David Cameron made an unfortunate slip of the tongue at Prime Minister’s Questions when he referred to “the Russian regime” – at a time when he is striving to improve relations with Vladimir Putin, whom he will meet in Belfast at the weekend, in the honourable hope that he can be persuaded to stop arming the Syrian regime. When he met Putin in Sochi last month, he did not so much as mention Alexander Litvinenko, who was murdered on British soil.

The United Nations has admitted that a delay in declaring a famine in Somalia in 2011 cost additional lives, after a new report revealed that more than a quarter of a million people died, half of them young children.

Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state, is little more than a sleepy, dusty, overgrown village. Time appears to have stopped not long after the British left in 1948. Opposite the town’s golden zeydi, its Buddhist stupa, are the green-painted ruins of a mosque, but today there are few other obvious signs of last year’s violence. The great bulk of the town’s Muslim population has been banished to the outskirts: fishermen’s shacks and a sprawling camp where 7,000 men, women and children live under canvas.

The final volume in Harris’s Chocolat trilogy finds witchy heroine, Vianne Rocher, returning to Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.

Burma declared a state of emergency in the central city of Meiktila today after sectarian violence left at least 20 dead, reinforcing fears that the newly democratic country is struggling to contain simmering hatred between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

North Korea’s nuclear test drew international censure. But Pyongyang rejoiced, says Andrew MacLeod, in a rare dispatch from the pariah state

Paedophile serial killer’s parole request denied by Belgian court after 16 years in prison

It’s tempting to look for scapegoats. But it’s the wider culture that needs addressing

Enter another world with this magical novel of nomadic life as the time of the shaman ends

This epic work of testimony and investigation lays bare a Communist crime of the century

Reports claim some patients treated by the Worcestershire Acute NHS Hospital Trust were left thirsty with drinks left out of reach while others were left to sit in their own excrement

These eerie pictures from North Korea were taken by photographer David Guttenfelder. He describes what it is like to capture life inside the world's most secretive country.

Plenty of food lines the shelves in Abd al-Razzak's warehouse, but only for those who can afford the sky-high prices needed to cover the bribes it took to transport it there.

A leading advocate for human rights in Burma argues that international ignorance of what is happening in Rakhine State is a tragedy in itself