The US has exempted Japan and 10 EU nations from sanctions imposed on countries which continue to buy oil from Iran.

The sanctions, imposed by Congress at the end of last year, are designed to deter countries from importing Iranian oil.

In a statement released on Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the exemptions were granted because the countries had taken difficult steps to reduce their reliance on Iranian oil.

"They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil which many had been reliant on for their energy needs."

The exemptions mean Japan and the EU countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Greece and Italy, can continue to buy some oil from Iran without being penalised by the US.

The sanctions stipulate that the United States must cut off the US bank account of any foreign financial institution that completes petroleum-related transactions with Iran's central bank, unless its country is exempt.

Other major buyers of Iranian oil, including China, India and South Korea are not exempt from the sanctions and are under continued pressure to reduce imports.

Libya’s National Transitional Council has claimed to be close to a deal with the Mauritanian government to extradite Libya’s former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur announced on Twitter that "We have agreement from Mauritania to deliver Senussi to Libya where he will receive a fair trial. No date has been decided, but it will be very soon."

However sources Nouakchott soon denied the claims.

"We agreed to study their request favourably. It's almost a done deal but one should be careful. The French are applying lots of pressure," a security source in Mauritania told the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity on Tuesday evening.

France is seeking al-Senussi’s extradition as he is wanted over an attack on a French plane in 1989 which killed 170 civilians.

The International Criminal Court is also seeking to prosecute al-Senussi for crimes against humanity and war crimes, committed during Colonel Gaddafi’s reign.

Burma has invited the US and the European Union to send officials to observe its by-elections to be held on the first of April.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is running for one of the 48 seats, the first time in over 20 years she is taking part in an election.

An AFP news report, citing an unnamed Burmese official, said that representatives from the UN had also been invited.

''It will be like a joint team with Asean, the EU, the US and the UN," the official told AFP.

The US embassy in Rangoon welcomed the move in a statement.

"We are encouraged that the Burmese authorities have invited international representatives as observers," the statement said, "and it is notable that the Burmese government will also allow some journalists from these countries to observe the process, demonstrating increased openness to foreign media."

In an open letter to the Syrian National Council, released Tuesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW), detailed allegations of kidnapping for ransom, detention, and torture of security force members and government supporters.

HRW's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said,

"The Syrian government's brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups,"

"Opposition leaders should make it clear to their followers that they must not torture, kidnap, or execute under any circumstances."

Extracts reproduced below:

"We recognize that the perpetrators of these abuses are not always easy to identify nor do they necessarily belong to an organized command structure that follows the orders of the SNC or other opposition groups. Some reports received by Human Rights Watch indicate that in addition to armed groups with political motivations, criminal gangs, sometimes operating in the name of the opposition, may be carrying out some of these crimes."

"Following the creation of the SNC Military Bureau on March 1, 2012, to liaise with, unify, and supervise armed opposition groups including the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Human Rights Watch calls on the Bureau to condemn and forbid these abuses in order to achieve its objective of ensuring members of the armed opposition comply with international humanitarian law and to meet its human rights obligations. Human Rights Watch also calls on members of the armed opposition that are not under the operational command of the SNC to desist from committing these rights abuses."

"[Sunday's protest] is the biggest gathering of people I have ever seen in this place. People are pouring in from the villages."

Clashes in Tibet after self-immolation (14 Jan 2012)

2 more Tibetans self immolate in China (09 Jan 2012)

Cultural genocide fans self-immolations – Dalai Lama (07 Nov 2011)

Amnesty International has accused NATO forces of failing to investigate sufficiently civilian deaths caused by air strikes during attacks on Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

"Nato officials repeatedly stressed their commitment to protecting civilians," said Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty.

"They cannot now brush aside the deaths of scores of civilians with some vague statement of regret without properly investigating these deadly incidents."

Amnesty says an inquiry should be held into the deaths and if those resulted from a breach of international law, those responsible have to be brought to justice.

Amnesty claims scores of civilians were killed or injured in the air strikes, with NATO having already documented 55 deaths caused by NATO attacks.

The human rights group’s criticism comes after similar concerns had already been expressed by Russia earlier this month, accusing UN investigators of inadequate inquiries into the deaths caused by NATO.

“In our view, during that [Nato] campaign many violations of the standard of international law and human rights were committed, including the most important right, the right to life," said Maria Khodynskaya-Golenishcheva, a diplomat at the Russian mission to the UN in Geneva.

Addressing his successors, Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, stressed the need for political reform, warning against a second Cultural revolution.

“Without successful political structural reform . . . new problems that have arisen in Chinese society will not be fundamentally resolved and such historical tragedies as the Cultural Revolution may happen again,” said Jiabao.

Drawing on recent events in the Arab Springs, Jiabao said,

“The Arab demands for democracy must be respected. It is a force that cannot be held back.”

A Brazilian judge has blocked attempts by prosecutors to try former army colonel Sebastiao de Moura for human rights abuses committed in the 1970s.

The judge ruled the move would go against Brazil’s amnesty laws.

Judge Matos, the federal judge in Maraba in the northern state of Para, said in his ruling:

"To try after more than three decades to dodge the amnesty law and reopen the debate on crimes committed during the military dictatorship is a mistake."

The amnesty laws were passed in 1979, during the military dictatorship which ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985.

Under the law, any officials involved in politically motivated crimes committed during military rule were granted immunity from prosecution.

Col de Moura was in charge of troops who were fighting the leftist Araguaia rebels.

