The United States has launched a Genocide Recovery and Persecution Response Program, the country’s Vice President announced on Thursday.

Under the new program, which will begin in Iraq, the US State Department and USAID will partner with local faith and community leaders to rapidly deliver aid to persecuted communities, Vice President Mike Pence said.

Saudi Arabia and Kurdistan launched a joint economic cooperation committee this month, aimed at expanding investment between the two regions, Asharq Al-Awsat reported. 

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua is set to have seven new offices across the country, its chairman, Benny Wenda told Vanuatu Daily Post. 

Three offices have already been opened and another four are planned. 

Mr Wenda expressed concern that the new offices could be attacked by the Indonesian military. 

Offices in Wamena and Fak Fak have previously been attacked, he added. 
 

Both the Prime Minister of India and the President of China have paid tribute to the victims of the Rwanda genocide, in separate visits to the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda this week.

An aide to former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was jailed for life under accusations of selling 500kg of a key drug-making chemical on Saturday, just days before the country’s general election in which he was running as a candidate.

Hanif Abbasi is accused of supplying the chemical ephedrine to a smuggler.

Former fighters from the guerrilla movement FARC took their seats in Colombia’s Congress in a swearing-in ceremony on Friday.

Under the terms of the 2016 peace deal between the FARC and the Colombian government, the group formed a political party, kept its famous acronym as the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force, and was awarded five seats each in the 108-member Senate and the 172-member lower house through 2026.

The European arrest warrant for the former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was dropped by Spain's Supreme Court on Thursday after the extradition request was refused by Germany. 

Mr Puigdemont accused of rebellion and sedition after declaring Catalonia independent following a referendum last year. 

A Rwandan academic has been sentenced to nine years imprisonment after being cleared of all but one charge, being found guilty of genocide revisionism.

Dr Leopold Munyakazi who was extradited to Rwanda by the US government in 2016 was cleared of the charges of genocide, complicity to commit genocide and incitement to commit genocide and murder by the specialised chamber for international crimes which is affiliated to Rwanda’s High Court.

The President of Nigeria urged all states that have not yet done so to accede to the Rome Statute so that it can become a universal treaty.

Speaking at the International Criminal Court’s 20 Anniversary commemorations, Preisdent Buhari said "I urge all States that have not yet done so to, as a matter of deliberate State policy, accede to the Rome Statute of the ICC so that it can become a universal treaty."

President of the Court, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, said at the event:

 "Let us ensure that allegations of the most serious crimes are met with a robust, fair and impartial judicial response – at the international level as a last resort, where national systems prove unable to give victims their day in court. Let us make sure that we do not let down those who worked so hard to make the Statute of an International Criminal Court a reality.”

See more here.

Israel’s Knesset has passed a controversial new law which declares the country is an exclusively Jewish nation state, as Arab lawmakers were thrown out of the parliament in protest.

The bill states that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it” and that a "united Jerusalem" is the capital of Israel and that Hebrew is the country's official language.

Turkey has ended its 2 year state of emergency, which was first imposed after a failed coup on July 20, 2016.

The measure normally lasts three months but was extended seven times by the President Erdogan.

The state of emergency saw the detention of around 80,000 people and double the number sacked from public jobs.

Although alleged supporters of the coup were targeted, the Turkish government used emergency laws to crackdown particularly on Kurdish activists.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is deeply disappointed by India’s reaction to the publication of the first ever UN human rights report on Kashmir last month.

Spain’s Constitutional Court said it had blocked a motion passed in Catalonia’s parliament to resume steps to declare independence, following an appeal against the move filed by Spain’s central government.

The Catalan parliament can appeal against the decision within the next 20 days.

Both the court and the Spanish government have said that Catalonia cannot hold a referendum on independence under Spain’s constitution.

A senior US commander has confirmed that the United States is prepared to have direct talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan, in an effort to reach a peace deal in the country.

General John Nicholson, who leads the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, said that,

"Our secretary of state, Mr [Mike] Pompeo, has said that we, the United States, are ready to talk to the Taliban and discuss the role of international forces".