A leading member of South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) called for the international community to place further sanctions on individuals responsible for rights abuses and delaying a solution to the country’s conflict.

The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, noting that foreign peace=keeping troops were ‘overwhelmed’ warned of a potential genocide in the region.

Urging the international community to send more support to prevent an impending disaster, Ban Ki-moon, said,

A Bahraini court, convicting seven Shiite Muslim protestors of injuring a policemen, sentenced them to 15 years in prison today.

The United States president, Barack Obama, signed an executive order today, authorising sanctions against any actors escalating conflict in South Sudan.

The order sets out a list of 12 offences that would warrant sanctions on all property and interests in property that are within or controlled by the United States.

The Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, in an interview to mark the 20th anniversary of the mass killings in Rwanda, accused France of participating in the 1994 genocide.

In an interview with the African daily, Jeune Afrique, Kagama denounced the ‘direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation for the genocide.”

France started drafting, on Friday, a United Nations Security Council resolution that would refer Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), for prosecution of war crimes.

A photographer for the Associated Press was shot dead today in an attack on the news agency’s envoy on the eve of elections in Afghanistan.

The attack injured a Canadian reporter, Kathy Gannon, and German photographer, Anja Niedringhaus.

The European Union will look to establish an international tribunal that solely focuses on crimes allegedly committed by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian rebels during their war with Serbia, reports the Associated Press.

The court, which will be set up and paid for by the EU, will consider allegations of atrocities and disappearances committed by the victorious Kosovan military at the end of the war.

The Chadian Foreign Ministry announced today that it will pull out its peacekeeping troops from the African Union mission in the Central African Republic in protest of allegations that they were aiding rebels.

The United States, this week, called on Myanmar, to lift travel restrictions on the United Nations and other humanitarian staff and allow them to resume work in the Rakhine state.

Expressing concern over violent Buddhist mob attacks on UN and non-governmental organisation offices, the  State Department said,

Israel, today, backtracked on the scheduled release of a group of Palestinian prisoners and called for the entire negotiation process to be reviewed.

Israeli officials alleged that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas’ move to officially submit applications for membership at 15 UN bodies, had broken confidence in the negotiations.

The United Nations Population Fund Agency (UNFPA) helping Burma conduct its first census in decades, expressed concern today over the omission of ethnic Rohingya in the national census.
 
Accusing the government of the going backwards on its word, the agency reported that census workers were walking away from houses that identified themselves ethnically as Rohingya.

The US government confirmed, today, that it had doubled the number of suspected Japanese war criminals that were banned from entering the country.