President Bashar Assad’s regime will not continue as it has done but the Western world must “get off our shoulders”, Syria’s deputy prime minister has said.

President Bashar Assad’s regime has committed a “large-scale massacre” in a Sunni village near the Mediterranean coast, killing at least 50 people, according to activists.

Several United Nations peacekeepers from the Philippines who were abducted by Syrian rebels said in videos posted online today that they are safe and sound.