Prosecutors argued that there was enough evidence to link Col de Moura to the kidnap and suspected torture of five members of the movement, whose whereabouts are still unknown.

A spokesperson for the prosecutors said they were discussing the next step, with the possibility of an appeal against the ruling.

Twenty Kurdish activists in London began a four-day hunger strike Wednesday (14th) protesting against repression in Turkey. The event, staged by the Kurdish Federation UK, is taking place in parallel with similar actions within Turkey and across Europe.

Hundreds of prisoners in Turkish jails, including imprisoned members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party and other elected officials, have been on hunger strike since the end of February.

“The hunger strikes are a desperate plea to the Turkish government to halt the latest clampdown on Kurdish political organising and protest,” the Kurdish Federation UK said.

In the last three years, some 8000 people - including elected MP’s mayors and local councillors, journalists, students, human rights activists, and academics – have been imprisoned in what Prime Minister Erdogan’s government refers to as counter-terrorism operations.

“In reality, these operations constitute major violations of human rights, with arrests being made over speeches, newspaper articles or even poems that support Kurdish rights in Turkey,” the Kurdish Federation said.

Amnesty International has recently expressed it concern over the vague and broad anti-terror laws in Turkey that define terrorism not by its tactics but by its political aims, which has led to thousands of individuals being prosecuted for membership of a terrorist organisation or for denigrating ‘Turkishness’.
 
The strikers are also demanding freedom for Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who is currently jailed in the prison island of Imrali. Ocalan has been in almost complete isolation, without access to lawyers, since July 2011. 36 of his defence team were also arrested and imprisoned in December 2011.

The Taliban have suspended talks with the US in Qatar, accusing the Americans of changing their position on the dialogue.

In a statement posted on their website the Taliban said,

"It was due to their alternating and ever-changing position that the Islamic Emirate was compelled to suspend all dialogue with the Americans,"

The statement alleged a US representative presented a list of conditions at the last meeting, "which were not only unacceptable but also in contradiction with the earlier agreed upon points."

"We must categorically state that the real source of obstacle in talks was the shaky, erratic and vague standpoint of the Americans therefore all the responsibility for the halt also falls on their shoulders," it said.

It is thought that US insistence on the inclusion of the Afghan government in any talks is the contentious point.

In the statement, the Taliban reiterated their belief that any talks with the Kabul government were ‘pointless’.

Last week’s murders of Afghan civilians by a US soldier were not mentioned.

The US has denied changing any terms of the talks.

"The terms have been as I've stated them on many occasions," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing a need for the Taliban to lay down its weapons, renounce Al-Qaeda and abide by the Afghan constitution.

"We broadly support a process here that is essential to the long-term resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan," he said.

The head of the armed wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots, Thomas Lubanga, was charged Wednesday at the International Criminal Court (ICC), in the ICC's first conviction.

Lubanga was charged for his part in the killing of thousands during the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war (2002-2003).

Theo Boutrouche, DRC researcher at Amnesty International, said,

“This is a significant moment because it is the first ever verdict of the ICC since its establishment in 2002,”

“It is also significant because it will be one of the first cases to be adjudicated on crimes of conscripting children under the age of 15 and in the DRC the demand for justice from victims is immense."

“But another key issue is that Thomas Lubanga was not charged with any of the other crimes of the Patriotic Force for the Liberation of Congo such as unlawful killings, torture and rapes. So it was only partly addressing the serious human rights violations that were committed by this armed group.”

A former soldier has been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the massacre of Mayan villagers in Guatemala in the early 1980s during the country's civil war.

201 Mayans were killed by Guatemalan soldiers in the village of Dos Erres over 3 days in 1982, with men, women and children shot and beaten to death.

Pedro Pimentel Rios, 55, who is the fifth soldier to be convicted for his role in the massacre, lived in California until his arrest in 2010 and was extradited from the US the following year.

Pimentel was given 30 years for each killing and another 30 years for crimes against humanity.

Earlier this year a court ruled that the former dictator of Guatemala, General Rios Montt, should face trial for genocide and crimes against humanity.

The civil war claimed over 200,000 lives, with entire Mayan villages wiped out by security forces as they were suspected to harbour leftist guerrillas.

Former Guatemalan leader to face Genocide charges (27 Jan 2012)

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,

"We believe that now is the time for all nations, even those who have previously blocked our efforts, to stand behind the humanitarian and political approach."

"We do not believe that sovereignty demands that this council stand silent when governments massacre their own people."

"And we reject any equivalence between premeditated murders by a government's military machine and the actions of civilians under siege driven to self-defence."

Whilst Lavrov was critical of “making hasty demands for regime change”, he went on to state, that there

"is no doubt whatsoever that the Syria authorities bear a huge share of responsibility for the current situation."

Previously, two UN Security Council resolutions condemning the Syrian governments role in the rapidly escalating conflict, have been vetoed by both Russia and China.

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.

This is the first time a senior foreign military commander has been held responsible in a US court for abuses committed under his command, said human rights lawyers on Thursday.

Spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a legal activist group that seeks redress to Sri Lanka's Tamil victims of war, told TamilNet:

"The role of equities in the American justice system which render statutes of limitations flexible for particular crimes will bolster Tamil justice efforts in the long run. The immigration ruling is a welcome warning sign to Sri Lanka's alleged war-criminals, some of whom are either holders of Green Card or hold U.S. citizenship."