British aviation firms have suspended all flights of Super Puma helicopters after four people were killed in the latest in a series of accidents in the North Sea oilfields, officials said Sunday.

The accident on Friday was the fifth in four years off the Scottish coast involving a Super Puma, a passenger helicopter manufactured by Eurocopter, part of the European aerospace giant EADS.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday that he hoped the alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria would "wake up" President Bashar Assad's supporters to the nature of his regime.

"I hope all members of the (U.N.) Security Council will join us," he told reporters before talks in Paris with French counterpart Laurent Fabius. "I hope this will wake up some who have supported the Assad regime, to realize its murderous and barbaric nature."

The political instability across the Middle East could last for decades, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday.

Hague said the turbulence in the Middle East was the most significant event of the 21st century so far, but urged optimism over the prospects for peaceful democracy in the region.

The British embassy in Yemen reopened on Sunday, two weeks after closing along with U.S. and other Western missions over a terror alert, diplomats said.

"We are open as normal," the British ambassador to Yemen, Jane Marriott, wrote on her Twitter account on Sunday, the first day of the week in Yemen.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has called on European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso to send monitors to observe "politically motivated" checks at Spain's border with Gibraltar as soon as possible, Downing Street said Friday.

A row has broken out between London and Madrid over Gibraltar, after Spain introduced stringent border checks which have led to waits of up to five hours for motorists trying to enter the British-held territory.

Britain on Friday urged tourists visiting the Red Sea resort of Hurghada to stay in their hotels following a warning by Egyptian police in the wake of violent clashes this week.

Hurghada and other resorts such as Sharm el-Sheikh are excluded from the Foreign Office's advice against all but essential travel to Egypt, as they are deemed far removed from the political unrest centered around Cairo.

Dozens of police officers were injured during riots by pro-British Protestants in Belfast, in what Northern Ireland's police chief condemned on Saturday as "mindless anarchy".

A total of 56 officers were hurt, four requiring hospital treatment, when they were attacked with bricks, bottles and paving stones from the street on Friday night, police said.

Iran has developed a second rocket-launching facility which will likely be used to test ballistic missiles, a London-based defense analysis group said Thursday.

IHS Jane's said it had pinpointed the site outside the city of Shahrud, around 350 kilometers (220 miles) east of Tehran, near the Caspian Sea and the Turkmenistan border.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Saturday condemned the use of force against protesters during deadly clashes in Cairo and accused Egyptian security forces of using live rounds.

Hague also called on Egyptian authorities to either release or charge all political leaders detained since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on July 3. Morsi himself remains in detention.

Sales agents of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline were trained to build relationships with doctors by offering money and "catering to their pleasures", Chinese state media said Friday as the British firm faces a bribery probe.

Company representatives offered bribes of 10 to 20 yuan ($1.6-$3.2) each time doctors prescribed some GSK products in China, the official Xinhua news agency reported, giving new details of the case.