan National Movement (Zrombesh), Balochistan National Party, Balochistan People Party, Balochistan United Front-IF, International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons.

See here for full statement, extracts reproduced below:

"Baloch welcome US intervention at 19th Session of Human Rights Council of the United Nation’s in Geneva, to support Baloch concerns over deteriorating human rights situation in Balochistan."

"Baloch people and Baloch leaders welcome whole-heartedly the intervention of the US representative at the Session in Geneva, and consider the stated approach of the US President and the Prime Minister of the UK as long-awaited, necessary, encouraging and in the right direction to address the human rights issue. Since violation of human rights is a criminal and deplorable act, the gravity of the violation of human rights of people, necessitates intervention by the international community to protect life and property, whether it is in Bosnia, Congo or for this matter in Balochistan."

"Baloch people also greatly appreciate the supports and the effort of the NGO’s which are assisting Baloch people to raise awareness at international forums and institutions."

"We've presented to them an opportunity to take a different path from the one they are taking."

"They need to understand that bad behaviour will not be rewarded."

“We are grateful to the United States government for its help with the grieved families. But this cannot be counted as compensation for the death.”

"We still want to be inside the court to see him tried and he should be punished for his crime."

"He committed the crime in Afghanistan. Why he is going to be prosecuted in the US?"

“I want no compensation, from no one. I don't want Hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca], I don't want money, I don't want a villa inAino Mina [a posh neighbourhood in Kandahar city], I just want the punishment of the Americans. I want it, I want it, I want it. And I have laid down my own head in god's will. And if that is not possible, god be with you, I am leaving right now.”

Senior Israeli officials have said their country’s representatives at the United Nations Human Rights Council have been ordered to cut all contact with the council and to ignore calls from the human rights commissioner.

The move comes in response to a vote passed at the 19th session of the UNHRC, to establish an independent international fact-finding mission to look into illegal settlements built by Israel in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The council said the mission would "investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem".

The council also requested Israel not to obstruct the probe and to cooperate with the investigation.

However Israel has now cut all working relationships with the UNHRC in response to the mission, which it called a 'superfluous and extravagant body'.

"The secretariat of the human rights council and Navi Pillay sparked this process by establishing an international investigative committee on settlements, and we will thus not work with them anymore and will not appear before the council," one senior official told the Haaretz newspaper.

Israel is also reported to be considering placing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority in response to the vote.

Laura Dupuy Lasserre, the president of the council said Israel’s decision was ‘most regrettable’.

"I have no doubt that it is in the interest of Israel to co-operate with the Human Rights Council on this investigative mission, not least so that it can explain its own policies and actions to the independent commissioners once they are appointed," she said.

There are estimated to be over 500,000 Jews living in illegal settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, built after the occupation in 1967.

Serbian officials say Switzerland has extradited a Kosovo Albanian man accused of war crimes.

Swiss authorities arrested Shemsi Nuhiu last year after an international arrest warrant was issued by Belgrade.

Nuhiu is accused of taking part in the killing of 80 Kosovo Serbs and the kidnap of 153 in Kosovo after Serb troops pulled out of the region due to NATO bombing.

In total 17 men were charged for the crimes, with 9 of them convicted and sentenced to between 8 and 15 years in prison.

The use of the word “separation” to describe independence has been criticised by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond in the assembly.

When asked by the Conservative Chief Whip whether he thought “separation from the rest of the United Kingdom could be negotiated within a year of an independence referendum,” Salmond replied:

“If John Lamont was so confident about his position then he wouldn’t feel the need to describe the process of independence and self-determination and self-respect in such pejorative terms.”

Salmond added: “What is it about independence that so frightens the Conservative Party that it dare not speak its name?

“Might it be because the number of independent countries in the world has increased from some 50 to almost 200 in the United Nations.

“How many of these independent countries in the United Nations describe themselves as ‘separated’ countries, or engaged in the process of ‘separation’?”

A court in Guatemala has imprisoned five former right-wing militia members for a massacre committed in 1982 during the country’s civil war.

The men were members of the Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil, a civilian paramilitary group created by the Guatemalan army to fight left-wing rebels.

They were sentenced to a total of 7,710 years in prison for guiding the army to Plan de Sanchez, a village in northern Guatemala, and taking part in the ensuing massacre.

Judge Jazmin Barrios set a sentence of 30 years for each of the 256 victims in addition to 30 years for crimes against humanity.

The case was brought after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held the Guatemalan Government responsible for the massacre at Plan de Sanchez in 2004 and demanded the prosecution of those involved.

A United Nations Truth Commission documented 600 massacres that were committed during the civil war.

Nearly 250,000 people were killed during the civil war which raged between 1960 and 1996.

Former Guatemalan soldier sentenced to 6,060 years for massacre (13 Mar 2012)