Spain has been branded the most addicted country in Europe, with 3.1 percent of its population aged between 15 and 65 believed to be cocaine users. Read the full story

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is “delusional” and “unfit to lead”, the US ambassador to the UN has said. Susan Rice was speaking after the embattled Colonel Gaddafi was interviewed by the BBC and others. Read the full story

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang told the visiting Iranian oil minister on Friday that Beijing would maintain cooperation with Tehran on existing projects, after the United States called on Beijing to observe sanctions.

“Iran is an important trade partner of China’s in western Asia and North Africa and one of the country’s main oil suppliers. Bilateral economic and trade cooperation has achieved fruitful results,” state television paraphrased Li as telling minister Massoud Mirkazemi.

“China is willing to work hard with Iran, continue to push mutual political trust, and maintain communication, dialogue and coordination on important international issues, to maintain regional and global peace, stability and prosperity,” Li added.

“The key point is to solidly push forward existing cooperative projects, to ensure they are put into effect smoothly, to deepen bilateral pragmatic cooperation and promote the continued development of bilateral ties,” he added.

State television showed pictures of the meeting, in the Communist Party’s headquarters in central Beijing, on its main evening news.

Mirkazemi said he hoped that “both sides would create conditions to push forward existing projects,” the brief report added, without elaborating.

The minister is in Beijing for talks with Chinese energy executives. He has not made any public comments.

China has already pushed back at U.S. pressure on its business and oil trade with Iran in comments published earlier this week, saying Chinese trade dealings with Iran should not be criticized.

The government was responding to comments by Robert Einhorn, special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control at the U.S. State Department, who said on Monday that China should observe sanctions against Iran aimed at forcing it to curtail its nuclear ambitions.

Western governments have pressed China to loosen its energy and economic ties with Iran, which they see as shielding Iran from international pressure.

Iran is a major supplier of crude oil to China, the world’s second-biggest consumer of oil after the United States.

The United States has urged China to tap other suppliers, but China has condemned unilateral U.S. and E.U. sanctions aimed at Iran’s energy sector.

China has backed U.N. Security Council resolutions pressing Iran to abandon disputed nuclear activities, which Western governments say are aimed at giving Iran the means to make nuclear weapons. Iran disputes that.

In the first half of 2010, Iran held its place as China’s third biggest supplier of crude with shipments of 9 million tonnes of oil, putting it behind Saudi Arabia and Angola, according to Chinese customs data.

President Goodluck Jonathan, while attending the summit of Group of 8 and Group of 20 Industrialised Nations in Canada, has declared the dumping of small arms and light weapons on Africa by western countries as a major factor retarding the continent’s quest for economic advancement. Read the full story

North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press. Read the full story

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva met with Iranian leaders on Sunday, and called the relationship between the two countries “strategic.” Read the full story

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States should dismantle its nuclear bases around the world as a step to create a nuke-free world. Read the full story

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is looking to turn the tables Monday on Western efforts to rein in his nuclear program, with a speech at a United Nations treaty conference which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called a bid to “divert” and “confuse.” Read the full story

The UN has appealed to the Thai authorities and demonstrators demanding fresh elections to show restraint and avoid further violence. Read the full story

The UN chief says “all” Israeli settlement building in East Jerusalem al-Quds is illegal, as Washington and Tel Aviv apparent row over plans to build more units. Read the full story

Information and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein said on Tuesday that Israel won’t set up an independent panel to investigate Operation Cast Lead as the UN urged. Read the full story

Iran faces further sanctions unless it changes stance in talks over its nuclear program, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, even if there is no United Nations agreement to act against Tehran. Read the full story

Two United Nations (UN) special rapporteurs based in Geneva are calling on the Italian government to take strong measures to end the “growing xenophobic attitude” towards migrant workers in the Calabria region. Unrest in the area led to 53 people injured the first week of January and more than 1,000 migrant workers being sent to immigration centres in Bari and Crotone. Several of them are now being deported, says the UN.

UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Jorge Bustamante, and UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Githu Muigaiwelcomed, said in a joint statement issued Wednesday 13 January that while they welcome the steps the government has taken, they insist violence cannot be an answer to “difficulties under any circumstances.”

They note in the statement that “the violence which erupted in Rosarno is extremely worrying since it reveals serious and deep-rooted problems of racism against those migrant workers.

”The Italian authorities must show their continuous and firm commitment to creating a safe and peaceful environment for all,” the UN experts note. “This includes finding ways to improve the very poor living and working conditions of these migrant workers – part of whom are often trafficked into the country for exploitation purposes – and to implement an immigration policy in full conformity with international human rights standards.”