BBC News with John Jason
President Barack Obama has called on the Chinese authorities to release the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, who's currently serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion. Mr Obama said the way Beijing had treated the dissident was a reminder of the country's continuing need for political reform. Iain MacKenzie reports.
Barack Obama was speaking as both the United States president and a previous peace prize laureate. He received the award in 2009 for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. A statement from the White House praises Liu Xiaobo as a courageous spokesman for the advancement of human rights. And while the president goes on to acknowledge that economic progress has helped Beijing lift many citizens out of poverty, he said the case of Liu Xiaobo served as a reminder that political reforms had lagged far behind.
The Chinese government has responded angrily to the award, describing Mr Liu as a criminal and summoning the Norwegian ambassador in Beijing to protest.
Arab League ministers meeting in Libya have endorsed the Palestinian decision to halt all direct peace talks with Israel unless it agrees to stop construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. But the ministers also said in a statement that the United States should be given another month in its efforts to break the impasse. The direct peace talks began in September but broke down quickly when Israel refused to extend a partial moratorium on illegal settlement building.United States National Security Adviser James Jones is stepping down, the fifth senior official in the Obama administration to resign in a matter of weeks. He's to be replaced by his deputy, Tom Donilon. Speaking at a press conference, President Obama said this had been a plan all along.