The US Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman announced the start of the largest US consulate complex in the world on Monday in Erbil with Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, reports Rudaw news.

Speaking at a foundation laying ceremony, Mr Silliman said,

The Kurdistan Regional Government marked the 120^th anniversary of the publication of the first Kurdish newspaper on Sunday, reports Kurdistan24.net.

In a statement for Kurdish Journalism Day the government said,

Israel’s defence minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed claims that Israel’s Mossad spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Palestinian lecturer in Malaysia.

Mr Lieberman suggested that the Palestinian lecturer Fadi al-Batsh was killed in an internal dispute, adding,

European states are working together in an attempt to persuade the US administration to ease sanctions targeting Russia, due to concerns that the restrictions will impact manufacturing activity across the continent.

The initiative, led by Paris, outlines increasing concern over consequences that the US sanctions on Russia could have on key EU industries.

A Palestinian lecturer was shot dead in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday morning reports Reuters.

“Two men on a motorcycle fired ten shots at the victim killing him on the spot,” said Kuala Lumpur police chief Mazlan Lazim in a statement.

Human Rights Watch has accused Iraqi officials of disposing of war crimes evidence.

In a statement released Thursday the rights group said on March 29 2018 government workers removed 80 bodies from a damaged house, raising suspicions of a cover-up of killings of possible Islamic State suspects. Days later, the house had been burned.

The UN Security Council has asked the Secretary-General to study the role played by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in resolving conflict in Liberia.

The UN Mission in Liberia closed last month after nearly 15 years during which the country was at civil war for 14 years.

Earlier this year President George Weah succeeded Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in what is described as the first peaceful transfer of power between democratically elected leaders in 71 years.

The Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, has backed a devolution document submitted by 18 local authorities in Yorkshire that outlined proposals for devolved powers to a collective administration, reports BBC.

The European Union in a statement on Thursday threatened further sanctions on Venezuela if recently called elections were deemed unfair reports Reuters.

The US ambassador at large for international religious freedom called on Myanmar to release journalists jailed for covering the plight of Rohingya Muslims, reports Reuters.

US envoy Sam Brownback, speaking in Bangladesh, said,

“The journalists should be released who are in jail in Myanmar.”

The International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) has declared Myanmar’s state violence against Rohingya Muslims a genocide, in its latest report this week.

The ISCI, based in London, said in a press release that its latest report “presents irrefutable evidence of the final stages of genocide; mass annihilation and symbolic enactment, both of which remove the victim group from the country’s collective history”.

The exiled Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, met with over 30 representatives from his JuntsxCat party in Berlin to discuss future strategy, reports Deutsche Welle.

More than 20 years after the Rwandan genocide occurred, the bodies of more than 150 victims have been buried at a genocide memorial site in the country.

Thousands of people gathered as 157 victims were laid to rest at the Ruhango Episcopal Anglican Church. The church itself is the site of a massacre and has now been converted into a genocide memorial site.

The 157 bodies were only recovered recently from different areas across the Rusororo Sector.

China  has announced proposals to remove its limit on foreign ownership of automotive ventures by 2022, reports Reuters.